Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Could Owe $500 Million After Being Found Guilty in E-Book Antitrust Case
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Uh, what? I highly doubt a customer is out millions of dollars because of a stupid ebook. I highly doubt millions of people are buying ebooks, either, but still.
They bought a book, they have it. Who cares. It was a stupid lawsuit from the get-go.
It was pointed and the result was that Amazon was not doing predatory pricing or acting against competition
Well, $218 million according to the OP. Of which, the publishers have already settled for $166 million. So $52 million in damages yet to be paid out.
----------
No, the result was that there was not enough evidence to pursue an antitrust claim.
What utter nonsense.... The same titles which were available for $5.99 and $6.99 from various ebook sellers before Apple made this underhanded entry into the market, are now all $11.
Running a price comparison service, such as the one built into Calibre, nowadays brings up total price uniformity, while before Apple and the publishers colluded, there was a wide variation (and Amazon was not the cheapest in most cases).
Agency pricing basically wiped out smaller, non-hardware tied ebook sellers, since it removed the incentive for consumers to price-shop (as prices everywhere were the same).
So, yeah, this is one of the worst example of collusion and price-fixing I am aware of in recent years. Frankly, the punitive damages should be higher for all guilty parties, as the collusion altered the ebook market in such dramatic way.
Strange, since the agency pricing contracts were eliminated months ago.
None of which is evidence of price fixing or collusion. Again, the judge explicitly stated that the combination of agency pricing, MFN, and price caps that Apple used was not wrongful.
No, the result was that the ebook division was profitable since day one so no, no predatory pricing.
----------
Are you accusing the judge of corrupt?
Which would be a good argument if books were a commodity, but they're not. Not all books are created equal. It's not a coincidence that Amazon targets best sellers for below cost pricing.
So in US, the manufacturer or publisher can't distribute their products direct to customer by any agency but need to sell it to third party retailer only and the customer will profit from predatory pricing.
In addition any agency who try to persuade the manufacturer or publisher to sell their products via them instead of distribute it via third party retailer also being found guilty too.
Is this right?
If I am author. I also can't sell my book thru my agency too because by use of my agency I can sell it in too high price and my customer will not profit from predatory pricing.
Is this true?
In addition any agency who try to persuade the manufacturer or publisher to sell their products via them instead of distribute it via third party retailer also being found guilty too.
Is this right?
If I am author. I also can't sell my book thru my agency too because by use of my agency I can sell it in too high price and my customer will not profit from predatory pricing.
Is this true?
I didn't knew that loss leader was illegal in USA
The fact is that the DoJ investigated Amazon and found nothing wrong clearing them of those accusations.
----------
No
If I am author. I also can't sell my book thru my agency too because by use of my agency I can sell it in too high price and my customer will not profit from predatory pricing.
Is this true?
And no
It's not.
What the DOJ can prove under law, and what is actually happening are two different things.
I'm not a court of law.
Again, the primary issue to me is your (and the DOJ's) treatment of ebooks as a commodity market. I don't agree that attempts to monopolize a part (the most important part) of the ebook market through predatory pricing should be excused because you make it up on the long tail. I believe that having to compete below cost with best seller hinders competition in the market as a whole. Especially with new entries.
I don't see it as being any different than if Amazon operated their entire book division at a loss but made up for it in their electronics division, which you seem to agree would be predatory pricing.
Two thoughts:
1. If (still a big if) Amazon is allowed to own the entire ebook industry, after already taking over printed books by dumping at a loss, then Apple... will be almost as happy as Amazon, since iPads are a great way to read Kindle books. (And Amazon agrees--they don't care about the hardware anyway, and will gladly sell Kindle books for your iPad instead of developing and supporting a Kindle sold to you at cost or a loss.) Kindle app on iPad isn't quite as good as iBooks, but it's decent and supports library lending--and so it's my #1 way to read books.
2. $500 million... I hope Apple remembers to put the sofa cushions back the right way. Nobody wants to look at zippers.
