E-Books Judge Pledges to Avoid Unnecessary Intrusion Into Apple's Business

[charlituna]

And what exactly would be wrong with retaliation?

It would probably qualify as contempt of court. Or at least the judge would try to play it that way.

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I'm still confused about what Apple did wrong.

So they negotiated with publishers that they can't offer their books for sale at a lower price to Apple's competitors. This caused the price of all e-books to go up instead of the price from Apple to go down? How is that Apple's fault? Do the publishers not set the price? I must be missing something.

The DOJ that Apple willfully went to the publishers and offered them the pricing control and higher pricing that the publishers wanted. And even of requiring them to force all other retailers to switch to agency terms and give up pricing control

 

[AnalyzeThis]

So, where do you think they could move to avoid ANY issues with local goverments?

They are welcome to Russia. It should take till next tax payment is due, at that point all assets will be transferred by judge to state run subsidiary for tax evasion. Tim Crook's team sent to Siberia to become better citizens and to research weather patterns for next 30 years. Case closed. Welcome! Thanks for your business! Come again...

 

[theelysium]

Amazon should be sued as well. They are skewing the market for their own benefit.

No one, complained when they single handled closed book stores (e.g Boarders) due to their prices.

If they are going to impugn Apple they need to also go after Amazon.

 

[AnalyzeThis]

"Yep, the entire world hates Apple. I wonder why?"
Could you explain what you actually mean by that?

If that what you want an explanation for:
I am just extending your thoughts on why people hate Apple.
According to you: anyone who does not have Apple product is against it, so because of Earth population is close to 8 billions, those few who have Apple products are only ~300M, so the infinite majority of people got to hate Apple, according to you.

 

[MacDav]

If Apple has to allow Amazon to place a link to their store within the Kindle App, shouldn't Apple be allowed (if they wanted) to make an iBook Store application and have Amazon allow it on the Kindle so consumers have a choice between Amazon purchased books or Apple purchased books on their Amazon device?

If not, why should Apple be forced to allow Amazon to sell their books on Apple's platform?

You're making way too much sense. Remember were dealing with the current DOJ and they are faithfully aligned with nonsense.

 

[MacDav]

When does the appeals trial start ?

Hopefully sometime after Nov. 2016.

 

[osaga]

By Joseph, Denise Cote has had an Epiphany!!

Nah, she just realized what a fiasco her Judicial Oversight has been throughout this comical ordeal. This is far from over, and I hope Apple Legal go all the way to the Supreme Court over this Juvenile Justice.
Thank goodness I never have to worry about Denise Cote being a Supreme Court Nominee after this Display of Judicial Grandstanding.

The sad thing is that Apple would most likely loose in the Supreme court as well. There's pretty clear evidence of illegal collusion between Apple and the Publishers. The only thing they can hope for is a more lenient form of punishment in a different court. That's my take on it anyhow.

 

[marksman]

How is renegotiating terms on a staggered basis going to prevent collusion.

The problem with this case is the judge and the prosecutors office know jack all about running a business. Most of what I have seen as punishments/remedies are hair brained and/or potentially crippling.

I am not sure how this case was ever decided with this much overwhelming ignorance by the judge and prosecution. The judge had predetermined his opinion on the case so all the prosecution needed to do is cater to his flawed and broken view as to how a business operates and they "win". Then we go into these absurd remedies.

Like I said above staggered negotiations doesn't change anything but end up with the same deals staggered. This is how freaking businesses operate. What they are asking for is dumb but what they are expecting is absurd.

Apple will have to negotiate in bad faith just to meet these loopy requirements.

 

[teknishn]

I am a rabid Apple fan, but I am at a loss for how they can still not see that they really did break the law here.

Yes, Amazon was exploiting their virtual monopoly in ebooks, but Apple and the publishers should have convinced the DOJ to investigate Amazon, not colluded to fix prices.

I know many of you will never be able to accept that Apple violated the law here, but they did. And since they do not appear able to accept that fact, the courts will have to have some oversight to make sure that they don't continue on in that behavior or do it again.

I would wait until the court process runs its course before jumping to the conclusion of one judge. I think they have a really good chance of winning on appeal.... especially considering this judge made very biased comments about Apple losing before the trial even started.

 

[marksman]

I am a rabid Apple fan, but I am at a loss for how they can still not see that they really did break the law here.

