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U.S. Department of Justice Sues Apple and Publishers over E-Book Pricing
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Labor unions are explicitly exempted from antitrust law, because otherwise they would be illegal. Their entire purpose for existing is to drive up the price of labor and while also excluding competition from non-union labor.
Yeah, they're REALLY good at that.
You know such great decisions as letting greedy corporations spend unlimited money on elections to make sure the common (majority) interests are completely overwhelmed by big business and big money. The top 1% wage earners control 42% of the world's wealth and the top 10% wage earners combined control 93% of the world's wealth. That leaves the other 80% of the planet with around 7%. And it's only getting WORSE as time goes on because the laws are now set up to favor the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer and the Middle Class paying the largest percentage of total income as taxes when sales taxes are figured in.
The rich like to say they pay the most total taxes, but the part they like to leave out is how much total income they have coming in. Paying 35% of 100 million still leaves you with 65 MILLION dollars to play with, a figure that someone making minimum wage at WalMart or McDonalds cannot even comprehend! But they're still HOPPING MAD that they have to pay ANY taxes what-so-ever when they'll never have to worry about missing a meal in their entire lives. It makes me sick. It should make you sick too.
With great power comes great responsibility. Well, I don't see any responsibility at the top. You have FORCE them to create safe working conditions. You have to FORCE them to pay a living wage. You have to FORCE them to safeguard the environment. You have to FORCE them to do the ethical thing almost every single time because left unchecked, they'd rape the planet, steal all your money and then force you into perpetual servitude forever (look up serf). Education would be for the rich only so you can't possibly get out of your situation.
They had this level of control for over a thousand years in the Middle Ages and it seems to me that is EXACTLY where they want to take us once again. They badmouth organized labor for trying to collectively defend itself against their greed and spin the facts into oblivion in the process. They perpetually lie and make false promises to get elected and spend MILLIONS to get a job paying a tiny tiny fraction of that so they can rewrite the laws in their favor and ensure their kind keeps all their money. They play on your sympathy for issues like abortion then don't actually do anything about it when they get into office and blame the other side instead. It's because they don't really give a crap. It's just another way to get votes.
The SAD SAD part of it all is most people have NO CLUE. They are too busy wolfing down high cholesterol fat burgers at the local golden arches and texting their friends to stay informed on what's going on in their own government and too busy or too disenfranchised to vote (or think change doesn't happen fast enough, so they vote the other side back in that caused the problem in the first place and it only gets WORSE).
Good call on the economic illiteracy of posters here, but you have simply doubled-down on it.
First, monopolies are not illegal. Antitrust laws in reality have nothing to do with monopolies, which if property defined, rarely exist in any event. Second, antitrust laws are designed to protect commerce, not to either prevent or regulate monopolies, or to "regulate" the economy. These are all red herring arguments. Given the realities, your entire "ethical" argument simply evaporates.
I know, some pine for the mid-19th century, when everything was peachy. Maybe you should shoe up your horse and ride back into it.
I really do think that the intent was to make textbooks more affordable. But unfortunately, to do that Apple locked the publishers into their proprietary format for the iBook Store. I wouldn't be surprised if other publishers who didn't join with Apple released their own ePub textbooks at similar price points. The ePub books could work on all mobile devices. Eventually, I think everyone would win (especially the students). But now we may never know....
First, Only Amazon and the publishers know what's sold at a loss.
The notion that "at a lower price, consumers buy more" may or may not be true, depending on the price, the quality, availability and a myriad of other factors, including popularity. Otherwise the Yugo would have been a success.
sue The Feds!!
The gov. is hurting for money, so they just want to get on all the success and action that Apple has been having lately, any way they can!
I say the gov. is colluding on all of us, as being the only place that is allowed to pass federal laws. ha ha Let's sue them!!
The gov. is hurting for money, so they just want to get on all the success and action that Apple has been having lately, any way they can!
