"We know we did nothing wrong" whatthefuckever.federal appeals court Tuesday let stand a 2013 lower court ruling that concluded Apple conspired with several top book publishers to raise e-book prices. The Justice Department had accused Apple of unfairly taking control of a nascent market that had been dominated by Amazon.com.
Judges from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York split on the decision 2-1.
U.S. reportedly warns Apple, e-book publishers about price-fixing
U.S. reportedly warns Apple, e-book publishers about price-fixing
In a 117-page decision, Judge Debra Ann Livingston wrote that Apple pressured publishers to band together to prevent price drops for books, both electronic and print. Apple had leveraged publisher frustration with Amazon’s $9.99 per book pricing on its Kindle reader as a bargaining chip, she said.
The publishers then “combined forces to grab control over price,” she wrote, referring to five of the “Big Six” publishers -- Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Hachette.
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“A coordinated effort to raise prices across the relevant market was present in every chapter of this story,” she added.
The story began with Apple’s 2010 launch of the iPad, a tablet that marketed its selection of e-books as a prominent feature. Until then, Amazon’s Kindle, released in 2007, had dominated the e-book market, accounting for 90% of all e-book sales within two years. Amazon sold many new releases and bestsellers at close to or lower than wholesale prices.
Apple agrees to a $400-million settlement over e-book price fixing
Apple agrees to a $400-million settlement over e-book price fixing
Publishers considered this practice a threat to their business model, Livingston said, and became determined to overcome it with the help of Apple, the newcomer eager for a foothold in the market. After negotiating attractive contracts with Apple, the publishers went to Amazon with demands for sweeter deals. Prices for iPad books could be set as high as $19.99.
Apple now may be ordered to pay $400 million to consumers, complying with a 2014 settlement of a class-action lawsuit brought by 33 states and territories.
Judge Raymond J. Lohier, in concurring with Livingston, said Apple and the publishers committed “corporate bullying” by teaming up against Amazon.
But Judge Dennis Jacobs disagreed, writing in a 38-page dissent that Apple joined with publishers as the only way to force a lower barrier to the e-book industry.
“No one publisher alone could counter Amazon,” he wrote. “Apple’s conduct … was unambiguously and overwhelmingly procompetitive.”
Apple disagreed with the ruling and denied that it fixed e-book prices.
“While we want to put this behind us, the case is about principles and values,” the company said in a statement Tuesday. “We know we did nothing wrong back in 2010 and are assessing next steps.”
The ruling on this case has cost us a bit of potential revenue and will continue to do so on the publishing side of things. But as a consumer of books and a proponent of reasonable pricing, I'm glad they got jammed up on this scheme, because it's classic big business bullshit of either monopolizing or rigging a market to force a price point and fuck the consumers. They got hit with a market disruption that broke their old model and chose to collude rather than compete, essentially.
Considering what a bunch of crooks traditional publishing is, I'm pretty happy with anything that gives their shorts a bit of a yank.
At the heart of this case was the simple fact that the oldheads of traditional publishing saw ebooks as fluffery for geeks and operated under the notion that the (extortionate, overpriced) vehicle of hardcovers and trade paperbacks would continue to be their primary cash cow.* Amazon dropping prices on new releases down to ten bucks while hardcover new releases were clocking in at thirty was drawing away from that revenue stream.
That's called evolution, assholes.
That isn't to say Amazon is full of angels and kittens, but I do tend to side more with consumer-oriented businesses and Amazon slops a bit more in that direction. There's plenty on the business side that I don't care for with them, but they're more workable at the moment.
* You have twenty dollar TPBs, Josh! Why yes, yes we do. They're also priced at the next nearest 99 cents above minimum cost level from Createspace, which has a lot to do with producing big fat books that can be used to club your foeman to death in a pinch, because I fucking care about my readers and want them to never be without a weapon in case something goes awry. Starting with B4 we probably will be bumping it up a little bit, not for reason of profitability (TPB sales spike briefly on release and then dive through the toilet because they serve the twin purpose of providing a bit of hardcopy for friends and family and people who want autographed books and also as a loss leader for the epubs) but rather for strategic purposes in terms of getting listed properly in a couple of the big distro catalogues, which is another subject that would take several paragraphs to hash out.
