Apple Sued Over E-Book Price Fixing

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A class action lawsuit has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against Apple alleging illegal e-book price fixing.

Hagens Berman has filed a nationwide class-action lawsuit claiming that Apple Inc. and five of the nation’s top publishers, including HarperCollins Publishers, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Group Inc. and Simon & Schuster Inc. illegally fix prices of electronic books, also known as e-books.
 
Lots of maybes, could, and might in the lawsuit.

So um, why aren't Android tablet manufacturers and Google being sued as well since they "maybe, might, could" dominate the Kindle in the near future?

Last time I checked, the iPad isn't marketed as an eBook reader, but as a tablet. Maybe that's what Amazon really needs to look into? Making a Kindle that can do more than read eBooks?
 
it's about time. i read the article - what they said was true - Amazon was forced to up e-book prices after the iPad came out. gert them where it hurts - the pocket book
 
Lots of maybes, could, and might in the lawsuit.

So um, why aren't Android tablet manufacturers and Google being sued as well since they "maybe, might, could" dominate the Kindle in the near future?

Last time I checked, the iPad isn't marketed as an eBook reader, but as a tablet. Maybe that's what Amazon really needs to look into? Making a Kindle that can do more than read eBooks?
 
sorry about the doublepost. Hit the post button and nothing showed up until I posted it again, then both showed up. :-P
 
look back at what went on when the iPad came out - thi sis about PRICING of e-books. Apple wanted more money and persuaded the publishers to use their method and stop Amazon from from selling books at $9.99 - prices went up to $14.99 or $15.99 - $5 or $6 more for nothing - except their books. then they told Amazon - you price the books at our amount or you don't get any - which is illegal under US law since they contro so much of the market - that is what this lawsuit is about.

BTW - iPad is marketed as being able to be used as an eBook reader
 
Was wondering why some e-books have skyrocketed in price to near Hardback Covered books. Have been avoiding all of the overpriced ones.
 
Apple has always walked a very thin legal line on price fixing.
 
About time .As an executive at sony said " We try to set the prices the same everywhere to help the consumer not waste their time shopping around." In Canada one company phrased it as "The no bickering price." I try to support our ever dwindling secondhand book stores if possible.
 
About time .As an executive at sony said " We try to set the prices the same everywhere to help the consumer not waste their time shopping around." In Canada one company phrased it as "The no bickering price." I try to support our ever dwindling secondhand book stores if possible.

That's the thin legal line I was referring to. You can't force third-party retailers to sell your product at a specific price.
 
About time .As an executive at sony said " We try to set the prices the same everywhere to help the consumer not waste their time shopping around." In Canada one company phrased it as "The no bickering price." I try to support our ever dwindling secondhand book stores if possible.

Executives at Sony should just be quiet these days. Sony is the absolute king of MAP pricing, which is barely legal price fixing IMHO.

A lot of companies do it, and it should be outlawed.
 
I always thought e-books were supposed to be cheaper because there is no manufacturing of a physical item, and no delivery costs. Now these companies just charge almost the exact same price so their profit margin is even greater. I hope this is the start of something good for the consumer.
 
I think I'm still just about paying off text books from my undergrad. Those things are practically extortion.
 
Lots of maybes, could, and might in the lawsuit.

So um, why aren't Android tablet manufacturers and Google being sued as well since they "maybe, might, could" dominate the Kindle in the near future?

Last time I checked, the iPad isn't marketed as an eBook reader, but as a tablet. Maybe that's what Amazon really needs to look into? Making a Kindle that can do more than read eBooks?

Why, the Kindle is still selling better than the iPad?
 
Why, the Kindle is still selling better than the iPad?

Lots of maybes, could, and might in the lawsuit.

So um, why aren't Android tablet manufacturers and Google being sued as well since they "maybe, might, could" dominate the Kindle in the near future?

Last time I checked, the iPad isn't marketed as an eBook reader, but as a tablet. Maybe that's what Amazon really needs to look into? Making a Kindle that can do more than read eBooks?
"As for budget Android tablets, look no further than the Barnes and Nobel Nook Color. For $250 and a little install of CM7, you get a fantastic little tablet for the money." Has anyone tried this, if so how does it compare.
 
"As for budget Android tablets, look no further than the Barnes and Nobel Nook Color. For $250 and a little install of CM7, you get a fantastic little tablet for the money." Has anyone tried this, if so how does it compare.