I say the gov. is colluding on all of us, as being the only place that is allowed to pass federal laws. ha ha Let's sue them!!
What goes around, comes around. Apple and the publishers have been taking the consumer for a fool for too long on this issue. Sorry Apple, I'm with the DoJ on this one.
How electronic books can be priced the same (or higher) than physical products which incur greater manufacture and delivery costs is beyond me. Forget all this rubbish about server and file distribution costs, they're negligible compared to physical products.
It's all been a smokescreen for a way to claw back some of the revenues that have been lost to the king of the eBook distributors, Amazon.
How electronic books can be priced the same (or higher) than physical products which incur greater manufacture and delivery costs is beyond me. Forget all this rubbish about server and file distribution costs, they're negligible compared to physical products.
It's all been a smokescreen for a way to claw back some of the revenues that have been lost to the king of the eBook distributors, Amazon.
I didn't articulate my point very well. yes you are right there is a reason they are exempt from antitrust laws. Much for the same reason I side with the publishers in this case (collusion or no collusion) In this case the publishers are acting much like a work in that they are creating a product, but are not the ones who sell it. The business (Amazon) is saying well we don't want to pay you a fair price and since if you don't sell to us you will go out of business that much faster too bad for you. Again like a union if one company / person stands up and says fine I won't sell to you for that it is easy to dispose of the one, but when all the people making the product stand up and say we have had enough then something can change. my whole point is that publishers have been the ones getting squeezed for years and this was all that could be done. This is a case that a strict adherence to the law is neither justified nor productive for anyone. In the end everyone but Amazon will suffer for this.
Antitrust laws exist to protect consumers, not competitors. Competition is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
The fact that not just Apple, but also Macmillan and Pearson appear to want to fight this case also is telling. Settling is easy.
Antitrust laws exist to protect consumers, not competitors. Competition is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
How can you sue over what somebody is charging for a product? Isn't that something the seller decides?
You tell those big bad evil businesses Gov't! I'm pretty sure that if people cared enough about the current e-book prices, they'd lower them. The truth of the matter is, if you want to read a book, you'll pay for it, otherwise, you wont. The prices are not outrageous and they're well within people's impulse purchase threshold. Should the prices be lower? Perhaps, but I don't see how that's the jurisdiction of the feds.
EDIT: For those who disagree, you need to learn how this country's supposed to work. The states are supposed to deal with most of this ****. The fed's role is mostly to fund a military and support/regulate interstate commerce... Generating lawsuits over E-Book pricing is just not something they should be doing, leave that to the states. People just don't learn about this sort of thing these days...
EDIT: For those who disagree, you need to learn how this country's supposed to work. The states are supposed to deal with most of this ****. The fed's role is mostly to fund a military and support/regulate interstate commerce... Generating lawsuits over E-Book pricing is just not something they should be doing, leave that to the states. People just don't learn about this sort of thing these days...
who cares?
Suing Apple seems a bit over the top. But more to the point, why are consumers so hot for iBooks anyway? I took one look at the prices and EULA, and said no way.
I'll stick to borrowing from my library and buying directly from the publisher/author when I can. It's the same with my music and videos, I simply do not agree with the way Apple manages the content, and I have zero interest in purchasing from them.
Suing Apple seems a bit over the top. But more to the point, why are consumers so hot for iBooks anyway? I took one look at the prices and EULA, and said no way.
I'll stick to borrowing from my library and buying directly from the publisher/author when I can. It's the same with my music and videos, I simply do not agree with the way Apple manages the content, and I have zero interest in purchasing from them.
The analysis in Update #4 is very interesting: http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/11/2...k-price-fixing-case-against-apple-an-analysis
From the analysis it seems the DoJ has plenty of evidence including mails and phone records to back up its claims.
From the analysis it seems the DoJ has plenty of evidence including mails and phone records to back up its claims.
