You don't actually know what that graph's showing, do you? Here's an interesting fact about e-book prices you might consider: while the companies were at trial, prices fluctuated up and down. At Amazon too. Isn't that weird?
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Apple Found Guilty of Conspiring to Fix Prices in E-Book Trial [Updated]
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You don't actually know what that graph's showing, do you? Here's an interesting fact about e-book prices you might consider: while the companies were at trial, prices fluctuated up and down. At Amazon too. Isn't that weird?
A lot of people here are not pro anything. We are just open-minded enough to know that Apple can do wrong and that whatever strategy that Amazon is using to gain a large market share may be unfair but not illegal.
Check who you're quoting. I only implied the non-profit guy was a fanboy in response to "is there such a thing as an Amazon fanboy"
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I'll grant you that, but I won't grant him his use of all this to in a certain sense invalidate or even lessen this ruling. Though again, I can imagine someone who is more experienced in law disagreeing with your claims.
EDIT: Oh look, seems he edited out the "offending" statement
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Sure. It was earlier in this thread.
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/17560749/
Quotes?
Of course he knew Amazon's prices would be the same. They had an MFN clause.
Ok -- there is only ONE GUY IN THE WHOLE WORLD who could ever, possibly be called an Amazon fanboy, and certainly his existence couldn't POSSIBLY suggest that there might be others.
Moving on...
"Once previous two are signed, I will head to their offices to get this one signed."
How do those quotes invalidate the narrative of Apple/Cue being the "hub" through which the deals were all put in place?
I do believe those quotes come from the *DOJ's* case, so why would they do anything but bolster their case...
Don't get upset because you worded yourself wrong. Anybody reading your post can easily assume that you think many posters here are Amazon fanboys.
E-books that are basically just reformatted versions of the printed version should sell for less but only if they are released after the second printing. Why should people who buy the first printing on paper subsidize ebooks?
There are still fixed costs when writing, editing and publishing a book regardless the media.
If the ebook offers value added content and/or interactivity then that should be allowed to carry a premium. Don't want to pay that premium? Then buy the paperback instead.
Do you see people complaining about hardcover editions costing more than paperback? No? Then we should allow the market forces and publishers to decide.
What does Amazon have to do with the production of the book? Do they market it? Do they front the money? They are just a "dumb" pipe for sale of goods be it electronic or physical. They can take their cut but shouldn't whether something sells well or poorly determine price?
If something sells really well, there is usually a second edition or release which is often cheaper. If something sells really poorly, it is often discounted to spur sales. If something sells only moderately, there is little incentive to change the price very much because discounting heavily will only result in the remaining inventory being sold but keeping the price the same will ensure a maximum of profit for the given volume of sales.
There are still fixed costs when writing, editing and publishing a book regardless the media.
If the ebook offers value added content and/or interactivity then that should be allowed to carry a premium. Don't want to pay that premium? Then buy the paperback instead.
Do you see people complaining about hardcover editions costing more than paperback? No? Then we should allow the market forces and publishers to decide.
What does Amazon have to do with the production of the book? Do they market it? Do they front the money? They are just a "dumb" pipe for sale of goods be it electronic or physical. They can take their cut but shouldn't whether something sells well or poorly determine price?
If something sells really well, there is usually a second edition or release which is often cheaper. If something sells really poorly, it is often discounted to spur sales. If something sells only moderately, there is little incentive to change the price very much because discounting heavily will only result in the remaining inventory being sold but keeping the price the same will ensure a maximum of profit for the given volume of sales.
They, the publishers, you mean. Apple gets blamed for it, for some reason, but it was the publishers who colluded, if anyone. All Apple is guilty of doing is offering the same contract terms to several suppliers. What those suppliers chose to do and say to each other is their own business, and if the government has a problem with it, they should go after those suppliers, not Apple.
When Apple needs screens, and goes to TMSC and Samsung and negotiates with those two companies to get parts for their iPhone, that's not illegal. If Samsung and TMSC talk to each other to fix pricing for all their mutual customers (Apple, Motorola, HTC, etc.), that is illegal. TMSC and Samsung need to set their pricing individually. The fact that Apple gets parts from both of them is not illegal, even if Apple insists those companies sell Apple parts for no more than what they sell to Motorola or HTC.
