How Apple's Agency Model for Publishers Fails to Merit Collusion Charges

[BaldiMac]

Huh?

Less money for authors = Less authors that can make a living selling books, more focus on the mass market formulas

In most cases, price is one of the main points of competition among sellers.

Yep. Content is another, more important one (to me).

If Amazon was willing to discount ebooks, this could only benefit the consumers.

Except I and others have already provided an example of how it could hurt consumers.

Those who place higher value on other aspects, such as brand loyalty, or whatever, could freely purchase from Apple, at the higher prices.

Which has nothing to do with my argument.

The problem is that Apple struck a deal with the publishers which effectively barred competition based on price (or at least at any price lower than what Apple charges).

Barred competition among retailers based on price. Publishers can still compete on price.

Bad for consumers and likely illegal.

Only if the publishers colluded to implement these prices.

Huh? Huh?!

Your statement above makes no sense at all.

How does the discounting of a bunch of bestseller items affect the pricing of titles by "fringe" authors?

Even if Amazon or another seller discounted these "fringe" titles (as Amazon often did), the publisher and the author still get the same $$. In the case of such discounting, it's the seller (for example Amazon) who ends up with a lower profit margin.

Value is relative. If "best sellers" are only worth $7.99 or $8.99, this impacts the perceived value of books by consumers.

No one is artificially lowering prices. Amazon, b&n, and any bookseller have every right to buy wholesale and sell at what they see fit. The only one who's doing anything artificial is apple colluding and price fixing with publishers.

Prior to the agency agreement with Apple, Amazon had over 90% of the eBook market and a significant chunk of the overall book market. When you have that kind of market power, antitrust rules apply. Selling best sellers at a loss hindered any competitive threat to their ebook monopoly. Almost two years after Apple spearheaded the switch to the agency model, Amazon still has over 60% of the ebook market. (Apple is in 4th place with only 7% of the market.) The fact that the market was relatively new was the biggest hurdle to any antitrust action.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/59991790@N02/7001278467/in/set-72157629630447801/

Do you seriously want us to believe that they are doing it for content? To help the consumer have better quality of content. If they wanted this, and since they are doing sweet eff all for books (unlike the app store where they provide the tools to build apps as well as verify each app) other than putting them on an interface and a search engine on the ipad, how about the set a 10% cut off for every book sold. I don't undertand how apple thinks they warrant a 30% off of each book for taking standard epubs (only to be used on their devices) and sticking them on a store front, and for that reason they wanted to change to an agency model, with fixed $12.99 and above pricing, as well as having a MFN agreement... Actually I think they have some nerve to demand all that, and then collude with publishers behind our backs to achieve them.

I don't believe that at all. I believe that the publishers are trying to make more money. Pretty obvious.

I don't know how stating the obvious fact that there are potentially negative consequences to lowering prices is so controversial. You are just making up the rest of my argument to have something to argue with.

Just give us break will you?

I suppose it's more comfortable for you to just have everyone agree with you, but I'm going to continue participating in the discussion. Feel free to use the ignore list if my crazy, irrational comments disturb you too much.

 

[BaldiMac]

If only more people understood that. I've been through enough debates over antitrust laws (from U.S. v. Microsoft forward) to know that this is clear to about 0.001% of the population. Most people will argue vehemently that so long as you "have another choice," XYZ Corp. could not possibly be a "monopoly" so the antitrust laws don't apply to their behavior. If the word is taken in a literal way, antitrust laws would not apply to anyone. Better to get the terminology straightened out first, is my experience.

That's why I keep that link handy and often resort to "monopoly (as defined by the FTC)."

The way Apple's hardware and OSX are handled are a lot more in lines of a monopoly than anything Amazon is doing with ebooks. Examples have been presented for the past few years now.

IJ Reilly - I think this post illustrates the point perfectly.

Too bad the majority of Apple cheerleaders here can't wrap their brain around the fact that the publishers have already been paid, and the concept of lower profit margin.

Here we go again. Anyone that that disagrees with you is completely irrational.

The publisher could give two flyingfux if you charge $.20 a book, as long as they got there $6 or whatever there wholesale price is.

