“Walter Isaacson, the author of a bestselling book about the late Apple founder, will not have to share his notes or testify in a case about alleged price-fixing between Apple and book publishers,” Jeff John Roberts reports for paidContent. “Class action lawyers had earlier demanded that Isaacson provide evidence, based on his interviews with Steve Jobs, about why Jobs asked publishers to sell books on Apple’s iPad device. Isaacson refused to hand over his notes and invoked a New York law that allows journalists to shield their sources in many situations.”
“The Isaacson dispute comes at a time when Apple’s antitrust showdown with the Department of Justice and class action lawyers is coming to a head. While the five publishers who were also named as defendants decided to settle, Apple is rejecting the accusations that it acted as the hub for an illegal conspiracy to raise book prices and thwart Amazon,” Roberts reports. “Even though the Isaacson biography is no longer part of the case, a court transcript shows Steve Jobs will remain a central figure.”
Roberts reports, “Meanwhile, other recently filed court documents identify one recipient of a highly publicized Jobs email about Amazon and pricing — the recipient was James Murdoch, a senior executive at News Corp, parent company of HarperCollins. The other recipient(s) are still redacted.”
Read more – and see the email correspondence between Jobs and Murdoch – in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The U.S. DOJ is plainly inept. Killing real competition for the appearance of competition is just plain stupid.
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Why hasn’t James Murdoch been taken to court yet for running a corporation whose employees have been proven to bribe and blackmail foreign officials, contrary to US law?