Apple Agrees To $450 Million Ebook Antitrust Settlement 91
An anonymous reader writes: Last year, a U.S. District Judge ruled that Apple conspired with publishers to control ebook prices in violation of antitrust laws. Apple launched an appeal which has yet to conclude, but they've now agreed to a settlement. If the appeal verdict goes against Apple, they will be on the hook for $450 million, most of which will go to consumers. If they win the appeal, they'll still have to pay $70 million. $450 million is much more than the other publishers had to pay, but much less than the expected penalty from a damages trial set for August (and still only about one percent of Apple's annual profit).
Re:Fanbois (Score:5, Informative)
Regardless of what you think of Amazon and them being a monopoly, Apple colluded with publishers to raise the price of ebooks. It was anti-competitive at it's core and it's illegal under US law. Not to even mention that it cost the average US buyer $5 per book.
The only joke was that it took them more than 5 years to sue over it because everyone buying ebooks at the time noticed the dramatic $5 price increase in all books. After the Apple deal there were many ebooks that cost MORE than the paper book.
Re:LMAO (Score:4, Informative)
Setting aside Apple for the moment, there's nothing "theoretical" about Amazon engaging in actions of this sort. They've been doing it as long as Apple has, at least.
Using most favored nation clauses and the agency model, which is exactly what got Apple in trouble: http://www.selfpublishingrevie... [selfpublishingreview.com]
Leveraging their near-monopsony to try and gouge the publishers: http://www.teleread.com/ebooks... [teleread.com]
Making hard-to-implement immediate demands when the publishers pushed back: http://www.thepassivevoice.com... [thepassivevoice.com]
Delisting multiple publishers during re-negotiations: http://time.com/110412/amazon-... [time.com]
Jacking shipping times from a few days to 3-5 weeks: http://www.washingtonpost.com/... [washingtonpost.com]
The author's guild is outright accusing Amazon of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/... [nytimes.com]
Spend 30 seconds Googling around. You'll be shocked at what all Amazon has already done when it comes to this industry, and it's only been getting worse in recent years. It's like looking inside the door at a sausage factory: you'd have wished you never looked.
Re:Fines don't mean anything to them! (Score:4, Informative)
I'm going to have to go ahead and ask for a citation on that one, bro.
In 1987, the average time-served for 2nd degree murder in Florida was 6.8 years [state.fl.us]. That is more than five, but that is the average, so many murders served less time. Sentences are much more than that, but "time served" is, on average, only 60% of the original sentence, and in many cases, less than half. Plenty of other states have a reputation for more lenient sentencing than Florida, and more lenient parole boards.
Re:Fanbois (Score:3, Informative)
the whole point of Apple's ebook efforts was to provide a bulwark against the Amazon Ultron-like eater-of-worlds mopolistic behavior.
It was replacing one monopoly with another, in fact the Apple case was worse because it was Apple setting the baseline price and forcing publishers to sell at or above that price, Amazon did not collude with publishers to create a cartel like Apple tried to do.
The Amazon situation is bad, but Apple's cartel was worse.