“On Tuesday, a panel of judges from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a two-year-old ruling that Apple was a critical player in the illegal (and highly successful) conspiracy to eliminate the $9.99 price for best-selling e-books that Amazon had made popular,” Aaron Pressman reports for Yahoo Finance. “But it was the minority report in the 2-1 decision, a dissent by Judge Dennis Jacobs in favor of Apple, that could be far more significant in the long run. ”
“That’s because the reasoning of Jacobs, a pro-business judge appointed by the first President Bush, is much more in line with the pro-business, conservative majority on the Supreme Court,” Pressman reports. “If Apple appeals to the Supremes, it is Jacobs’ opinion, not that of his two colleagues, that’s likely to have more sway.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Hopefully, this travesty of justice, this ill-considered fix, will someday be corrected to Apple’s satisfaction.
SEE ALSO:
WSJ: U.S. Supreme Court should strike down the risible antitrust campaign against Apple – July 1, 2015
Apple is headed to the Supreme Court over e-book antitrust case? – June 30, 2015
Apple loses appeal in e-book price-fixing case – June 30, 2015
Pro business (anti-consumer) travesty of justice…
Newsflash… Price fixing is illegal. Got a problem with Amazon, please feel free to bring on another “travesty of justice” (if you’re at all consistent) suit against them.
DOJ brings those kind of lawsuits, but their are in revolving door relationships with both Amazon’s lobbying firm and even Amazon itself directly.
So no wonder that during the trial in reply to Apple’s evidence of Amazon using worse business practices they only thing DOJ could answer was “It is Apple is on trial, not Amazon” — and, surprise! — the lawsuit from DOJ against Amazon has never followed.
EU has filed claims against Amazon recently, but do not expect DOJ doing anything like this.
So basically, what you’re saying is that Amazon lobbies better than Apple, and that Apple didn’t conspire to fix prices.
yes
I don’t know Amazon’s lobbying budget but Google (a smaller company than Apple) has a lobbying budget 10 times Apple.
Apple spends very little relatively on lobbying or marketing. And makes no direct contribution to politicians.
In the very latest few years Apple has significantly increased lobbying, but it still way less than Amazon, and it is too late.
Before that, Apple has spent almost no money on that as Jobs hated whole thing.
Apple doesn’t need to invest money to lobby the DOJ or Congress or the Supreme Court who already overwhelmingly support Apple!
All you need to do is to find the common denominator and you will know why!
Let me know when you find the answer.
Whether Apple conspired to fix prices is debatable, especially because Apple has offered business model to free prices, not to fix them.
Amazon’s $9.99 price was fixed, and this is why publishers could not sell books for, say, $5.99 when they wanted to. As result of Apple entering the market with the new business model many popular books became pricer, but, at the same time, even more books have become cheaper — and average selling price has fell, not grown.
Did it occur to you they may both be a-holes?
All business could be considered as a-holes; the question is whether application of the law makes sense and whether it is applied equally.
I respect your point. I’m not a lawyer, and I agree with the principle you cite. Anti-trust law is probably more subjective than many other laws. Still, saying to a group of independent publishers “You will charge X” is pretty straightforward price fixing.
The leftist majority on the Supreme Court might rule for Apple if Tim Cook comes out of the closet and publicly states that he detest heterosexuals because they are all backwards hicks with guns and no teeth. Well, the no teeth part he might go for.
Do you ever cease being a complete idiot?
Since Apple under Tim Cook has become a recruiting arm for NAMBLA I need to educate children about the dangers of Apple products.
You really are a Kent, aren’t you?
Kent is just jealous that gays can now marry and yet he can’t marry his dog, which is the only creature that has every loved him back.
Actually, marrying another male when you are a male is probably less desirable than marrying a dog. The dog would have the advantage of being confused and annoyed by the arrangement, whereas Tim Cook and his new preferred customer base actually enjoy inserting their male organ into a sewer pipe. Odd but true.
Nope, he doesn’t.
John,
I think you and Ron and Scott ought to get a room. Anthony Kennedy would like to watch.
kent, you sure do like thinking about what guys do together.
kent’s deep thinking… “The Supreme Court made a decision I don’t like, so the majority must be leftist”.
My bet is on Apple appealing all the way to the Supreme Court. This is about principle one that Apple believes in, take it all the way Apple.
The “conservative majority” that just took a big dump on conservatives? I think you meant liberal majority.
I think you meant ‘big dump on the country’….right?
As far as Friday’s decision is concerned, I think it is just a “big dump on conservatives”; after all, more than 60% of Americans actually do support gay marriage anyway, so the decision is not only in defense of the US constitution, but also reflective of the popular opinion in America.
Whether the court has conservative or liberal majority is not quite clear. As a foreigner, I won’t pretend to know much about American justice system, but according to my understanding, the division isn’t all that precise: Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas seem to be clearly and firmly conservative; Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan are rather consistently on the opposite end; Kennedy seems to be conservative more often than not, and Breyer seems to me a middle-of-the-road, sometimes left, others right. The bottom line is that the entirety of the court still tilts to the right (last week’s decisions notwithstanding). Let us not forget the Hobby Lobby, voting rights, police sampling DNA and similar form recent years).
Your grasp of reality is far beyond that of kent and others of his kind.
What the hell are you talking about, there is a 5 to 4 conservative majority that is very pro business. Just because Kennedy has compassion of all of American citizens on social issues doesn’t that that any less true.
1. if Apple has a strong case, they will appeal. (On to the next argument)
2. Because Apple lost, there are 3-4 possibilities (lawyers will probably fix my simplistic list. Some of these possibilities may overlap)
a. Apple’s lawyers fell down on the job in presenting the case, either in evidence and/ or in understanding the law
b. the evidence and testimony was against Apple
c. Judges were corrupt and/or incompetent
and sort of
d. DOJ was better
If Apple wants to win, they have to remember they are not in the Apple Store or Cupertino RDF.
Apple needs to be on 3 sides at the same time: pro-customer above all, followed by the law and appearance of law.
To rephrase, Apple needs to win 6 ways from zero. 2-3 ways will be thrown out no matter how good the 6 are (rule of thumb).
I look forward to corrections and nuances that can hold up in civil discussion as well as in court.
It has always been my opinion that Apple merely did as Apple has always done, which is to produce a better product/service at a competitive higher price, and let the consumer decide whether he wants a quality or an inferior product/service.
It’s the Apple versus Samsung battle all over. Apple must win this case, if it is to preserve its business model of quality innovation. Otherwise it will have DOJ going after it for everything else it makes.
Conservative court. Really?
Insane Clown Posse
Roberts, Alito, Scalia and “The Potted Plant” DBA Thomas.