Even though you are demonstrably wrong about the publishers being happy with the wholesale model.

And everyone here can't comprehend Apple isn't, hasn't and probably will never buy ONE single book which entitles them to zero in terms of having any say in price aside from the 30% Apple Tax.

And the Publishers set the price, not Apple. Not sure what you are getting at here aside from your "Apple Tax" dig.

 

[trip1ex]

anti-competitive behavior by Apple.

What is missing here is .....

Competition amongst retail. Competition that would drive the retail expenses down as much as possible until retailers operate as efficiently as possible which in turn lowers the price of an ebook for consumers as much as possible.

And books are different than games. Books take up a tiny fraction of the bandwidth of a 100mb game. So Apple's expenses are less. And thus a 30% is something that Apple shouldn't be asking for.

Not to mention the price of a book is over $10 whereas many games are a $1 or $2. IT doesn't cost Apple any more to sell a book.

That is why we need retail competition.

Apple's form of retail competition is to force monopoly type pricing under the guise of having a second ebook retailer in the marketplace being beneficial.

Bassackwards. Competition is supposed to drive pricing downwards.

Note this is a different argument than what price publishers should sell ebooks at. I think they are overpriced considering they eliminate the used book market, you can't share ebooks very easily in many cases and they cost much less to manufacture/distribute/sell.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Some of you guys might want to read this article: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57412369-37/this-is-why-doj-accused-apple-of-fixing-e-book-prices/ and see where Jobs stood on this topic. He didn't seem to care that we consumers would end up paying more, even telling the publishers that they'll get what they want this way (at our expense).

I see a lot of comments in here with the usual biases. But the root of this issue is based in the fact that some big companies got together and worked up a way to make something more expensive at the expense of the consumer. Worse, by some reports, it appears that it could have been Apple's idea or encouragement of the idea that helped it along.

If this was oil companies getting together to drive up the cost of oil/gas, we wouldn't be so quick to defend their actions. If this was pharmaceutical or food industries driving up the cost of medicine or food, we wouldn't be so quick to defend their actions either. If this was ONLY the book publishers actions resulting in higher prices for us consumers, we'd probably bash them for being "greedy crooks." (see a million "then, I'll just steal it"-type posts all over this site and others).

However, Apple is in this particular mix... so we know it can't be wrong. Defend it. Spin it. Change the topic. Argue entirely different points. Pretend that somehow the authors will be better paid... or be motivated to write more great books. Etc. Because we can never find fault with something Apple does.

The idea of capitalism-based competition is that big companies compete against each other, not conspire together. Sure, that doesn't always work (some do conspire) but when it's blatant, even the government will occasionally step in... especially when it's an election year and some politicians are looking for a little more campaign contributions from deep pockets.

 

[435713]

IJ Reilly - I think this post illustrates the point perfectly.

Reilly was stating it isn't a monopoly to most % of people if there is a choice. You don't have to use OSX, you can use Windows or a Linux flavor. Certain computing needs for myself I am sure I do that far outweigh yours made me have to use a Windows machine when I already invested a lot of $$$ in Apple software. The hardware lagged behind so far and could not possibly do what I needed. Unless I paid 3-4k for a Mac pro and of course upgraded the GPU to ACCEPTABLE standards not that 5770 BS. And then still it wouldn't do what I needed.

I wonder if Apple tomorrow announced that only the MBA would be sold as their only computer if you would back that. I doubt you would but I do wonder. They have a monopoly on their OS, that is a fact. Things should be looked into by the DOJ and the other consumer protection rights agencies around the globe. We have gotten it straight in with no lube.

 

[BaldiMac]

Some of you guys might want to read this article: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57412369-37/this-is-why-doj-accused-apple-of-fixing-e-book-prices/ and see where Jobs stood on this topic. He didn't seem to care that we consumers would end up paying more, even telling the publishers that they'll get what they want this way (at our expense).

I see a lot of comments in here with the usual biases. But the root of this issue is based in the fact that some big companies got together and worked up a way to make something more expensive at the expense of the consumer. Worse, by some reports, it appears that it could have been Apple's idea or encouragement of the idea that helped it along.

