“For Apple, the e-book ruling Wednesday could significantly affect the way its iTunes group does business going forward,” Ian Sherr reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“The company is widely known for its aggressive negotiating efforts with all manner of media companies, not just book publishers,” Sherr reports. “Now that the Justice Department has notched one of its strongest antitrust victories in a decade against Apple, it can closely watch the company’s other businesses.”
Sherr reports, “David Balto, a former policy director at the Federal Trade Commission… said the court could require Apple to keep records of its communications with media partners and allow the government to peer into them whenever they sense trouble. In the end, he said, that could mean upsetting Apple’s other agreements with music and movie makers, where it also uses most-favored-nation clauses.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If the whole fiasco holds up when appealed in a higher court presided over by competent judge, that is. Big “If.”
Also, none of this means diddly-squat if the next U.S. administration focuses on supporting U.S. businesses instead of tearing them down over specious claims from monopoly abusers run by little whiny bitches.
Related articles:
Judge Denise Cote likely wrote most of her U.S.A. v. Apple ebooks case decision before the trial – July 10, 2013
U.S.A. v. Apple: NY judge rules Apple colluded to fix ebook prices, led illegal conspiracy, violated U.S. antitrust laws – July 10, 2013
In U.S.A. v. Apple e-books case, witness Barnes & Noble VP Theresa Horner was everything Apple could hope for – June 19, 2013
The Apple e-books trial takes a detour into the absurd – June 18, 2013
Steve Jobs, Winnie the Pooh and the iBookstore Launch – June 17, 2013
Apple set to present its defense in e-book antitrust case – June 17, 2013
Steve Jobs was initially opposed to entering the e-book market – June 14, 2013
U.S.A. v. Apple: DOJ’s last best chance in e-book case has passed – June 14, 2013
Obama admin trying to throw the book at Apple; U.S. DOJ goes after an innovator whose market entry reduced prices – June 13, 2013
Apple’s Eddy Cue denies price-fixing allegations at U.S v. Apple e-books trial – June 13, 2013
Apple fires back at DOJ with email Steve Jobs actually sent – June 13, 2013
Is Steve Jobs’ unsent email a smoking gun in Apple e-book case? – June 12, 2013
Winds shift toward Apple in U.S. DOJ’s e-book trial – June 12, 2013
Day 5 of the Apple ebooks trial: Publishing execs testify; Rupert Murdoch’s role – June 11, 2013
U.S. v. Apple iBookstore case could go to the Supreme Court – June 5, 2013
Apple accuses DOJ of unfairly twisting Steve Jobs’ words in e-book case – June 4, 2013
U.S. DOJ prosecutors accuse Apple of driving up e-book prices – June 3, 2013
U.S. v. Apple goes to trial; DOJ claims e-book price-fixing conspiracy with Apple as ringmaster – June 3, 2013
U.S. DOJ takes Apple to trial alleging e-book price-fixing – June 2, 2013
In pretrial view, judge says leaning toward U.S. DOJ over Apple in e-books case – May 24, 2013
Penguin to pay $75 million in e-book settlement with US State Attorneys General – May 23, 2013
The hot mess that is Apple’s e-book legal fight with U.S. DOJ – May 16, 2013
Apple: Deals with publishers improved e-books competition – May 15, 2013
Apple tells U.S. DOJ of tough talks, not collusion, with publishers – May 15, 2013
EU ends e-book pricing antitrust probe into e-book pricing; accepts offer by Apple, four publishers – December 13, 2012
Apple, publishers offer EU e-book antitrust settlement – September 19, 2012
Judge rubber-stamps U.S. e-books settlement – September 6, 2012
Apple, four publishers offer e-books antitrust concessions, says source – August 31, 2012
Apple bashes Amazon, calls U.S. DOJ settlement proposal ‘fundamentally unfair, unlawful, and unprecedented’ – August 16, 2012
U.S. antitrust settlement with e-book publishers should be approved, feds say – August 4, 2012
U.S. Justice Department slams Apple, refuses to modify e-book settlement – July 23, 2012
U.S. senator Schumer: Myopic DOJ needs to drop Apple e-books suit – July 18, 2012
Apple’s U.S. e-books antitrust case set for 2013 trial – June 24, 2012
U.S. government complains, claims Apple trying to rush e-books antitrust case – June 21, 2012
Barnes & Noble blasts U.S. DOJ e-book settlement proposal – June 7, 2012
Apple: U.S. government’s e-book antitrust lawsuit ‘is fundamentally flawed as a matter of fact and law’ – May 24, 2012
Federal Judge rejects Apple and publishers’ attempt to dismiss civil case alleging e-book price-fixing – May 15, 2012