I think there needs to be a big picture look at the sale and regulation of anything in digital form. When physical products are sold at an extreme loss by a store to drive traffic, it doesn't kill all other stores because people have to decide whether they want to visit the store that may be far away from where they normally shop. Some people would find it worth the trip, others wouldn't. Now you can shop anywhere in the world from the comfort of your home so there's no natural limitation of the massive effect of selling products continuously at a loss.
With perfect digital copies, there is no reason to pay more than the lowest price you can find so it's too easy to abuse the free market system and run the content providers into the ground. When you get people selling, say, web design services for super low prices it makes life more difficult for web designers who charge reasonable prices but at least there's a chance the customer will see the lower quality and go to a real designer.
Even Walmart almost put Tupperware out of business by demanding lower and lower prices in order to be in their massive monopoly of stores. Movie and music studios have to provide specially-edited versions of their content in order to sell at Walmart. Don't complain about jobs going to China if you're ok with prices getting ridiculously low because huge retailers are forcing prices lower. And don't complain about the quality of books getting lower because people self-publish and don't hire editors to find all their mistakes. Without a publisher providing promotion for self-publishers, I don't know how they would possibly make money at it unless they were famous people. Do you really only want books written by Kardashians?
No, that's a common misperception. The Sherman and Clayton acts, which between them make up the heart of U.S. antitrust law, protect competition as a means of promoting commerce. They prohibit restraints on trade, and trade is what companies do, not consumers. It is even arguable that the interests of consumers are retarded by antitrust laws.
Settling may or may not be easy, but it is wise.
The antitrust laws protect competition by addressing barriers to trade. Whether competition is a means to anything other than the betterment of commerce is beside the point.
It doesn't matter who will own the ebooks market. Be it Amazon, or Apple, or whatever comes, physical bookstores are going the way of the dodo anyway. That's not something new, iTunes already did the same with physical CD stores and I doubt you consider it "making the world poorer".
Ebooks are making exactly the opposite impact. It's with old publishers that unknown writers cannot get published, they are too much a risk and you need to really select the most promising if you want to avoid too much costs on unsuccessful books.
With ebooks the publishing costs are non-existant, you can get published in 5 minutes for free. Just go on Amazon and browse a little their catalogue and you'll find a host of writers who would never have been published the old way. Just write your own short story and try to get published by one of the old publishers. They will laugh at you on your way out. Then go to either Apple or Amazon and in 5 minutes your short story will be available for sale to millions of readers.
No traditional publisher can beat that, it's game changing.
However, even if we concede that the purpose of anti-trust is to protect competitors, then it seems very odd that the DOJ is rushing to the defense of the company with 65% of the market. Ordinarily, a new entrant such as Apple is considered a good thing.
Amazon arguably is using the DOJ for the purpose of getting out of contracts it doesn't like. I have a philosophical problem with antitrust law, in general, but particularly when there is no real benefit to the consumer. People are fixating on a few dollars per book, but the real issue is Amazon's stranglehold on the market, which looks set to resume. The market had come up with a decent counter to Amazon's market power, which was to align with a newcomer who has decent brand value. The DOJ wants to upset all of that.
There is actually nothing wrong with setting a minimum price. It's often a condition for being an authorized reseller. If the content providers conclude that $12.99 is the minimum necessary for a viable market, who's the DOJ to go in and conclude that $9.99 should be the price? Let the market decide, and that market includes both producers and consumers.
I also think the DOJ is making too much of Apple's 30% commission. Content revenue is a miniscule part of Apple. They make their money selling hardware at 40% margins. Their main concern is availability of content to make the iPad compelling, and not to get a commission of $3.90 or so on a book. 30% is their standard rate for apps, videos, and music.
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I agree with you that monopolies are not illegal (the U.S. government is still operating, after all), and that proper monopolies rarely exist.
However, it's unclear what you mean by saying the purpose of anti-trust regulation is to "protect commerce" versus "regulate the economy". The bureaucrat's goal might be to "protect commerce", but they can only accomplish this by regulating the economy. Of course, being mortals with finite intelligence, DoJ bureaucrats lack the facilities necessary to "protect commerce" by interfering with it, even if their assistance were needed (in an actual free market environment, it isn't. Civil law (contract enforcement, especially) can resolve these problems.)