Logically, this decision makes no sense, and I'm certain it will be overturned in appeal. The government might have had a case against the publishers, but they don't have a case against Apple. I've reviewed the evidence myself (I'm a professional writer so the ebooks market is something I keep a close eye on), and it's circumstantial at best.
The reality is that Apple was perfectly fine with the $9.99 price point. They recognized that the $9.99 price point was below what the product is worth in many cases, and they recognized that publishers thought so too. But, as long as Apple got their 30%, they'd be fine with it. They gave complete pricing control over to the publishers. They just didn't want publishers charging Apple more for the product than they charge other companies, which is perfectly fair.
Now, a cynic might come to the conclusion that Apple was aware that the publishers would collude, using Apple's offered deal as an excuse to do so, and that Apple was hoping the publishers would, in order to break Amazon's monopoly. In other words, the ends justify the means. However, in terms of actual illegality, Apple did nothing wrong. Some of Cue's call records are suspicious, I will grant you, but there's no evidence he encouraged collusion. One can easily draw the conclusion that he was making frequent calls to all of the major publishers because that was his job as somebody trying to make deals with suppliers. That's called reasonable doubt.
Does Apple benefit from publishers colluding? Yes. Did Apple encourage it, or facilitate it? The government failed to make that case. It's not enough for Apple to have motive, there also needs to be evidence of intent. The only hint of intent was from an email that was never sent, the revision removing all mention of any encouragement of illegal activity, instead making Apple's position clear as desiring a fair market. No encouragement existed. As for facilitation, it seems the publisher CEOs were perfectly willing to communicate with each other without Apple being in the proverbial room. The publishers, if they indeed colluded, did so on their own without Apple's involvement. Based on the government's evidence, it appears Penguin is particularly guilty of this. Just because Apple may have wanted the publishers to collude, doesn't mean Apple suggested they do so, or helped them with it.
All Apple did, according to the government, was offer each publisher the same deal, and let them know that other publishers were interested. Apple wasn't involved in price fixing because Apple didn't set any prices. There's nothing illegal in a contract that guarantees an equal-or-lowest price. There's nothing illegal in telling another company that a third company is going into business with you. If anything, the emails the government showed in court say that Apple was happy start iBooks without all of the major publishers having signed the contract. Apple, of course, wanted as many major publishers as possible to sign on, but they were still announcing iBooks even if half of the majors didn't sign on.
Several of the publishers, on the other hand, seemed quite unwilling to sign on with Apple without the other publishers doing so too. But that's their own business, and an entirely different legal matter. If the publishers indeed communicated with each other to agree on raising prices across the board, that would be illegal, but only the publishers would be breaking the law, not Apple. Apple may have created the situation where they would be tempted to do so, but that's a long way off from what Apple was charged with.
With your mindset, a business would never succeed in the harsh reality of our market today.
Even old Adam Smith recognized the economic problems inherent with monopoly. As far as economics go, Smith is about as old school as you can get.
You may be right that Apple saw the downside as being small, even if winning was a long shot. It may also be that they viewed the government's settlement terms as onerous. (I assume these negotiations took place prior to the case going to trial.)
I would not expect the fines to be significant, if for no other reason than the plan never went into effect so it had no economic consequences. I would also not foresee any call for a monitor, for the same reason (what would they monitor?).
In the case of Microsoft, it was not the (wimpy) Consent Decree that did the damage, it was (1) the Findings of Fact that were used against them by several harmed competitors, (2) the damage to their image. It is the latter that concerns me the most in Apple's case. They now (properly, I'm sorry to say) will look like a company that will violate laws to get what they want. Microsoft's public image was deeply damaged by fighting a similar losing battle. Their case was obviously much more involved, but the harm could be not very different for Apple.
Reputation matters. This self-inflicted wound may not heal very quickly.
Oh no, I think several people on here certainly ARE Amazon fanboys, and I held out one quote as an example. I did forget we were operating under strict evidentiary rules here.
My earlier "concession" was meant to mock the absurdity of this nit you've attached to, but I'll make that kind of implication more clear per the evidentiary rules next time as well.
One would argue that a guilty verdict means the government didn't fail to make the case. But you can keep writing your fiction.
Sorry but I stopped reading after this paragraph as you clearly don't understand this case. The publishers *were*—I repeat, *were*—prosecuted and quickly folded because the case was overwhelming against them.
Please, that's the damn point of the collusion charge! You're deliberately oversimplifying the narrative of and the manner in which this occurred—in short, the entire case against Apple.