Yes, Amazon was exploiting their virtual monopoly in ebooks, but Apple and the publishers should have convinced the DOJ to investigate Amazon, not colluded to fix prices.

I know many of you will never be able to accept that Apple violated the law here, but they did. And since they do not appear able to accept that fact, the courts will have to have some oversight to make sure that they don't continue on in that behavior or do it again.

Actually apple did not do that at all. All they did was allow publishers to set the prices of their own products. This is something that is afforded any manufacturer or publisher in the US in 2013. It is not illegal to have publishers determine their price and give you a cut of it as a retailer.

This judge was and is wrong. Clearly from many statements made they do not understand business and are completely misapplying the law. We will see where this goes on appeals.

Publishers do not all price their books the same price, so it is the oddest form of price fixing ever where every company charges a different price, of a variety of prices. You will not find much case law supporting price fixing in cases where prices were not actually fixed.

Did apple execs "think" too much aloud in emails? Probably, but it still does not real demonstrate the breaking of any actual laws.

In this case you had a nuclear physicist (apple) trying to explain fusion to a couple of four year olds (the prosecutors and the judge). The issues at stake here were and are simply too nuanced and too intertwined with entirely legal and acceptable business practices that they were not really qualified in pursuing it.

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So remember folks...you can crash the price of goods and kill off mom and pop shops and independent artists....but you can't provide a superior service where the price of those goods goes back up.

It is funny. Nobody cares that amazon killed the entire b&m book business with their anti competitive practices. For some reason the government has never looked at amazon. Everyone is happy enough to take their $9 books now and just pay for it later. Do not get me wrong i am a fan of Amazon as a business, as I am Apple. However as someone with a lot of experience running businesses I find it ludicrous that amazon's clearly anti competitive behavior is ignored while apple is taken to task for simply allowing publishers to set the prices of their own products.

If apple had a conference call with all the major book publishers and said "we are going to let you guys set your own prices, and we are taking 30%, thanks." That is not illegal and it is not price fixing.

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Because Apple has been found guilty of anti competition practices and Amazon not?

That is still a completely illogical and likely illegal punishment.

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I'm still confused about what Apple did wrong.

So they negotiated with publishers that they can't offer their books for sale at a lower price to Apple's competitors. This caused the price of all e-books to go up instead of the price from Apple to go down? How is that Apple's fault? Do the publishers not set the price? I must be missing something.

That is the problem, that is not illegal. It is stupid. Companies set these conditions all the time. There is nothing illegal about qualifying you always get the lowest retail price when negotiating with a vendor.

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Yes, you're missing the part where the Agency Model was forced to all the other retailers

Lol. What is there to miss. That is not illegal either. I think you probably got your business education with the judge and prosecutors.

 

[Plutonius]

Hopefully sometime after Nov. 2016.

Why after Nov 2016 ?

 

[marksman]

Apple should just pack up its toys and go home.
There is no reason it should have any business operations inside the United States at this point.

And people wonder why business move operations and money overseas.

Progressives being progressives. LOL.

The horrible thing is most people don't realize how scary the comments this judge is making that could potential cause some catastrophic like that happen. It is not far fetched given the crazy ignorance the judge has shown towards how legal businesses operate.

Apple is literally getting punished not for doing anything illegal, but simply for being the biggest publically traded company. They were an upstart in the ebook market and still are way behind Amazon. It has nothing to do with illegal business practices. It simply made a good résumé builder for the prosecutors. How hard is it to make the biggest company out there look like they might be doing things too good to a judge who has no practical business experience or knowledge.

I would love if people could post examples of some previous price fixing "convictions" with similar circumstances. Besides owning many of my own businesses one of my jobs was as a retail buyer for a large company. That means I negotiated the actual deals to bring the products to our stores. Going by the standards of this case I would say 85% of all retail businesses who buy and sell from outside wholesalers and manufactures and do over 100 million a year in revenue, are breaking the law.

The likely reason the book publishers all jumped on plea deals is because they did not want the DOJ to uncover the actual illegal things they are doing.

 

[Renzatic]

I am not sure how this case was ever decided with this much overwhelming ignorance by the judge and prosecution. The judge had predetermined his opinion on the case so all the prosecution needed to do is cater to his flawed and broken view as to how a business operates and they "win". Then we go into these absurd remedies.

I'm assuming you've read quite a bit about this case, correct?

 

[darkgoob]

I am a rabid Apple fan, but I am at a loss for how they can still not see that they really did break the law here.