Actually, I think that's pretty close to the way Amazon has done business for years (albeit not just electronics; all kinds of products). Sell printed books at a loss, drawing customers to other, profitable items. Meanwhile, goodbye to browsing your local book store. (Happily, used book stores seem to still be doing OK in my area.) Don't get me wrong, I like shopping at Amazon (almost never for books), but they've definitely done predatory things with regards to books.
1. If (still a big if) Amazon is allowed to own the entire ebook industry, after already taking over printed books by dumping at a loss, then Apple... will be almost as happy as Amazon, since iPads are a great way to read Kindle books. (And Amazon agrees--they don't care about the hardware anyway, and will gladly sell Kindle books for your iPad instead of developing and supporting a Kindle sold to you at cost or a loss.) Kindle app on iPad isn't quite as good as iBooks, but it's decent and supports library lending--and so it's my #1 way to read books.
2. $500 million... I hope Apple remembers to put the sofa cushions back the right way. Nobody wants to look at zippers.
Actually, I think that's pretty close to the way Amazon has done business for years (albeit not just electronics; all kinds of products). Sell printed books at a loss, drawing customers to other, profitable items. Meanwhile, goodbye to browsing your local book store. (Happily, used book stores seem to still be doing OK in my area.) Don't get me wrong, I like shopping at Amazon (almost never for books), but they've definitely done predatory things with regards to books.
Last edited:
I'm not a court of law.
Again, the primary issue to me is your (and the DOJ's) treatment of ebooks as a commodity market. I don't agree that attempts to monopolize a part (the most important part) of the ebook market through predatory pricing should be excused because you make it up on the long tail. I believe that having to compete below cost with best seller hinders competition in the market as a whole. Especially with new entries.
I don't see it as being any different than if Amazon operated their entire book division at a loss but made up for it in their electronics division, which you seem to agree would be predatory pricing.
Well, you don't see it different, DoJ and Judge Cote yes. By the way, you don't know what I agree and what I don't agree.
No chance. Maybe $50M. I've never seen a company penalized by anything near that amount. That includes the banks that crashed the global economy.
----------
And that's just in pennies.
----------
And that's just in pennies.
Because its not allowed. You can't use 'but that other guy is doing something bsd' as a defense.
The best that anyone could do is folks like Barnes and Noble suing Amazon for predatory pricing and the publishers perhaps for that and price dumping.
----------
Do they? There are doubts that the judge ruled fairly and wasn't biased against Apple from the start and should have recused herself.
So perhaps they don't deserve the fine.
----------
Umm no. Apple put limits in just how high the prices could go. The publishers would have loved to charge the same $25-35 for new releases as hard cover books just like the studios do with movies that aren't even on par with the discs in terms of quality, features etc. but Apple had a max of like $16.99
----------
Because Apple may not have been part of that game.
And really it isn't exactly the same. Petrol is petrol. But Harry Potter isn't the same as Stephen King.
And Amazon has the same clause. And uses it. This was brought up when they put up the sequel to Friday Night Lights for free for the whole two month redemption period because it was a Starbucks freebie
----------
Actually many areas so have laws against predatory pricing. especially when done by a company that has a vast majority of market strength or used said pricing to get it
----------
Apple did more to bring down those prices than the FTC.
Now if they could do the same for video. It is obscene that a TV show is $50 for a season in less than blu-ray quality, no features or even closed captioning when the physical disk is on sale basically everywhere for $35 tops.
----------
Or it didn't. Last time I checked books are not a life needed item. So folks could chose to go to the library etc and borrow them if they didn't like the price. Or heck torrent them
There's a difference between "nobody can sell it for less than what we're selling it for", and "if any of your outlets are selling for less than we are, we can drop our price to match it", which latter is what Apple negotiated.
Don't worry, you're not the only one that gets it wrong that way.
But the problem is Amazon was paying $x amount to the publisher for each copy, that may have been more than what they would have gotten from Apple if they lowered the price on iBooks, so it was Apple forcing them to fix their prices.
----------
Actually, if you had read the agreement, it clearly stated that Apple reserves the right to remove the publisher or individual books from the iBook store if they are found to be selling their books or allowing them to be sold for less elsewhere.