Apple Fires Back At DoJ Over eBook Price Fixing 311
An anonymous reader writes "CNN takes a look at Apple's response to the Department of Justice's investigation into eBook price fixing. The filing 'cuts the government's case to shreds' while at the same time not bothering to defend the five publishers also under investigation. Apple said, 'The Government starts from the false premise (PDF) that an eBooks "market" was characterized by "robust price competition" prior to Apple's entry. This ignores a simple and incontrovertible fact: before 2010, there was no real competition, there was only Amazon. At the time Apple entered the market, Amazon sold nearly nine out of every ten eBooks, and its power over price and product selection was nearly absolute.'"
Re:A lot of words (Score:5, Interesting)
That's a lot of words that don't change the fact that virtually every eBook you could ever want to buy costs more now than it did before Apple entered the market, which is the actual problem that the DOJ case intended to address.
Except that if you actually read the words, they claim the exact opposite. I have no data to offer about their claims, but you haven't offered any either. In fact, you seem to be offering what the DOJ offered, anecdotes involving the prices of a tiny number of books, with no analysis at all of the overall market.
And remember, Apple exerts almost zero (the exception being the so-called "most favored nation" clause) control over book prices.
Re:A lot of words (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately I think the argument that Apple itself isn't responsible will probably be considered true in the end. The book publishers on the other hand can, and should, still get nailed to the wall. Charging as much for an ebook as a physical book is completely off-base. You still have to make the money back on editors, artwork, advertisement, etc., but the physical print, transportation, and storage costs should cause those books to be discounted a good amount. As it is, much of the time you can buy a print edition cheaper than an eBook version on new releases...
Apple certainly deserves some of the blame, but I just can't see the DOJ managing to make it stick against them in this case.
Small publishers needed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:A lot of words (Score:5, Interesting)
The DOJ will demolish Apple's filing by saying, "That means 1 in 10 ebooks were not sold in Amazon, but on other magazine and book websites. So there was a healthy market of multiple e-stores competing with one another to lower the prices of this product, until Apple arrived on the scene and colluded with the publishers to engage in price-fixing" --- When the record companies tried this with CD sales, the case found Walmart was part of the collusion, and just as guilty of the crime. Same applies to Apple mart.
Re:I only download free books (Score:5, Interesting)
It's harmful to pay for books?
Oxford Comma matters (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I only download free books (Score:5, Interesting)
I want you to lose. I think that authors deserve to earn a decent living. So I'll keep buying books and supporting authors I enjoy.
Re:I only download free books (Score:2, Interesting)
No, they don't. A writer must sell a great many books to earn a good living; this can be done by writing books you do not like, but it cannot be done by a horrible writer. If you think you've read a published book by a horrible author, then you haven't seen the stuff they're rejecting.
Re:A lot of words (Score:5, Interesting)
Before iBooks, I bought a lot of stuff from Ereader.com, and here are some of my comparisons (in GBP)
Revelation [Mass Effect Series Book 1] £2.99 - iTunes price £4.99
Ascension [Mass Effect Series Book 2] £2.99 - iTunes price £4.99
Pandoras Star £4.99 - iTunes price £8.99
Judas Unchained £4.99 - iTunes price £8.99
Those examples were purchased in 2008, the iTunes prices are right now. I could go rough the other 50 or so books I purchased if you wish?
None of the purchases I made on Ereader are currently available for new purchase - I can still download my purchased copies under my account, but you couldn't buy them now.
I think the DOJ have a fairly decent case here.
Re:A lot of words (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't intend to waste my time pulling up research to prove what is already obvious to me. I've been buying ebooks for years. Before the agency model, books were cheap. After it, they were not. Every single book on my 100+ book wishlist on Amazon that has the prices set by the publisher (agency model) is $10+; every single book on my 100+ book wishlist on Amazon that has the prices set by Amazon (pre-agency model) is $7 or less. These are all full length books, and most either literary classics or science fiction.
The DOJ and Apple can headbutt each other in court to actuall prove the claim, but I don't need to do so to know why I would side with.