Yes, Amazon was exploiting their virtual monopoly in ebooks, but Apple and the publishers should have convinced the DOJ to investigate Amazon, not colluded to fix prices.

I know many of you will never be able to accept that Apple violated the law here, but they did. And since they do not appear able to accept that fact, the courts will have to have some oversight to make sure that they don't continue on in that behavior or do it again.

How is this any different from the way that Nikon and Sony dictate to their dealers what they must sell the cameras for, or how Apple dictates to its dealers what prices they must sell iPads and iPhones for, or how Apple sets a price for songs with record companies.

Why is it that suddenly with eBooks, suddenly this is a crime? It's ridiculous.

I think it's because Amazon doesn't want publishers dictating to it how much it must sell their books for. That's the real story here, because Amazon knows that if Apple establishes that consumers will pay more for books, then publishers will want to dictate to Amazon how much it can sell books for, which undermines its entire existence. Of course, Nikon and Sony already dictate to Amazon how much it must sell their cameras for, so why is it different in this case?

For that matter, how is this any different than how the App store works? Why isn't it considered anti-trust that the app seller gets to determine the price of their app? Why is an eBook to be treated any differently than an app?


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...
The likely reason the book publishers all jumped on plea deals is because they did not want the DOJ to uncover the actual illegal things they are doing.

No it's because they couldn't afford the lawyers. Meanwhile Apple can. Most of the time, these people like DOJ are used to being able to simply bully people around because they can't afford to defend themselves, or it's simply not worth the money. But Apple has the cash and doesn't back down, and good for them. They should stand up to this nonsense. They get a bad rap for all their litigation but frankly, they are merely protecting themselves and not letting themselves get trampled all over.

 

[Renzatic]

]No it's because they couldn't afford the lawyers. Meanwhile Apple can. Most of the time, these people like DOJ are used to being able to simply bully people around because they can't afford to defend themselves...

Click this link then tell me again that the publishers couldn't afford a good defense.

For reference, the publishers involved in the collusion scheme were Penguin, Macmillan, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins and Random House.

 

[marksman]

I wonder what she would do if Apple announced it would leave the ebook business because the government has made it impossible to stay? Leave the DOJ to deal with a true Amazon monopoly. What if the publishers decide to get out of the ebook business and only sell real books? It's a lot harder to copy a book than recorded music.

If I were an author I might consider demanding my work be published in physical form only. A really big name author could wreak some havoc if they did that.

Some authors have done that. I know a few/couple years ago Grishsm had no ebooks. That likely could have changed I have not checked lately.

 

[Tigger11]

Why are Apple crying?

They sell books for the price they want
Amazon sell book for the price they want

That's the way the world works folks so what's the problem?

Amazon does what it can to keep the prices as low as it can. well that's great for the consumer.

What Apple can't compete with Amazon on pricing?
So?

That's not the way business works.

Amazon is selling best sellers at below cost, all while forcing publishers to sell book to them at steadily lower prices or they won't carry whole lines of books, there are literally dozens of examples of this before Apple came into the market. And its not how the world works. That is why we have tariffs, and import duties etc, see what happens everytime Japan tries to dump steel in the US. Now we have Amazon who has killed borders and are trying to kill B&N, running around with over 60% of the ebook market being told that its ok for them to sell at below the price they pay for a book, given that they and only they are willing to take a loss on every best seller just to grow market share. Its the billion dollar corvette sale economic problem and the current DOJ has too little experience in the real world to understand the enormous economic issues involved here. The ludicrous part of the whole case is that the only reason that the publishers were willing to go to a new model, is the Amazon model was we are going to sell every book for $9.99 or less and we need that to become profitable for us. Bezos is on record for that, and Amazon setting the price for every Ebook, is a whole lot more price collusion then publishers setting the sale price of books to whatever they want and the sellers getting 30% of that.

 

[marksman]

It would probably qualify as contempt of court. Or at least the judge would try to play it that way.

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The DOJ that Apple willfully went to the publishers and offered them the pricing control and higher pricing that the publishers wanted. And even of requiring them to force all other retailers to switch to agency terms and give up pricing control

Which part of that is illegal?

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The sad thing is that Apple would most likely loose in the Supreme court as well. There's pretty clear evidence of illegal collusion between Apple and the Publishers. The only thing they can hope for is a more lenient form of punishment in a different court. That's my take on it anyhow.

Collusion of what? Publishers being able to set their own prices?