If this was oil companies getting together to drive up the cost of oil/gas, we wouldn't be so quick to defend their actions. If this was pharmaceutical or food industries driving up the cost of medicine or food, we wouldn't be so quick to defend their actions either. If this was ONLY the book publishers actions resulting in higher prices for us consumers, we'd probably bash them for being "greedy crooks." (see a million "then, I'll just steal it"-type posts all over this site and others).

However, Apple is in this particular mix... so we know it can't be wrong. Defend it. Spin it. Change the topic. Argue entirely different points. Pretend that somehow the authors will be better paid... or be motivated to write more great books. Etc. Because we can never find fault with something Apple does.

The idea of capitalism-based competition is that big companies compete against each other, not conspire together. Sure, that doesn't always work (some do conspire) but when it's blatant, even the government will occasionally step in... especially when it's an election year and some politicians are looking for a little more campaign contributions from deep pockets.

Who is actually defending collusion? If the publishers colluded, they should be found guilty. If Apple colluded with them, they should too. The problem is that the majority of the posters are arguing against the individual business practices (agency pricing, MFN clause, higher pricing) and ignoring the fact that these are legal without monopoly power or collusion among the publishers.

 

[blow45]

I agree with this point and the one above about DRM. Without going into the specifics too much, my company saw this coming years ago and started electronic distribution long before Apple and about the same time as Amazon. We also aggregated the the rest of our industry to use our site. In order to do that, most of them demanded DRM.

Once they became comfortable with selling books online, we then moved them off of DRM (very similar to how Apple did it) and into a non-DRM "Watermark". The books are distributed as non-protected PDF's, but your name and order number is placed visibly on some pages and invisibly on others. Use it on any device you want (including the iPad), but don't distribute the files with your name on it. Of course the names can be removed, but for those wanting to do the right thing, it is more effort than it is worth.

Those who want to steal will find a way around any DRM anyway. The goal is only to make it obvious to those who "inadvertently" share because they actually don't think they are doing anything wrong.

As to the other issues, a shared digital copy is difficult with a mass-printed book. Where do you put it that the code cannot be taken out of the book and used? In order to do it, you have to shrink wrap or seal the book (and who wants to buy a book they can't look inside). I suppose you could glue a CD with the book, but now you have increased your costs (and kind of crapped up your nice book) and given people an "accidentally" distributable version of your book.

We do have a service where we offer softcover books printed on demand and shipped to you. These also come with a digital copy you can download immediately because we can verify that, in fact, you ordered the book.

I actually don't blame people for downloading an digital product to match a physical version they have purchased. If only everybody were so trustworthy.

It is a little easier for us because we are a smaller company and easier to maneuver and make decisions. The big publishers have so many contracts, individual legal requirements as well as localization issues that these are hard issues for them to navigate.

FYI, not as a plug, but just because I am sure some of you are wondering what this site is, I am including a link. We sell hundreds of thousands of books a year.

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/

Thanks for your reply Chris, makes sense what you are saying and your non drm watermark/namemark scheme sounds like an intelligent and non restrictive way to enforce your copyrights. The print on demand with an ecopy sound like a very good idea too.

Having said that I think that if there's a will there's a way. I think big publishers could have come up with a scheme, such as a user code per book so purchasers could input it on the web and get their eversion too.

I am sure there are complications that I am unaware of, but still when a customer comes to the point of shelling out $200 for a book, and they have to shell almost the same amount for an e copy too, and a pdf for that matter, not even an epub as the publisher hasn't even bothered with that despite the hefty price, one starts wondering if the industry couldn't be handling its business better.

In all honesty, If I contact the publisher, and tell them look I am already paying $200 for the printed item, could I please have the e-version for say $50 and they tell me no you have to shell out another $180 for it, what stops me from going behind a vpn and sharing the file left right and center so I make sure that no one has to pay another $180 for the e-version, and in the process also making sure that a lot of people don't even pay the $200 for the printed book either? Fear of the law and my common decency. If the first is not much of an issue what with the internet being what it is, why should the latter be a deterrent since the publisher's common decency is non-existent for having me pay twice for the e-version?

