“Today’s big overnight news is that Apple has settled with consumers and states in a pricing suit, the details of the settlement as yet undisclosed,” John Biggs reports for TechCrunch. “Don’t worry: you won’t have to register a $10,000 windfall with the IRS because Apple asked publishers to raise prices and force Amazon to do the same in order to beat Bezos’ $9.99 stranglehold on the e-book giant. Instead, lawyers will get a lot of money and Amazon will win again.”
“In short, Apple was sued for working with publishers to get out of a nasty relationship with Amazon,” Biggs reports. “While no one is blameless here, this lawsuit shouldn’t have happened.”
“But within the news is a very interesting point: It’s the idea that Amazon was selling ebooks ‘below cost’ at $9.99 and that there was a real cost involved in selling access to a conglomeration of bits,” Biggs reports. “What is ‘below cost’ in publishing? Given falling author advances, the move from printed books to e-books, and the general lack of interest in long form reading except in young adult and niche publishing, I doubt anyone knows what a book ‘costs’ anymore.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple did nothing illegal (there simply is no evidence) and we hope justice will finally prevail upon appeal in the hands of a competent judge.
This settlement is contingent upon the outcome of appeal.
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