Apple Inc deserves a five-year ban from entering anticompetitive e-book distribution contracts, and should also end its business arrangements with five major publishers with which it conspired to raise e-book prices, federal and state regulators said on Friday.
Feds propose remedy for Apple e-book price fixing
I hope they do not take this, as it completely goes against all that the Apple model stands for. The Government is completely in the wrong trying to force the market in a single direction of their choosing.
Funny, I have always had the opinion that Amazon’s low prices have been anti-competitive and disruptive to the book business in a negative way (number of small book stores disappearing). I looked at Apples attempt at the e-book deal as a way to break Amazon’s monopoly.
Just a thought
It is not up to Apple. In this case it the judge who is the decider.
Apparently Apple can’t even decide what to sell in its own store.
Leave it to the gov’t to screw the “free” market.
“Apple must also for two years allow other e-book retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble to provide links from their e-book apps to their e-bookstores, allowing consumers who purchase and read e-books on their iPads and iPhones easily to compare Apple’s prices with those of its competitors.”
How does this make any sense it beyond me.
This remedy has nothing to do with agency model.
This rule was in place before iBooks were introduced.
Next Government will ask to allow Android to be mentioned in books.
“Apple Inc deserves a five-year ban from entering anticompetitive e-book distribution contracts”
Isn’t that always illegal anyway? And who defines what “anticompetitive” is? None of the individual or even the sum of the individual pieces (MFN, agency) were officially ruled as anticompetitive by Cote.
The thing I don’t understand is, even Google themselves when they testified admitted they probably wouldn’t have been able to enter the e-books market if it wasn’t for Apples work. So isn’t that exactly what the consumer benefits from? Competition?
It just cracks me up, the govts one-tracked mind of thinking lower prices is the only thing that benefits consumers, instead of a healthy sustainable competitive marketplace. They’re so fixated on the fact that prices rose when Apple got the industry the agency model it wanted, instead of looking at the bigger picture.
Ah, Hope and Change. Gotta love the Obama administration and it’s totally messed up legal wing……
So in five years it’s okay to enter anti-competitive e-book distribution again? What the heck logic is coming out of these bozos?
Apple should win on appeal with a judge less biased.
Even the juggernauts haven’t been able to survive Amazon’s anticompetitive pricing. Borders is gone and Barnes & Noble is at this point more hanging on than thriving.
More worrying is this paragraph fro, the “proposal”:
“Apple will also be prohibited from entering into agreements with suppliers of e-books, music, movies, television shows or other content that are likely to increase the prices at which Apple’s competitor retailers may sell that content. To reset competition to the conditions that existed before the conspiracy, Apple must also for two years allow other e-book retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble to provide links from their e-book apps to their e-bookstores, allowing consumers who purchase and read e-books on their iPads and iPhones easily to compare Apple’s prices with those of its competitors.”
So they are attempting to destroy Apple’s ecosystem completely.
Where I’m at a real loss is how this makes sense in the context of Leegin v. PSKS, where our government helpfully reversed a century of legal doctrine and decided price fixing was A-OK.
In 2007, it’s not only perfectly okay for manufacturers to fix prices, but it actually increases competition! (Barf.)
In 2012-13, Apple is “anticompetitive” for demanding the ability to price match other vendors, because that demand causes the manufacturers (publishers) to then implement price fixing.
I… uh… what?
Worse is that some reports are that the DOJ wants to simply end all contracts and bar new ones for the next five years, for all media. Thus killing Apple’s whole ecosystem.
I truly hope that their lawyers are already filing appeals and motions to stop any such actions by the DOJ until those appeals are heard
Apparently Amazon does. They didn’t like any of the terms unless they were the ones to profit.
That whole thing about none of the individual terms being illegal, even if used together, and yet Apple was in the wrong is part of what I don’t get about this. Apple was okay to ask for an MFN, they were okay to use agency terms. But because they might maybe went to the publishers and maybe mention that ‘so and so agreed’ to someone they are bad. Bad enough to shut everything down and out them in detention.
And then the bit about the judge wasn’t required to recuse herself when she made pre trial statements that sounded a heck of a lot like she had already judged the case
What?!
My cuz just emailed me that she was told about a petition on the White House site. She wrote something about it on her blog I guess but she sent me the link also to check out. http://wh.gov/lr8uW
Not sure how much good it will do but I’m going to take a look at it. Mostly I’m just pleased to see folks trying to do something.
The pretrial statements are common and were expected (actually asked for) by Apple and the DoJ.
I think the issue here is if the price fixing protects consumers or hurts them.
The view seems to be that Apple unfairly caused the prices to go up over what was ‘appropriate’ by giving into the publishers desire to control pricing. And then conspired with the publishers to force all companies to play by the same rules so that consumers had no cheaper choices. Thus hurting them. Thus bad
They seem to be forgetting that books in general aren’t a life essential item. Thus if someone doesn’t like the price they don’t have to buy it. They could go without or go to the library etc.
And if enough folks refuse to buy then market forces will push the publishers to lower the prices.
Except that’s basically exactly what was at issue in Leegin v PSKS. The court decided fixing higher prices was not only fabulous but “created competition” because vendors were no longer competing on price.
What makes that swell and dandy for tangible goods and bad and evil for eBooks?
Agreed, that is what I was thinking about as I wrote my post above, though the small business owner has been hit the hardest, much like the victims of Walmart.
This ruling seems incredibly harsh and the product of pure free market ideology. Cheaper is not always better. Cheaper means that now most of our goods are built by the blood, sweat and tears of faceless factory workers the world over, anywhere except here. What do we get in return? Inequalities are up, nationalism and racism are up… When will this train wreck end?