Re:A lot of words (Score:5, Interesting)
Amazon wasn't as much dictating more reasonable prices (for your definition of "reasonable") as "selling at below cost" [salon.com] to build a dominant market position.
Besides, one vendor being able to dictate prices in the market is hardly seen as a healthy market.
Important Dates (Score:4, Interesting)
Sept 2006 Sony releases the PRS-500 e-ink ereader.
Nov 2007 Amazon releases the Kindle and begins marketing it on Amazon.com to its large book buying customer base.
Nov 2009 Barnes and Noble, Amazons primary competitor, releases the Nook two years after the Kindle. It receives good reviews. B&N starts marketing the device in B&N stores to its millions of customers.
Mar 2009 Amazon releases the Kindle app for IPhone (app would later work on IPad)
April 2010 Apple releases the IPad with IBooks three years after the release of the Kindle and 1 year after the release of the Kindle app. The Agency model replaces the wholesale model.
July 2010 Borders starts selling the Kobo ereader three years after the release of the Kindle
Oct 2011 Borders goes into bankruptcy. Kobo survives and still sells books under the Agency model.
So saying there was no competition is strictly true. With the exception of Sony, Amazon did not have any competition for 2 to 3 years. So of course it gained 90% market share. And of course that market share went down after B&N started selling the Nook. If you look at current market share it is similar to Amazons share in 2006. Amazon in #1 and B&N is #2.
Re:A lot of words (Score:5, Interesting)
Copyright is not a free market and filing antitrust suits over pricing or price collusion is specious
This misunderstanding is at the heart of the matter. Copyrights grant a monopoly (and therefore the right to engage in monopoly pricing) to the copyright holder for that specific work. The fact that a work is copyrighted does not grant monopoly rights to everyone else in the production chain, nor does it allow monopoly pricing for all books. I.e. you can say "this work which I own, I only make available to bookstores and re-sellers for $20". But the publishers cannot collude together and say "All books that *we* collectively own are only available for $20", nor can the bookstores and re-sellers collude to charge a fixed premium over what they pay publishers. The bookstore does not hold any copyrights, and no individual publisher holds all copyrights. So a general increase in the price of *all* books without any corresponding increase in marginal costs, prices paid to authors, or input prices is pretty good evidence of illegal collusion, irrespective of whether any individual book is copyrighted.
So what you have here are two illegal practices:
* publishers colluding with each other to charge high prices. They should be competing with each other, setting only the prices for the works that they (individually) hold copyrights over. Then if they charge too much for sci-fi author A, you can go to publisher B who holds sci-fi author B's copyrights. If B is substitutable for A, and B will be, to some extent, then a low enough price will force the publisher of A to also lower their price. When they all get together, they can set prices for all books, and this is illegal.
* Collusion on the part of the re-sellers (e.g. apple, Amazon), who hold no copyrights. Whenever anyone says, "I will charge a fixed markup", they run the risk of being undercut by someone else who is willing to take a smaller margin. Unless the first person colludes with the (monopoly) supplier, so that whenever the competing re-seller tries to lower their markup, the supplier jacks up the price to the re-seller or refuses to supply the re-seller until the re-seller gets the message that he must charge the same fixed markup. Incidentally, this is why there were multiple lawsuits over "MSRP" -- suppliers aren't supposed to have the power to set retail prices, and retail stores need to have the right to try to undercut each other by lowering prices to the end user. But when the original good has a sole supplier, there is always the possibility of producer forcing retailers to sell for a certain price by withholding supply or charging more to those retailers that offer discounts.
Whether or not the DoJ can *prove* collusion is one thing, but looking at the behavior or prices its pretty clear that illegal collusion is occurring, this despite the fact that that books are copyrighted.
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I only download free books (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly. Consider the entire romance genre. The vast majority of them are the literary equivalent of a Happy Meal and I know many women who buy a dozen a month and blow throw them as if someone may steal it from them.
Ever read anything by V.C. Andrews? An ex-girlfriend goaded me into reading one of her books and I didn't even finish due to how fucking sick it was, and I've been reading Stephen King and similar since I was in 3rd grade. She must have really enjoyed reading about rape and sexual abuse or something...