Apple Found Guilty of Conspiring to Fix Prices in E-Book Trial [Updated]

[mikbeth]

This decision may have been inevitable.

The court's job isn't really to make a decision about what's right, it's to interpret the law. The current law is written in such a way that what Apple did was illegal, the next question becomes, is the law still relevant to a modern way of doing business. From reading some of the news stories, it seems that Apple thinks it didn't break the law, but if it knows that it did break the law, and the law is broken, this would just be the first step in challenging the current anti-trust laws. I mean, there's something wrong with anti-trust laws when a company with 10% market share is considered anti-competitive against a company with 90% market share, it's just a question of how.

Yes, they did it. For a good reason.

Sometimes you have to take a stand to do what's right, even if you get in "trouble".

BTW, is anyone else sick of all this silly posturing of legal system against Apple? What is the point of all this? Besides making a few rich lawyers richer?

So what if Apple is levied a fine for, say, $20,000,0000. That would EXORBITANT, and yet would have no effect on anything. Apple would argue it down, cut a check, and everyone would move on.

 

[HarryKeogh]

eBook-em' Danno!

 

[GoldenJoe]

I hope Apple takes this all the way to the Supreme Court. Oh and let this be a lesson to them not to get in bed with the government EVER. Hiring Lisa Jackson didn't score them any points.

Don't forget that they also have Al "creator of the internet" Gore on the board of directors. I can't feel bad for Apple when they keep bringing these kinds of people into their organization.

 

[NeroAZ]

Where did she get her law degree at? Night School with Luis Tully?

A publisher setting the price for an eBook in the iBookstore is no different than me, as a developer, setting the price for my app in the App Store.

#EpicFail

Obviously the judge felt different.

 

[uknowimright]

wonder how people outraged at Amazon feel about the way their local grocery store works

 

[iGrip]

As far as I understood it, the MFN clause in apples contract required publishers to offer apple the lowest price that it offered to other distributors,

That may be the reason why you don't understand. That was NOT what the MFN clause said.

 

[samcraig]

I mean, there's something wrong with anti-trust laws when a company with 10% market share is considered anti-competitive against a company with 90% market share, it's just a question of how.

Collusion is collusion. You don't have to have any marketshare to engage in anti-competitive behavior.

If I decided to enter the ebook market tomorrow and I gave each publisher $1m to stop selling books via other means and only sell through me - are you suggesting that it wouldn't be anti-competitive. Because at the time - I would have zero marketshare...

 

[Rogifan]

Don't forget that they also have Al "creator of the internet" Gore on the board of directors. I can't feel bad for Apple when they keep bringing these kinds of people into their organization.

I knew when they hired Lisa Jackson it was basically a 'hopefully this will get the government off our backs' kind of move. Lets not forget Cook announced this shortly after he testified in Congrss on Apple's tax practices. Bad idea and won't work. I hope Apple takes this all the way to the Supreme Court. If they really believe they didn't do anything wrong, don't settle.

 

[iGrip]

Please keep kind mine that anti-trust in the United States is meant to protect the consumer, not ensure a healthy number of competitors.

Antitrust law is intended to do neither. Instead, it is intended to preserve a free and functional market.

 

[Carlanga]

so at the end, do I get cheaper ebooks now ?

 

[napabar]

No, I'm speculating that you're 14. Are you 14?

As I said, you don't understand much.

Got any response to my points on this topic? No? So add hypocrisy to your skill set.

All I read was a bunch of whining from you. You have not respond to my initial point, that the Publishers should be allowed to set their own prices just as app developers do/

No, let's take a deeper look into your phyci. It seems that when someone has an opposing view, you immediately take to insults to deflect from the fact that deep down, you know you're wrong. This would imply insecurity and lack of confidence.

Case in point, you called me a simpleton who writes simple software. One of my major pieces of software creates and compiles AppleScripts on the fly, based on user feedback. This incorporates not only shell commands, apple events, and a massive amount of escaping characters, but does so without the end user needing advanced knowledge of these concepts. Is this simple software? Perhaps you're right. I like to think of it as being easy to use. It was not, however, easy to write. I'd explain more, but I'm sure you would start to get a headache and accuse me of adolescent shenanigans.