 

[BaldiMac]

Reilly was stating it isn't a monopoly to most % of people if there is a choice. You don't have to use OSX, you can use Windows or a Linux flavor. Certain computing needs that I am sure I do that far outweigh yours made me have to use a Windows machine when I already invested a lot of $$$ in Apple software. The hardware lagged behind so far and could not possibly do what I needed. Unless I paid 3-4k for a Mac pro and of course upgraded the GPU to ACCEPTABLE standards not that 5770 BS.

I wonder if Apple tomorrow announced that only the MBA would be sold as their only computer if you would bad that. I doubt you would but I do wonder. They have a monopoly on their OS, that is a fact. Things should be looked into by the DOJ and the other consumer protection rights agencies around the globe. We have gotten it straight in with no lube.

Sure, but his larger point is that a monopoly (as you used the term) is not illegal. The Psystar case clearly illustrated that your antitrust claims are complete BS. They were thrown out.

 

[blow45]

Who is actually defending collusion? If the publishers colluded, they should be found guilty. If Apple colluded with them, they should too. The problem is that the majority of the posters are arguing against the individual business practices (agency pricing, MFN clause, higher pricing) and ignoring the fact that these are legal without monopoly power or collusion among the publishers.

No they are not, most are arguing that apple used it's monopoly power and colluded with publishers and that's what rendered these practices illegal. No one argued that agency pricing is illegal, and please quote me one that did, or for that matter that MFN is a an illegal practice. I am waiting for a single quote. But the topic seems to make you constantly uncomfortable and you keep twisting it around.

 

[435713]

Sure, but his larger point is that a monopoly (as you used the term) is not illegal. The Psystar case clearly illustrated that your antitrust claims are complete BS. They were thrown out.

Damn you quoted me before I could fix my errors. I knew it would happen

After the Mac Pro gets axed and the eventual airification of everything, I would call it a brand new ball game for a case. I'm glad I had money to absorb the hit at least, others had to deal with some serious hoop jumping. But it is wandering way off topic, so my bad, I like to hit the cage occasionally.

 

[blow45]

Only if the publishers colluded to implement these prices.

You know damn well that 4 out of the 6, or so publishers have already settled. Isn't that implicit admission of guilt for colluding to implement these prices? Are you not aware of their documented by the DOJ meetings at NY restaurants? You seem to be so well informed about this case but you 've missed that out? Why do you keep misrepresenting the case here for the average mr reader who doesn't have a background in the story and doing such a disservice to everyone?

 

[Swift]

If anything is wrong here, it's Apple's insistence that publishers have to give Apple the lowest price.

That's the one area where all this does differ from apps. If Angry birds was $2 on the iPhone and $1 on Android, there's nothing Apple can do about that. They're trying to make that a rule with books, though.

The good news is, I honestly think they can (and should) drop that and it won't hurt them. Then books really will be treated like apps, which is how I think it should be. (And I think Apple will still do just fine in that world.)

I'm not 100% clear if the DOJ would agree with me at that point or if they're trying to go further. My opinion depends on that and I don't have a really clear understanding of their intentions right now.

They were merely looking at what Amazon's response would be if the agency model with low price guarantees wasn't adopted. Amazon, at the time with 90% of the e-book business, could simply start selling the books -- or give them away for free to sell Kindles.

Apple had already experienced that. When they were holding out to keep the 99c price in iTunes, while being DRM-free, Amazon suddenly turned up with mp3s, sold at varying prices, DRM-free, with the main price undercutting Apple. Only when Apple relaxed, tried the "agency model" for the record labels, did they finally get no DRM on their music. They had to let the labels have much more control of pricing.

Amazon, being 90% of the market at the time, could, if the agency model went through, simply lower their prices and thus commoditize all of literature as Kindle-fluff. They let the agencies set the price, but asked them to guarantee that they wouldn't give, oh, say, Amazon, a better price.

