“In a stern rebuke to Apple Inc.’s electronic-books sales strategy, a federal judge found the company colluded with five major U.S. publishers to artificially drive up the prices of e-books in the months ahead of its entering the market in 2010,” Chad Bray and Joe Palazzolo report for The Wall Street Journal.
“During the three-week civil antitrust trial, the Justice Department argued that Apple agreed with the publishers in January 2010 to allow them to set a higher price for best sellers and new releases in response to the publishers’ ‘Amazon problem’: a $9.99 price point for those books on Amazon.com Inc.,” Bray and Palazzolo report. “Prices for e-book best sellers rose to $12.99 and $14.99 as a result, the government claimed in its lawsuit.”
“‘The plaintiffs have shown that the publisher defendants conspired with each other to eliminate retail price competition in order to raise e-book prices, and that Apple played a central role in facilitating and executing that conspiracy,’ U.S. District Judge Denise Cote said in a 160-page ruling. ‘Without Apple’s orchestration of this conspiracy, it would not have succeeded as it did in the Spring of 2010,'” Bray and Palazzolo report. “Because Apple was found liable for violating U.S. antitrust laws, a hearing will now take place in a separate lawsuit brought by state attorneys general, who are seeking to recover damages on behalf of consumers who paid higher prices for e-books.”
Read more in the full article here.
Peter klafka reports for AllThingsD, “Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr says the company will appeal. Here’s his comment: ‘Apple did not conspire to fix ebook pricing and we will continue to fight against these false accusations. When we introduced the iBookstore in 2010, we gave customers more choice, injecting much needed innovation and competition into the market, breaking Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. We’ve done nothing wrong and we will appeal the judge’s decision.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Since the judge made her “decision” before the trial even began, we’d expect nothing less but for Apple to take this to the next level and, if necessary, beyond.
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When tyranny becomes law,
Revolution becomes duty.
I’m not at all surprised by this ruling. And anyone who has been paying attention to what’s been going on in this country the last few decades shouldn’t be surprised either.
Stay calm my underlings. I have ordered that judge to rule that way because today is Wednesday in my beautiful socialist paradise Americanistan.
Pssst. don’t tell, but I have all the goods on all the judges from the NSA, so no one can deny my rule.
Now all lean FORWARD and receive the good ‘news’.
I am absolute stunned by this verdict. I must be slow because it is just dawning on me now how little the justice department and the courts understand market economics. Apple must fight this!
Just wait until Obamacare gets fully implemented, if it ever does. You’ll be even more stunned when we run out of burial plots within the first year.
Whoever thinks inserting the government between you and your doctor is a good thing, deserves their fate at the hands of Obamacare.
It’s amazing anyone thinks they can sell e-books for more than $9 each and compete well against piracy. People wait hours to download high definition movies from torrents, but it only takes a few seconds download a book. The price of e-books needs to drop to closer to $1 to compete against piracy.
Anyway, this court decision is unjustifiable and I hope Apple wins the appeal.
in a separate lawsuit brought by state attorneys general, who are seeking to recover damages on behalf of consumers who paid higher prices for e-books.
And I assume they will spend the money they recover for those same consumers.
Ha ha ha ha! Eat it you fanboy losers.
Bwahahahahahahaha.
troll.
A Clinton appointee to the Federal bench. Carrying water for the Democrats, who hate private industry.
Great. I am now considering adding Amazon to my list of companies to boycott. Apple works hard to do things right and to enlighten industry. Other companies bring down innovation and make things poorly and cheap just for profit.
Boycotted companies (evil)
Samsung
Google
Avoided companies (dumb)
Microsoft
Facebook
They also work hard to do things the wrong way as well.
Well if there was any more proof needed that the courts have a vendetta against Apple, u know the AMERICAN company that revolutionized phones, computers, withstood a sh*** economy , creates thousands of jobs etc, well here it is!
Amazon had a monopolistic position and imposed a fixed, non-negotiable price on publishers if they wanted to be included in their store.
Apple came along and said, “We are opening a store. We’ll keep 30 percent of the sale, and you set the prices. Whatever you want them to be.”
Amazon, no longer a monopoly, could no longer impose its flat pricing.
Monopoly broken. Publishers have control over pricing. Customers still have choice whether to buy or not buy books.
Apple is evil? Please help me, I’m missing something, obviously.
Still don’t see how Apple letting the publishers set their own prices for eBooks constitutes a conspiracy with them to raise prices.
Perhaps I’m missing something here, but how can people be pissed off about a decision regarding price fixing, where the price of ebooks rose from $9.99 to $12.99 to $14.99? Do some people prefer paying more money?
Whether prices fixing was involved or not, the result was the same — Consumers paying more for a product than what it is actually worth, in my opinion.
The answer is simple. Before Apple came along, Amazon was selling e-books at a loss to kill the opposition. The price rise was the money Amazon was losing on it’s bookstore execution blitzkrieg.
Or perhaps Apple just blatantly broke the rules and got found out!
So-o-o … what have we learned?
It appears that it’s OK [legal] to sell at a loss to gain a greater market presence and control.
It’s not necessary to work with your suppliers to sell their merchandise.
The consumer is fair to the vendor such that a product’s value is what the consumer perceives and will pay.
The honorable consumer will purchase at the best price offered [and will not steal].
Vendor couponing, bundling, discounting and promotional sales offers to the consumer are all tools available to the publisher and/or merchandiser.
Wow, like totally didn’t see that coming—NOT!
HEADLINE!
APPLE GUILTY OF COMPETING AGAINST AMAZON’S ANTI-COMPETITIVE PRICE FIXING!
FU stupid deceitful ignorant Obama Administration.
A pox upon BOTH your parties.
I want my country back dammit!
Flabbergasted! Unbelievable!