----------

Obviously the judge felt different.

Your point?

 

[portishead]

Sounds like a certain judge owns a lot of amazon stock. Or knows someone at Amazon. I'm sure Apple can win an appeal anyway.

 

[EbookReader]

http://www.scribd.com/doc/145486131/U-S-v-Apple-Et-Al-Opening-Slides

"You are absolutely correct: we've always known that unless other publishers follow us, there's no chance of success in getting Amazon to change its pricing practices."

--------------

Penguin CEO David Shanks: "My orders from London. You must have the fourth major or we can't be in the announcement."

Apple Eddy Cue: "Hopefully this is not an issue but if it is I will call you at 4pm. It would be a huge mistake to miss this if we have 3."

"No change here, he is waiting for the others to sign. We have executables ready to sign but he wants an assurance that he is 1 of 4 before signing."

"Once previous two are signed, I will head to their offices to get this one signed."


----------------

Penguin CEO David Shanks: "We would never meet with Barnes and all our competitors. The Government would be all over that. We would meet separately with Indigo being the facilitator and go between. That is how we worked with Apple and the government is still looking into that."

 

[Zendokan]

Is there a law in the USA that prevents dumping as a common business practise?

Here in Belgium it's illegal to (re-)sell a new goods under the price of buying it in.

Bargains (during the soldes periods) can only be on old goods during the month July and January and on goods that have been in stock longer than 6 months, but even the maximum discount would be 90% of the inbuying amount.

This is to prevent that a company can run its competitors out of business and getting sole dominance over a markt when it has a huge financial reserve.

 

[zzebi]

All the cheerleaders for this decision don't understand a bit about what is happening.

In reality, Amazon has virtually a monopoly over e-book pricing and they use this monopoly to force publishers to comply with their pricing model. Publishers who are not willing to go Amazon's way are shut out of Amazon, which is the majority of the market. Amazon has hurt authors and publishers with his business model by forcing them to sell at lower prices than what they would have preferred. Of course Amazon's objective was never to make prices lower for costumers, but to push out competitors from the market.

What Apple and the publishers tried to achieve was to enable publishers to set the price of books to whatever level they want. Since the prices on Amazon were already very depressed, yes, in practice it meant raising prices.

Now the US court sided with a monopoly that hurts authors and publishers and against those that tried to break that monopoly.
Congratulations for that...

 

[InfernoShade]

Yes I was in the same exact boat as you.

----------



Maybe it scored them no points because what they did was WRONG?

DUH!

Kindle prices were already hiked before Apple came on the scene. When the first Kindle launched Bezos promised $5 ebooks. Then within a year they were $10. That had nothing to do with Apple. When Apple came on the scene you could already find digital books on Amazon that were priced higher than the physical books. When Apple got on the scene there were more sales and it seemed the digital books leveled out at generally 10% lower then the physical.

Anyway, this case really makes no sense to me. It's the publishers that want to milk everyone, not Apple. Apple tried to come up with a deal that would make them happy. I think lack of competition will make Amazon and the publishers happy, as they can charge whatever they want. That's why on Amazon it clearly shows prices instituted by the publishers.

 

[iSee]

A picture is worth 1000 words:

Image

How can the average price for all publishers be lower than the average price for every individual publisher?

 

[napabar]

All the cheerleaders for this decision don't understand a bit about what is happening.

In reality, Amazon has virtually a monopoly over e-book pricing and they use this monopoly to force publishers to comply with their pricing model. Publishers who are not willing to go Amazon's way are shut out of Amazon, which is the majority of the market. Amazon has hurt authors and publishers with his business model by forcing them to sell at lower prices than what they would have preferred. Of course Amazon's objective was never to make prices lower for costumers, but to push out competitors from the market.

What Apple and the publishers tried to achieve was to enable publishers to set the price of books to whatever level they want. Since the prices on Amazon were already very depressed, yes, in practice it meant raising prices.