That is the problem with this case. None of these things are illegal.

 

[Renzatic]

Collusion of what? Publishers being able to set their own prices?

That is the problem with this case. None of these things are illegal.

As an isolated occurrance, it's not. There's nothing illegal about agency pricing. It's simply a method of selling goods. But when publishers come together in an attempt to control prices across the board as a single functional cartel, that's an entirely different story.

The means might've been perfectly legal, but the actions of the publishers themselves were anything but.

 

[Tigger11]

Click this link then tell me again that the publishers couldn't afford a good defense.

For reference, the publishers involved in the collusion scheme were Penguin, Macmillan, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins and Random House.

Currently this site believes Apple's penalty for case could be $500M, that more then the annual profit of most of the publishers you are listing there. Thats without throwing in the litigation costs, etc, it would be silly to risk losing more money then you make in a year in a court case against the DOJ, when Apple is willing to fight the fight and when they win, the Publishers can go back to their original agreements. Apple on the other hand makes more then $500M a week, so fighting the good fight doesn't effect their bottom near as much.

 

[Renzatic]

Currently this site believes Apple's penalty for case could be $500M, that more then the annual profit of most of the publishers you are listing there. Thats without throwing in the litigation costs, etc, it would be silly to risk losing more money then you make in a year in a court case against the DOJ, when Apple is willing to fight the fight and when they win, the Publishers can go back to their original agreements. Apple on the other hand makes more then $500M a week, so fighting the good fight doesn't effect their bottom near as much.

This is all conjecture, but I don't think the publishers would've been penalized as harshly as Appe was, considering they're they're viewed as the allegded hub in a wheel and spoke conspiracy.

Truthfully, everything about this is conjecture. Up to and including the supposed bias on the DOJs part against Apple.

 

[spacepower7]

I am a rabid Apple fan, but I am at a loss for how they can still not see that they really did break the law here.

Yes, Amazon was exploiting their virtual monopoly in ebooks, but Apple and the publishers should have convinced the DOJ to investigate Amazon, not colluded to fix prices.

I know many of you will never be able to accept that Apple violated the law here, but they did. And since they do not appear able to accept that fact, the courts will have to have some oversight to make sure that they don't continue on in that behavior or do it again.

Apple violated the law according to one judge, what about when it is sent to appeals court or even possibly Supreme Court.

Antitrust law is is interpreted differently by different judges. If Judge Cote says Apple violated the law but the Appeals Court or Supremes disagree, are you going to still claim Apple is guilty like you do today?

Antitrust Law is very complex.

If Judge Cote found Apple guilty and 9 judges disagree, are you still going to claim that Apple is guilty?

 

[Renzatic]

If Judge Cote found Apple guilty and 9 judges disagree, are you still going to claim that Apple is guilty?

Of course not, but chances are better than good that an entirely different judge will come to the same conclusion.

30 state attorneys brought the case to the attention of the DOJ, with Judge Cote ended up agreeing with their conclusion after viewing the evidence against them. Yeah, I know quite a few people here believe the woman is a biased idiot, and they're bound to win the case if they get a more "fair" judge, but...

...these things just don't happen because someone in the DOJ doesn't like Apple, or because Obama is out for petty revenge against against one of Americans most wildly successful corporations (despite stepping in himself to veto that recent patent kerfuffle against Samsung). It happened because the evidence was damning, and Apple's lawyers apparently weren't able to defend their actions.

They'll get their retrial, but I believe the most they'll get out of it are more lenient penalities levied against them.

 

[njytouch]

Is it because DOJ likes Droids?

 

[gnasher729]

As an isolated occurrance, it's not. There's nothing illegal about agency pricing. It's simply a method of selling goods. But when publishers come together in an attempt to control prices across the board as a single functional cartel, that's an entirely different story.

The means might've been perfectly legal, but the actions of the publishers themselves were anything but.

And that is exactly what isn't proven in any way.
First, Apple offered the same contract to each publisher. That's perfectly legal. Each publisher accepted that contract. That's also perfectly legal.

What could be illegal would be if the publishers negotiated between each other whether they should all agree to this contract or not. That isn't proven at all. Even if it was proven, that wouldn't mean Apple did anything wrong.

What could also be illegal if Apple had been part of such discussions between all or multiple publishers. That again is not proven at all. And the judge refused publishers the right to give evidence about this, so it seems quite clear that there was no interest in finding the truth, but only interest in convicting Apple.