----------

You know damn well that 4 out of the 6, or so publishers have already settled. Isn't that implicit admission of guilt for colluding to implement these prices? Are you not aware of their documented by the DOJ meetings at NY restaurants? You seem to be so well informed about this case but you 've missed that out? Why do you keep misrepresenting the case here for the average mr reader who doesn't have a background in the story and doing such a disservice to everyone?

So, they couldn't have meetings? Why is putting a different pricing structure in place "colluding"? Especially since Apple was not going to be in control of the pricing, it was the publishers. Wait a minute: the labels insisted on control of their prices, and Apple relented. Then Apple proposes the same thing to the publishers, and that's evil?

This whole lawsuit is a wasted of taxpayer funds. Where's the harm?

 

[blow45]

anti-competitive behavior by Apple.

What is missing here is .....

Competition amongst retail. Competition that would drive the retail expenses down as much as possible until retailers operate as efficiently as possible which in turn lowers the price of an ebook for consumers as much as possible.

And books are different than games. Books take up a tiny fraction of the bandwidth of a 100mb game. So Apple's expenses are less. And thus a 30% is something that Apple shouldn't be asking for.

Not to mention the price of a book is over $10 whereas many games are a $1 or $2. IT doesn't cost Apple any more to sell a book.

That is why we need retail competition.

Apple's form of retail competition is to force monopoly type pricing under the guise of having a second ebook retailer in the marketplace being beneficial.

Bassackwards. Competition is supposed to drive pricing downwards.

Note this is a different argument than what price publishers should sell ebooks at. I think they are overpriced considering they eliminate the used book market, you can't share ebooks very easily in many cases and they cost much less to manufacture/distribute/sell.

Exactly, one of the voices of reason here. And I ll that to that that's it's preposterous to demand 30% app store type cuts, when they are providing zero development tools (as in ios) and are doing zero quality control or testing on the book itself as in the app store, and when the average book price as you said is much higher. And oh well "the customer will pay a little more but that's what you (the publishers) want anyway" (SJ), so let's fix the prices at the same level or higher than the much costlier print books, and "throw in with apple and see if we can make a go at creating a mainstream ebook market" (SJ), while we at apple sit on our ass, have a store front that costs us virtually nothing upon our current server infrastructure ready to accept ratings and reviews, a store which we do almost nothing to manage cause it's not like we'll be competing with anyone and calculating what cost we should sell what product, we at apple will take it nice and easy and for every click to buy, and 30% cut, here come another $4-7 our way... Very convenient....

----------

[/COLOR]

So, they couldn't have meetings? Why is putting a different pricing structure in place "colluding"? Especially since Apple was not going to be in control of the pricing, it was the publishers. Wait a minute: the labels insisted on control of their prices, and Apple relented. Then Apple proposes the same thing to the publishers, and that's evil?

This whole lawsuit is a wasted of taxpayer funds. Where's the harm?

Absolutely nowhere. And 4/6 publishers have settled for nothing. If you haven't got it by now where the harm is I am sorry I can't reiterate the whole thread to you, as well as a bunch of other threads on the topic.

 

[Penooker]

This statement implies that Apple does this.
What product does Apple sell that's cheap?
I don't think Apple has ever sold a product below cost, in fact they are known for high margins. So...?

Competitive price =/= Cheap =/= below cost.

iTunes tracks were priced competitively when they started. There was quite the brouhaha back then because the music titans didn't like tracks were available by themselves, and that the popular ones were priced at the same point. Ironic, how Amazon was essentially doing with eBooks what Apple did with music.

More recently, their MacBook Air's have been competitive on the price front. Previous generation MBA's, along with equiavlent competitors like X300 and X301, were twice the price. I switched to a Mac purely based on the price competitiveness of the MBA.

 

[samcraig]

Gordon Crovitz isn't hearing the case. His opinion is irrelevant to the outcome.

 

[Penooker]

Apple had already experienced that. When they were holding out to keep the 99c price in iTunes, while being DRM-free, Amazon suddenly turned up with mp3s, sold at varying prices, DRM-free, with the main price undercutting Apple. Only when Apple relaxed, tried the "agency model" for the record labels, did they finally get no DRM on their music. They had to let the labels have much more control of pricing.