Court documents reveal Steve Jobs email pushing e-book agency model; 17 more states join class action suit – May 15, 2012
Apple vs. Amazon: Who’s really fixing eBook prices? – April 17, 2012
Apple: U.S. DOJ’s accusation of collusion against iBookstore is simply not true – April 12, 2012
Apple not likely to be a loser in legal fight over eBooks – April 12, 2012
16 U.S. states join DOJ’s eBook antitrust action against Apple, publishers – April 12, 2012
Australian gov’t considers suing Apple, five major publishers over eBook pricing – April 12, 2012
DOJ’s panties in a bunch over Apple and eBooks, but what about Amazon? – April 12, 2012
Antitrust experts: Apple likely to beat U.S. DOJ, win its eBook lawsuit – April 12, 2012
Why the market shrugged off the Apple antitrust suit – April 11, 2012
What’s wrong with the U.S. DOJ? – April 11, 2012
Macmillan CEO blasts U.S. DOJ; gov’t on verge of killing real competition for appearance of competition – April 11, 2012
U.S. DOJ hits Apple, major publishers with antitrust lawsuit, alleges collusion on eBook prices – April 11, 2012
U.S. DOJ may sue Apple over ebook price-fixing as early as today, sources say – April 11, 2012
“supporting U.S. businesses instead of tearing them down”
I believe that Amazon would say that the current administration is doing just that (supporting Amazon instead of tearing them down). 😉
This is clearly part of the Screw and Manipulate Apple Campaign of 2013.
What is the point of it all?!
I will point out and rant that Apple is the single most EXCEPTIONAL and THRIVING company in the world. Apple don’t deal with the current spirit of the age: Screw Thy Customer.
Blundering, Apple does. Screw people over, Apple doesn’t. But most other contemporary businesses base their business models on screwing their customers. It was the entire BASIS of the 2007 worldwide economic depression. Kind of obvious.
IOW: The morass of self-destructive companies Don’t-Like-Apple, and Do-Run-The-Government. Again, kind of obvious.
The problem is that Amazon has a tiny fraction of Apple’s presence in the US in terms of income, employee base, employee salaries, and economic activity generated. In other words if Apple went down it would have a lot greater impact on the US economy than Amazon.
Maybe they would like Apple to allow the NSA to write and “refine” security code to prevent those spying malware entities from corrupting their data during gathering. Then they would play nice with Apple.
“Also, none of this means diddly-squat if the next U.S. administration focuses on supporting U.S. businesses instead of tearing them down over specious claims from rivals run by little whiny bitches.”
Talk about big ifs….
Maybe a bit of a stretch given this country elected Obama 2x, but anything is possible in the future. Even American’s thinking before they vote.
And here we are preaching democracy to the world…
The current administration and its supporters know more about managing Apple than Apple. Look what great good they have accomplished for the country already.
Hint for newbies:
/sarcasm
Thank you DC
“where it also uses most-favored-nation clauses”
This is the biggest failure of Apple’s legal team in this whole fiasco. It is not, and never was, a “Most Favored Nation” clause! It was, and is, a Best Customer clause. The two are radically different. The legal underpinnings — and what each means with regard to anti trust law — are radically different.
The failure of Apple’s legal team to even attempt to correct this has always amazed me.
Just the rampant claim that it is a MFN clause has led everyone — the judge included — to believe this lie lock stock and barrel.
It’s just as V.I. Lenin said … Tell a big enough lie loudly enough and long enough and everyone will believe the lie and forget the truth.
As I said earlier today:
As soon as you insert that NSA code into iOS, Apple, you’ll start winning all kinds of court cases.
(Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.)
Oh yes. Beats me how these government TechTards, via their Corporate Oligarchy puppeteers make sense of what they’re doing but…
Clearly the goal is to MANIPULATE APPLE to their benefit… by crook or by crook or by crook.
And people wondered why Apple built a $100 billion cache. It’s called FORESIGHT. Bravo Apple! Thrive ON!
Well, sadly they are pissing far too much of it away to placate a bunch of short sighted, short term profit seeking stock manipulating bitches.
Short term perception hit. Long term perception WIN, at least IMHO.
We well worn Apple fanatics know that anti-Apple FUD is eternal. But nothing impresses like success. And darned all you Apple Bear Bullshitters. Apple continues to succeed brilliantly.