Now the US court sided with a monopoly that hurts authors and publishers and against those that tried to break that monopoly.
Congratulations for that...

You're using logic with this crowd......very dangerous.....

 

[uknowimright]

All the cheerleaders for this decision don't understand a bit about what is happening.

In reality, Amazon has virtually a monopoly over e-book pricing and they use this monopoly to force publishers to comply with their pricing model. Publishers who are not willing to go Amazon's way are shut out of Amazon, which is the majority of the market. Amazon has hurt authors and publishers with his business model by forcing them to sell at lower prices than what they would have preferred. Of course Amazon's objective was never to make prices lower for costumers, but to push out competitors from the market.

What Apple and the publishers tried to achieve was to enable publishers to set the price of books to whatever level they want. Since the prices on Amazon were already very depressed, yes, in practice it meant raising prices.

Now the US court sided with a monopoly that hurts authors and publishers and against those that tried to break that monopoly.
Congratulations for that...

pretty sure there are slides from this case that show publishers actually made less money off ebooks under Apple's way

 

[milo]

Ironic that they tried to break Amazon's monopoly on the market and complete control over publishers, and they're the ones that ended up getting hit with an anti-trust lawsuit.

 

[Frobozz]

Conflicted

Well, I'm a little conflicted about this one. On one hand, eBook prices should fall as a result, and we might even get a kick back as a consumer of books through iBooks. Great. On the other hand, it seems as if Apple was legitimately trying to ensure that publishers made money on eBooks. This is how I'm confused about "price fixing."

I'm not dumb enough to think that Steve Jobs wanted what was best for humanity– he was in charge of a huge corporation that needed to make profits. But let's look at Apple's basic counter argument. Amazon was using it's (arguable) Monopoly on the digital eBook space, of which it already sold a competing eReader in the Kindle, to drive brick and mortar stores out of business. Now there's nothing wrong with driving people out of business due to market pressures, but it's lunacy to think that Amazon was doing anything less evil. In the scope of this lawsuit, perhaps that is not germane.

 

[milo]

Is there a law in the USA that prevents dumping as a common business practise?

Here in Belgium it's illegal to (re-)sell a new goods under the price of buying it in.

Bargains (during the soldes periods) can only be on old goods during the month July and January and on goods that have been in stock longer than 6 months, but even the maximum discount would be 90% of the inbuying amount.

This is to prevent that a company can run its competitors out of business and getting sole dominance over a markt when it has a huge financial reserve.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing

 

[EbookReader]

This was used as evidence by the DOJ in which Steve Jobs admitted that he fixed prices.

starting at 0:10

Mossberg: “[first part is inaudible] why should she buy a book for $14.99 on your device [iPad] when she can buy one for $9.99 at Amazon [inaudible]?”
Steve Jobs: “Well, that won’t be the case.”
Mossberg: “You mean you [iBooks] won’t be $14.99 or they [Amazon] won’t be $9.99?”
Steve Jobs: “The prices will be the same.” '

 

[samcraig]

All I read was a bunch of whining from you. You have not respond to my initial point, that the Publishers should be allowed to set their own prices just as app developers do/

N

They are allowed to - with both Amazon's model and what Apple was going for. But the difference is - Apple's model forced the customer price to change.

Let me explain that for you again. A publisher could charge a reseller (Apple/Amazon) $1 or $100 for their book.

Amazon's model is that as long as they pay what the publisher wanted - they should be able to charge whatever they want to the customer.

Apple argued no - that all resellers should be forced to sell the book at the same price.


Again from the article: Through their conspiracy they forced Amazon (and other resellers) to relinquish retail pricing authority and then they raised retail e-book prices. Those higher prices were not the result of regular market forces but of a scheme in which Apple was a full participant.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Excellent!

A win for the consumer!

Will I be receiving a check or some other form of compensation for the one iBook I've purchased? I bought it from the iBook Store after checking all the other ways I could get it and coming to the conclusion that Apple's price was the best (it was $8 when everyone else was charging $12, including on the Kindle store, as I recall. Really bank breaking... but at the time I had a minimum wage job so it was worth my half hour to research and save that money.)