My dad and my sister both love their Nook Color. It's a very versatile device like the iPad. That's what I was referring to in my first post. Perhaps Amazon shouldn't worry about their device being outsold because of eBook prices, but because of it's lack of feature compared to the iPad and Nook Color.

Outamyhead, yes the Kindle is probably selling better than the iPad (I've not looked this up), but the suit in the article talks about the possible future - Amazon's fear that the iPad would start to outsell Kindle.
 
I use my iPad, I don't have any real complaints about book prices except in a very few cases.

$9.99 is reasonable

$15 isn't.

Atlas Shrugged is $19 on the friggin Kindle store

uhhh no!
 
Last time I checked, the iPad isn't marketed as an eBook reader, but as a tablet. Maybe that's what Amazon really needs to look into? Making a Kindle that can do more than read eBooks?

"As for budget Android tablets, look no further than the Barnes and Nobel Nook Color. For $250 and a little install of CM7, you get a fantastic little tablet for the money." Has anyone tried this, if so how does it compare.

I wasnt impressed with the Nook color myself when I Demo'd it (but it wasnt running CM7), and compared to iPad/Kindle the batter life is a joke (~4 hours iirc, compared to weeks on kindle and 10+ on iPad (dep on use)) If they could meet iPad's battery life I would have gone this rout anyway, but...

Also some people just want a simple device for reading books. I have an older friend who just bought a kindle to read books on (and rarely check email)
 
As a pre-iBooks owner of a Kindle, I really hope this is successful. It was nice to be able to pay reasonable pricess for new books and great prices for books a year or two old. Now it's often cheaper to buy the physical book for hardcovers and almost always cheaper for paperbacks. I'm not sure if Apple was the source of the hike, or was the willing partner that gave the publishers leverage with Amazon, but still, without Apple, we would have reasonable ebook prices where right now we most certainly do not.
 
About damn time. Apple forced the prices up to get a bigger cut then the publishers held a gun to Amazons head and threatened to withold content if they did not match the price increase.

Hey, look. Consumeres got fucked by apple AGAIN. I don't own any Apple crap and they STILL fuck me.
 
Nook color is a pretty good device for CM7, not the best. There are now tablets that are cheaper I think...

Try it yourself. They have CM7 running from from an SD card, nothing touches the OS installed by B&N. All you have to do is remove the SD card and reboot, and back to stock!

Since its running from SD, its can be a little finiky, but you can play all games and read books with the basic nook app.
 
apple just sued motorola for xoom tablet too after having some success with samsung galaxy tab case
sueing shit out of competition
i hope this gives apple idea
 
Apple did this to get quick all encompassing deals with the publishers. Apple is also notorious about requiring large margins but in this case that irrelevant since they are just getting a % of sales.

Whether or not they are the cause, I don't know. I would say they were the catalyst, the big player that jumped in and gave the publishers the leverage (or fear of) to actually make the pricing demands of amazon.

Honestly thought he ipad is popular, its not kindle popular and the publishers would have lost money if Amazon stuck to their guns.

As for the price fixing... sure I can see it if all the publishers got together and agreed on a price range. That is obvious.

But requiring a 3rd party to sell at a certain price is not unheard of. Bose speakers does this, temperpedic mattresses. That is why when ever there is a sale, those brands are almost always in the fine print as being an exception.

I wonder what the difference is? Why bose etc can set sales rules while other companies/products cannot.

I suppose this brings up the question, what is the sales model for digital goods/content? Is Amazon/Apple just a reseller, getting a % cut? Or will the model be more traditional where the items are actually purchased wholesale and then the retailer can select the price?

The fact that e-books are digital and not physical seems to play a big part. With normal books, there is finite and limited stock of the product purchased by the retailer. The sale is essentially done, thus they can sell it for anything they want. With digital, there is NO finite stock, seems like its more of a consignment or reseller deal since usually a % is paid to the owner.

I could see if Amazon negotiated a static price per sale then it wouldn't matter to the publisher how much it was "discounted". Heck I don't know what the deal is with Amazon, maybe they do pay a set price.