Amazon, being 90% of the market at the time, could, if the agency model went through, simply lower their prices and thus commoditize all of literature as Kindle-fluff. They let the agencies set the price, but asked them to guarantee that they wouldn't give, oh, say, Amazon, a better price.


So what you're saying is that Amazon keeps driving prices lower, and this is bad because it means Apple can't get market share? Lol, yep this is horrible. I mean, how is iTunes movie rentals suppose to succeed when Netflix can offer flat fees. So, of course, Apple is right to engineer an agreement that kills of their competitor's strengths.

 

[benpatient]

This really isn't like selling Angry birds for 1$ on iTunes and 2$ on Android. When you buy an ebook from someone else, you can read it on your iDevices as well, whereas you cannot play an Android game on iOS. So I don't see why any publisher at all would be forced to sell any book on iBooks store if it doesn't suit them.

I guess I missed the part where iBooks was on Android devices now?

 

[drorpheus]

Here we go again. Anyone that that disagrees with you is completely irrational.

Do you even read what you are arguing? Yeah it clearly applys here as well, you are failing to comprehend that the publisher has already been paid, as in he's gotten all they were looking to get in terms of their side of the deal (payment for the books purchased at the cost set BY THE PUBLISHING HOUSE)

Even though you are demonstrably wrong about the publishers being happy with the wholesale model.

They've seemed to have no problem with it for the last 30-40 yrs, Your the one who seems to think that Apple's model is the only way to sell anything, which results in a 30% mark up in price to cover the Apple Tax or a 30% decrease in profit from picking up the Apple Tax for the consumer, no one except Apple benefits from Apple's pricing model, how do you not comprehend that?

And the Publishers set the price, not Apple. Not sure what you are getting at here aside from your "Apple Tax" dig.

Exactly if you read it over again you can put together exactly what I was getting at, Apple is not a bookstore, they dont purchase any books in any capacity, so being that you dont purchase any books the validity of you arguing that you have the power/name recognition to set higher prices across an entire industry which you play little to no part in is assinine, feel free not to read the emails that couldnt be more clear no matter how much you love Apple.

 

[Scott6666]

Some of you guys might want to read this article: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57412369-37/this-is-why-doj-accused-apple-of-fixing-e-book-prices/ and see where Jobs stood on this topic. He didn't seem to care that we consumers would end up paying more, even telling the publishers that they'll get what they want this way (at our expense).

I see a lot of comments in here with the usual biases. But the root of this issue is based in the fact that some big companies got together and worked up a way to make something more expensive at the expense of the consumer. Worse, by some reports, it appears that it could have been Apple's idea or encouragement of the idea that helped it along.

If this was oil companies getting together to drive up the cost of oil/gas, we wouldn't be so quick to defend their actions. If this was pharmaceutical or food industries driving up the cost of medicine or food, we wouldn't be so quick to defend their actions either. If this was ONLY the book publishers actions resulting in higher prices for us consumers, we'd probably bash them for being "greedy crooks." (see a million "then, I'll just steal it"-type posts all over this site and others).

However, Apple is in this particular mix... so we know it can't be wrong. Defend it. Spin it. Change the topic. Argue entirely different points. Pretend that somehow the authors will be better paid... or be motivated to write more great books. Etc. Because we can never find fault with something Apple does.

The idea of capitalism-based competition is that big companies compete against each other, not conspire together. Sure, that doesn't always work (some do conspire) but when it's blatant, even the government will occasionally step in... especially when it's an election year and some politicians are looking for a little more campaign contributions from deep pockets.

Exactly. Well said.

Simple logic here folks. Before Apple got involved, I paid $9.99 to Amazon all the time. INSTANTLY, after Apple got involved I pay $13, $15, or more. The cause and effect could not be more clear and had NOTHING to do with any kind of market forces. Markets move more randomly than this. This was clearly orchestrated by someone.

Hmmm, now which deceased mogul could have the influence to move the market players so simultaneously and precisely? That's a quandary...

This is the legal equivalent of "duck typing" in programming. Look it up.

 

[firewood]

If Amazon was willing to discount ebooks, this could only benefit the consumers.