Of course the FUD campaign the first comes to my mind is the 2005 Symantec perpetrated anti-Apple security FUD fest. It was total invention that Mac OS X was going to be flooded with malware, just as the ‘security through obscurity’ FUD was baseless regarding OS X. Time has proven that to be the case, as here we are 8 years later and oh look, no malware flood for OS X. Ha!
BUT, setting aside the bullshit, the emphasis on Apple security by hackers, who proved their points about Apple security, has had profoundly positive effects. Apple’s attention to security increased exponentially. Apple did NOT rest on any UNIX laurels. It got serious. We all benefitted. It got us the walled garden security of iOS. It kept Apple bashing at the horrendously poor security in QuickTime, their very least secure software. And so on. Tossing the FUD on top of the fact based thrashing of Apple’s security only helped get Apple moving.
IOW: FUD is of course crap. But when there are real benefits to be gained, FUD can add to the momentum of change, which is fine by me. Just don’t expect me to offer any respect for FUD or its slimy perpetrators or any peripheral benefactors of its propagandist effects. Die Apple Bear Bullshitters. Die. 😛
If the government interferes with Apple as well as it has with the banking industry, Apple will have no problem all.
uh, the banking “industry” IS the government. (i.e. Federal Reserve.)
True. Dead things have no problems at all.
Apple should move to Ireland and take me with them. This country has degenerated into filth.
“Atlas Shrugged.”
I have relations there, they may take you in as kindred. You could make a living playing exhibition games. Mind, Grandma dislikes cigars
is she single?
Technically, yes, but she still schedules seances to exchange sweet nothings with her departed husband Nigel. The entire household is a tad eccentric, but harmless on the whole. I’ve heard similar sentiments applied to Yankee Nation. It could be a match of sorts.
Superb.
*However, one caveat…it’s the mere Red Sox Nation, but it’s a Yankees Universe.
*APPEAL*
Years later…
The Chinese government and corporations must b laughing thier arses off. While the USA can’t rebuild our bridges our greedy government, who is tied to Cable Tv, attacks our greatest asset – and the only company that keeps us in the game. Classic. Good job US government!!! Haha!! We really deserve the shitstorm that’s coming.
I am sorry but when a judge openly states that they have made up their mind before the trial starts they should be removed fromt the case and failure to do so should be grounds for a dismissal.
That would be assuming this whole thing isn’t rigged. We have the Obama admin in charge here, the most corrupt administration in the past 150 years.
Maybe the next time Timmy Cook is sitting next to the First Lady watching our Pharaoh Obama at the state of the union infomercial, he could ask her to talk to him.
Oh, come on, Nixon is forgotten already?
The student long ago surpassed the teacher. After all, Nixon got caught — and, frankly, had he been impeached, the Republicans then in the Senate would have voted to convict, just as Democrats, then, faced with something similar by, say, Lyndon Johnson, would have voted to convict. The truth no longer rules in this country; politicians on both sides put career and power over their oaths of office, and courts put the law and the Constitution in a distant third place relative to feelings and the centralization of power in the Federal government.
It makes good press that evil apple was forcing prices higher. But I notice that my book choices are constantly diminishing as the book business becomes less and less profitable. My guess is that bookstores are disappering largely because of Amazon.
In the end, I’m afraid we are going to have less choice, poorer quality because Amazon destroys the economics of the book business to serve their own purposes.
This really is the crime here, people crying about a couple dollars per book are completely ruining the future of books and knowledge for all of Mankind. It’s beyond a disgrace. The US “justice” department is the modern equivalent of burning the Library of Alexandria, which is to me the greatest tragedy in the entire history of the Human race.
After that profound debacle, manuscripts, and scribes, became scarce for a good long while. They were secretly hoarded by scholars who valued learning itself, independent of their religious creeds, and who understood that such treasures were burned and otherwise suppressed as a political expedient by cynical leaders for whom ideology was a mere mask. Funny, that sounds a lot like…today.
Apple should appeal based on the judge’s starting to write her opinion before the trial started. No trial actually took place since the verdict wqs in before it started. The ‘judge’ should be dismissed from the bench and disciplined for doin so!
This should not only be grounds for dismissal, this “judge” should lose her position as such and be ineligible to be a judge in the future. But that would be assuming the system isn’t rigged and corrupt.
Laws are so yesterday. I rule all my peasants by executive fiat.
Pssst… there will be no more elections because my NSA has control of all voting machines… I love technology!
Long live King Obambo!
Please report any dissenters to my Truth Team
DOJ is a joke.