But if its a %, the retailers shouldn't be able to change the price really, because it directly effects the publishers take without permission etc. Heck Amazon could say all books $1, the %30 take from each sale will make them tons of money because they have virtually no capital investment in the product (except file storage and bandwidth). The Publisher on the other hand had to pay for the writer, editors etc. The 70% of 1$ would not cover that, even on a massive scale.
 
it's about time. i read the article - what they said was true - Amazon was forced to up e-book prices after the iPad came out. gert them where it hurts - the pocket book

As a pre-iBooks owner of a Kindle, I really hope this is successful. It was nice to be able to pay reasonable pricess for new books and great prices for books a year or two old. Now it's often cheaper to buy the physical book for hardcovers and almost always cheaper for paperbacks. I'm not sure if Apple was the source of the hike, or was the willing partner that gave the publishers leverage with Amazon, but still, without Apple, we would have reasonable ebook prices where right now we most certainly do not.

Yea apple really screwed up the market on this one. When they gave the publishers the extra leverage it was used against Amazon and B&N and the prices went up. Sucked.

I remember an early interview with amazon's ceo where he went into how they fought for close to like 2 years to get the publishers online with the lower pricing.
 
Amazon, because of its volume, was hoping to be able to run things like every other store does ... have sales to attract customers. The agency model prevents that sort of thing so they can't use price now to attract customers. The only thing now that will attract customers is availability and interface. Given their volume, though, pricing structure was very important to them. Apple, on the other hand, didn't want to have to bother with actually setting prices on books. They just wanted to get a percentage to be the mechanism for the sale. Apple isn't a seller of books, they're only a facilitator and they didn't want to get into the business of running sales, promotions, and doing all the normal things that book sellers end up doing. Amazon was fully prepared to do that sort of thing. Apple and the publisher's desires fell right into lock-step very quickly and then the publishers, with Apple on their side, strong-armed Amazon into the same pricing model.

Given that the publishers effectively all worked in lock-step ... given that Apple was told they'd be forcing Amazon to do the same thing ... the case actually stands a decent chance of pushing ahead. One publisher couldn't get away with this. They had to have them all on board ... hence the price fixing claims. If just one publisher tried to do this with Amazon they'd have been smacked down and sent home packing. Apple's deal then would have only hurt Apple's sales since their prices would have been higher than Amazon. But, because all the publishers ganged up on Amazon they got their agency model pushed through. Nothing Amazon could have done but walk away from the market completely. Given that it is such a big part of their business model they were obviously unprepared.
 
Some price "fixing" done by apple is good, like the $.99 per song on iTunes that every record label hated.

But yeah, there is no reason to pay $15 for an eBook, it should be under $10. it costs LESS to distribute then the hard copy, how can it cost more!?
 
I wasnt impressed with the Nook color myself when I Demo'd it (but it wasnt running CM7), and compared to iPad/Kindle the batter life is a joke (~4 hours iirc, compared to weeks on kindle and 10+ on iPad (dep on use)) If they could meet iPad's battery life I would have gone this rout anyway, but...

The nook color gets better battery life than the ipad. ;)

Not sure what was wrong with the NC you used but 4 hours is pretty awful under any circumstance for that device.
 
Some price "fixing" done by apple is good, like the $.99 per song on iTunes that every record label hated.

But yeah, there is no reason to pay $15 for an eBook, it should be under $10. it costs LESS to distribute then the hard copy, how can it cost more!?

How the hell is that a good thing?!?! Have you actually looked at itunes lately? $1.29 is more common and most albums cost the same or more as buying the actual CD does...

So much for "good" price fixing...
 
How the hell is that a good thing?!?! Have you actually looked at itunes lately? $1.29 is more common and most albums cost the same or more as buying the actual CD does...

So much for "good" price fixing...

Disagree about album cost. They're mostly $7.99 - $9.99, still a far cry from $19 album cost at your local Fyes.

But yeah singles cost seem to have went up for a lot of songs, especially popular ones. Now there's a mix of $1.29 and $0.99 songs.
 
How the hell is that a good thing?!?! Have you actually looked at itunes lately? $1.29 is more common and most albums cost the same or more as buying the actual CD does...

...without the same quality. itunes shit is terribad compared to a CD, and more expensive...for 1/10th of the quality :(

Problem is. People are stupid or ignorant, and this is apparently hard to change.
 
I wasnt impressed with the Nook color myself when I Demo'd it (but it wasnt running CM7), and compared to iPad/Kindle the batter life is a joke (~4 hours iirc, compared to weeks on kindle and 10+ on iPad (dep on use)) If they could meet iPad's battery life I would have gone this rout anyway, but... )

My fiancee uses her rooted CM7'd Nook Color to read her books and play games 1-2 hours a day and it lasts a week before she has to charge it again.
 
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