Not necessarily. If Borders or Amazon or Walmart were wiling to discount product sufficient to drive all the local downtown shops out of business, this would be of zero benefit to those consumers who preferred shopping at those local shops. Especially after the local Borders itself goes under after all the other local bookstores are long gone.

 

[Rocketman]

Okay I have read most of the posts in this thread. I agree the article was weak and it was interesting to read IJ's take on things.

Apple's revenues are many times the revenues from books even if they grow beyond imagination. It is a tiny fraction of their sales. The 30% margin is a strategy such that whatever sales they do get don't negatively impact their margins they report to investors. That said.

Apple has a strategy of having a variety of content so more people buy their devices so when they use them on carriers they also pay Apple for bringing them heavy non-price sensitive users.

The content such as music, movies, books, whatever else, is a way to make the platform more compelling. That's it.

But Apple has been more "holistic" than that. It wants its developers, and other content producers to make outsized profit margins and be able to set the pricing that makes sense for them.

And it's working!

Whatever DOJ does I hope they don't break that. It would be typical of government to enforce and entrap and extort when the real path to greatness is a small edit to any laws that are behind the times. Laws aren't perfect, but people are supposed to have more rights than government. That is not what happens today.

That is a little L liberal position.

Rocketman

 

[AidenShaw]

horrible title

Instead of

"How Apple's Agency Model for Publishers Fails to Merit Collusion Charges"​

why not

"Why Apple's Agency Model for Publishers Might Fail to Merit Collusion Charges"​

????

The underlying topic is a legal issue that will play itself out in the courts - instead of blindly adopting one side - MR should use topics that are more balanced, and won't make them look stupid if Apple loses.

 

[Fandongo]

You're right, consumers should decide.
Being such, you must allow other services a chance to compete on your hardware.
Amazon app store pre-installed for iphone/pad.
itunes is a million times more oppressive and totalitarian than windows coming packaged with internet explorer...

Edit: and of course, Kindle should support itunes

 

[Mystic386]

The way I see this whole thing is a little simpler.

Amazon held the publishers over a barrel and screwed them. Hard. No one likes being done over by a large business in a near monopoly position.

Apple came along and said we'd like to sell your product. We don't want to be the sort of corporate that holds you over a barrel so we'd like to go to a basis where you set the price. Now that makes sense. As an author I don't want to be tied to a low price point if I feel my work has value. The publishers breathed a collective sigh of relief and took the deal with open arms. At the same time telling the business that screwed them where to go.

The government has waltzed in and announced that they have an issue with the second deal forgetting that the first deal wasn't market lead but monopolistic abuse.

Personally I like the current situation even if I pay more. The screwing down prices and destroying all businesses to ensure a monopolistic position isn't healthy.

Amazon dictated a price point for Amazon. Lets face it Apple can run the same deal but then it's still screwing publishers and authors. It would be no skin of Apple's nose to run with the low price range. It just seems an unfair monopolistic approach. Apple said no.

 

[macthetiger85]

This statement implies that Apple does this.
What product does Apple sell that's cheap?
I don't think Apple has ever sold a product below cost, in fact they are known for high margins. So...?

Competitive price =/= Cheap =/= below cost.

iTunes tracks were priced competitively when they started. There was quite the brouhaha back then because the music titans didn't like tracks were available by themselves, and that the popular ones were priced at the same point. Ironic, how Amazon was essentially doing with eBooks what Apple did with music.

More recently, their MacBook Air's have been competitive on the price front. Previous generation MBA's, along with equiavlent competitors like X300 and X301, were twice the price. I switched to a Mac purely based on the price competitiveness of the MBA.

Hey you're right - If you see my previous posts I talked about the issues with Apple and the record companies how there is a good bit of control.
Personally, I don't think Apple is in the wrong here. But I'm not naive to think that they've always been in the right. Most people on this site seem to be naive to think Appl is always in the wrong or always in the right. I'm speaking on this situation alone. In this case, my opinion is they're not acting illegally. Fortunately, it's not my decision and it seems like it will be a jury of Apple's peers. (Bill Gates and Zuck from FB?)