“Simon & Schuster, one of the five major book publishers accused in multiple lawsuits of conspiring with Apple to fix e-book prices, has settled the complaint filed by numerous states’ attorney generals,” Greg Sandoval reports for CNET.
“Denise Cote, the federal judge overseeing the three different antitrust complaints pending against Apple and the defendant publishers, granted a motion Tuesday to dismiss Simon & Schuster from the complaint,” Sandoval reports. “This suit was originally filed by the attorney generals from Texas as well as 15 other state AGs. More states have joined that suit as plaintiffs; 29 are now involved.”
Sandoval reports, “Simon & Schuster (owned by CNET’s parent company, CBS) is believed to be the first of the five defendant publishers to settle with the states. The terms of the settlement weren’t provided in court documents. Last month, Simon & Schuster also settled a complaint by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) as did Lagardere SCA’s Hachette Book Group and News Corp.’s HarperCollins. The defendants that refused to settle and deny wrongdoing are Apple and Macmillan Publishers (owned by Germany’s Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck holding company), and Pearson PLC’s Penguin Group.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: To pluralize a quote from Sgt. Hulka: “Gutless. Punks.”
Related articles:
Video: Steve Jobs predicted or knew of publisher revolt – May 17, 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
So how the Fascist DOJ has blackmailed these companies will not be made public?
What’s next? Secret executions?
The DOJ probably just doesn’t want make their sweetheart deal with Amazon public.
Nah, it was Google who bribed S&S!
Slimon & Shyster, grow a pair!
I, coming from ex fashist Gerrrrmany, say:
‘For those about to get f***ed, we salute you!’
This is priceless.
US americans, you oughta be soooo proud of where your countries gotten to. Congrats.
– country’s or country has.
Auto correct. Apologies.
yeah. fascist I know.
I’ll think before postin anything from ios devices again.
But who knows what fascist will be spelled like in 50 years from now.
You know what is as sad as America marching towards fascism?
The fact that Germany more or less controls Europe now. Merkel is no saint either..
I’d rather say its Brussels and they enforce only the strictest and optimized laws, many of which are set in the Grundgesetz and german law books, but are being considered the most applicable. No smoking ban from the USA has been erected all over Europe too, where no one wants it. Even Czech premiers say what the European Union does is not very different from what communist social structures did before, what he had hoped would disappear but is back with a different color. the kind of well functioning socialist democracy that had been spread all over the western european countries has been gradually replaced by pure capitalism and hedonism. not good, true. so what. that’s our problem. US ought to take care of their problems, I only dared bemoan the gradual change to the current state of things, as an outsider. 😛
point well taken
Sad? What could possibly go wrong if Germany were to control Europe?
1- Sad is when one country has to control everyone so they do the right thing and don’t screw up their economy… Why would Germany have to control Europe and force Greeks to do the right thing. Greeks should take ownership of their own economy and if they cannot they should fail… laws of nature.
2- In general there is nothing wrong with control but it just creates dependency… controlled ones are always dependent on the controller. There is an alternative to controlling setup, that is collaboration.
Cheers!
PS: Don’t get me wrong… I like Germany.
@Mac95… Venting is good… Putting down people while venting is not good.
Doing reality check is great but providing an insight where the reality check can be turned into a lesson learned and prevent a mistake is even better.
US is going through its own learning curve but a German dude’s help and experience is definitely appreciated, with civilized language.
Don’t tell me that Germans cannot be civilized! I know they are.
thanks. uh… fascism and letting it surface at all, and then not go against it where it spreads is f***ed up and thus needs that terminology to be described.
I didn’t mean harm. I am just for free speech and I am not with clean and have a tendency against PC.
@MDM
…and please let me remind you that after the failed Weimar Republic in Germany, there were intellectuals in abundance who would speak against the shift to fascist in oh so civilized terms. I can not name you a single one without consulting wikipedia right now, which is sad in itself. I ought to know.
But what happened, these people got arrested and eventually killed regardless, or their names faded into obscurity.
Who were these civilized people? Their voices were too weak.
Surely, everyone knows most of the names of the criminals that were to rule Germany next.
Just for the record, this article isn’t about the DOJ, but about the state suits brought by 15 Attorneys General, most of them Republicans.