They don't. Apple was negotiating with the 6 publishers. I didn't think that was in question.
The do bolster the DOJ's case. They support the claims of collusion among the publishers.
However, the implication that Apple was ready to move forward with only three publishers doesn't support the explanation from the anti-trust lawyer quoted earlier.
Apple didn't insist that everyone else pay more. Apple insisted that they didn't pay more than anyone else. As always, the publishers were free to simply reject Apple's deal if they didn't like it.
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Sorry, I stopped reading after this phrase, because I knew you wouldn't contribute anything worthwhile to the discussion, as you'd only reply in ignorance of what you're replying to.
Amazon has the best prices on damn near everything it sells, what possible evidence do you have to indicate that Amazon would then sell things at an Apple-like markup?
You know, Apple, the company that sells every single product it has at exorbitant profit margins, to the extent that basic cables and RAM markups make Monster Cables look cheap.
Prove to me that Apple wants an ebook market where items have minimal markup, and that Amazon wants a monopoly on ebooks so they can mark them up.
Show me some proof.
And then show it to the lawyers from this case, because apparently they missed it.
You are being unfair and taking an uncharitable interpretation of his simplification. His overarching point is explaining how Apple serving as a mediator for the collusion, "as a go-between through which the publishers agreed to simultaneously switch to the Agency Model", got them in trouble. The publishers weren't phoning each other in colluding, they were negotiating through Apple. According to him, and I have yet to see anything on the contrary, *this is illegal*. Forget invalidate, those quotes from Eddy Cue demonstrate this occurred.
A trillion dollar deficit means that every corporation with liquid assets should watch their backs and they had better make damn sure they dot every i and cross every t.
The FOX News crowd has done a wonderful job, as usual, of glossing over the real issue and misdirecting what's really at stake. This case wasn't about Amazon, but rather a bookseller (Apple) to strikes a deal with the six largest publishers (who each own and control dozens of imprints) to artificially fix prices. That's illegal pure and simple.
But we live in a time where these same people have convinced the sheep masses that mergers are good for use; bigger is better and creates more competition. And the fanboys have been spoon fed a line of crap by Apple that paying $16 for an ebook that used to sell for half that is not only in furtherance of the free capitalistic market, but is actually good for the consumer.
Yet, the impression was created that Apple was being picked on unfairly and the free market twarted. When prices are artificially set that's not the free market. The free market occurs when prices are set by market forces, ie competition. Amazon is and was a competitor and if they chose to lose money so what? Nobody was being forced to follow their example. And if you go back to the days prior to Apple you will find book prices varied among the various ebook sellers. The end result was the consumer was free to shop for the best price. With Apple's deal prices were set and remained the same among all the sellers. That's not the free market or capitalism, that's pure and simple anti trust price fixing ala John Rockefeller and the oil robber barons.
Unfortunately, with all the false information distributed by vested parties we've been led to believe robber barons are free market capitalists. They're not - they're just old fashioned gangster capitalists of the ilk you find in third world countries.
But we live in a time where these same people have convinced the sheep masses that mergers are good for use; bigger is better and creates more competition. And the fanboys have been spoon fed a line of crap by Apple that paying $16 for an ebook that used to sell for half that is not only in furtherance of the free capitalistic market, but is actually good for the consumer.
Yet, the impression was created that Apple was being picked on unfairly and the free market twarted. When prices are artificially set that's not the free market. The free market occurs when prices are set by market forces, ie competition. Amazon is and was a competitor and if they chose to lose money so what? Nobody was being forced to follow their example. And if you go back to the days prior to Apple you will find book prices varied among the various ebook sellers. The end result was the consumer was free to shop for the best price. With Apple's deal prices were set and remained the same among all the sellers. That's not the free market or capitalism, that's pure and simple anti trust price fixing ala John Rockefeller and the oil robber barons.
Unfortunately, with all the false information distributed by vested parties we've been led to believe robber barons are free market capitalists. They're not - they're just old fashioned gangster capitalists of the ilk you find in third world countries.
When your introductory paragraph ignorantly and completely misrepresents the entire situation, yes I will choose to remain in ignorance of the rest of your "argument". You imply the publishers got away scot free, far from actual reality.
Yes, let's feel sorry for Apple who pays virtually no income taxes. If companies like Apple paid their fair share of taxes maybe the deficit wouldn't be so high.