What's the real purpose of anti-trust legislation? Allowing failing commercial entities to handicap their competitors via legislation. As such, anti-trust legislation is designed to *prevent* competition (it's not competition unless there are winners and losers in the arena of customer choice). Basically, if you can't beat them, lobby the DoJ to eliminate their market advantage with legislation. I would prefer that we call regulation RIGulation, as that's much closer to the truth.
The DOJ always says there are real benefits to the consumer. I'm looking long-term, beyond a few dollars per book, and don't really see the benefit of the DOJ stepping in to do Amazon's negotiations for them.
I sense that the publishers were also worried about more than a few dollars per book. After all, with 7 publishers, merging would have been an easy, perhaps DOJ-compliant way of realizing sufficient cost savings to deal with Amazon's $9.99 pricing model if short-term profits were their only concern.
I'm looking long term also and I don't change any hypothetical fears for the present hurting.
And expecting the EU case
Yes, they were worried about their benefits
I agree with most all of what you say. There needs to be greater reforms in order to protect not just consumers, but creators as well. Like you said our desire for the lowest price has greatly contributed to our own downfall and lose of jobs (middle class) to China.
I find your web analogy fitting as I experience this all the time in my job doing media production. Have just one caveat though when a client decides to go with a cheaper person they often come back to me saying yea that guy didn't give us something usable can you please help us, but ummm oh yea since we already spent x dollars on this we can only pay you y which I know is alot less than what you told us it would cost, but you should still do it for us anyway. sorry that gets me angry
Media Companies Know Their End Is Coming
It is strange that the book, music, and video industry are still charging prices set when the industry had to cover material costs, shipping, warehousing, and retail costs . Now, renting/owning boils down to a downloading a digital copy of a "master" media file. There are none of the old costs.
Yet the pricing models haven't changed much at all despite elimination of all the costs associated with physical media. For example, to rent/buy a movie on iTunes costs about the same (or more) as what you'd pay the old local video store. Same thing with iTunes "album" costs vs old CD costs. And the cost of an eBook is the same or higher than to buy a real book. Something is not right.
The book, music, and film companies are dinosaurs and are charging dinosaur pricing. They are ripe to fall....and when it comes...they will be gone in the blink of an eye. And it will because of their own greed. The revolution that happened with Apps resulted in MUCH lower prices for Apps but the good App companies ended up making MORE money, not less. A similar revolution needed to happen with media and media pricing, but did not.
Art really boils down to the content creators (artists) and content consumers (the public/fans). There is no longer any value added by having legions of parasitic middle men who add nothing to the equation except the cost to "live in the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed".
I say .... good riddance and the sooner the better.
It is strange that the book, music, and video industry are still charging prices set when the industry had to cover material costs, shipping, warehousing, and retail costs . Now, renting/owning boils down to a downloading a digital copy of a "master" media file. There are none of the old costs.
Yet the pricing models haven't changed much at all despite elimination of all the costs associated with physical media. For example, to rent/buy a movie on iTunes costs about the same (or more) as what you'd pay the old local video store. Same thing with iTunes "album" costs vs old CD costs. And the cost of an eBook is the same or higher than to buy a real book. Something is not right.
The book, music, and film companies are dinosaurs and are charging dinosaur pricing. They are ripe to fall....and when it comes...they will be gone in the blink of an eye. And it will because of their own greed. The revolution that happened with Apps resulted in MUCH lower prices for Apps but the good App companies ended up making MORE money, not less. A similar revolution needed to happen with media and media pricing, but did not.
Art really boils down to the content creators (artists) and content consumers (the public/fans). There is no longer any value added by having legions of parasitic middle men who add nothing to the equation except the cost to "live in the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed".
I say .... good riddance and the sooner the better.