Apple Statements Damage Lawsuit Position

Apparently it really is possible to have your own words come back to haunt you...after you are dead.

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote noted in her written ruling that Jobs had made statements that agreements between the publishers and Apple Inc., based in Cupertino, Calif., would cause consumers to "pay a little more" and that prices would "be the same" at Apple and Amazon.com.

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What I don't understand about E-books is why they cost the same as if I bought the book in the first place. Are they saying that it costs "nothing" to produce a paper book. Or it costs the same to send me the same digital file that they send to the publisher?

Granted I only buy paperbacks. but if both cost me $7.99 why would I need a E-reader?

Wenthral said:

What I don't understand about E-books is why they cost the same as if I bought the book in the first place. Are they saying that it costs "nothing" to produce a paper book. Or it costs the same to send me the same digital file that they send to the publisher?

Granted I only buy paperbacks. but if both cost me $7.99 why would I need a E-reader?

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I'm not entirely defending the publishing industry... but I can also see that they didn't want to cut their own heads off by lowering the prices of ebooks. Yes, it does cost more money to sell a hardcopy, but I've heard it really isn't *that* much. They probably look at E-readers as catering to those people who want them, but I don't think they see them as a huge revenue booster and I would guess that might be partially due to piracy.

I think it would be wise of them to look at Steam's model for game sales... if Amazon started doing 50-75% off sales every week and people jumped on that I feel like they would profit well.

Wenthral said:

What I don't understand about E-books is why they cost the same as if I bought the book in the first place. Are they saying that it costs "nothing" to produce a paper book. Or it costs the same to send me the same digital file that they send to the publisher?

Granted I only buy paperbacks. but if both cost me $7.99 why would I need a E-reader?

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Agreed. The only real benefit of an eReader is that you can bring many books on a small device. The prices are NOT worth it, though.

The prices USED to be worth it. They're not right now. Hence the lawsuit. Used to be you could get a new release for $9.99 while the hardcover cost you 2-3 times that. Definite value for money. The publishers got into the agreement with Apple because they felt they were losing sales of those big hardcovers to Amazon and wanted to drive the price of the e-book up to the point where they felt (as was said) only those who wanted to go digital would. They didn't want the price of the book being cheaper to drag more people into digital. That's what Amazon wanted. They couldn't do anything about that unless they controlled the price themselves. Again, this leads directly to the court case.

If you want to save money then buy used books. So cheap on amazon marketplace

TheResidentEvil said:

If you want to save money then buy used books. So cheap on amazon marketplace

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Good thing EA doesn't sell books.

a book - NOT EBOOK that retails for 7.99 costs the retailer about 4-5 dollars to buy from the publisher to put on the shelves, using that model- the retailer, having a sale on the book but still costing more than the cost of the book, makes money, a hardcover book that retails for 27 dollars, and goes on sale @ release for 18 dollars is STILL MAKING MONEY to the retailer, just not as much. remember, the book cost the retailer less than what they are selling it for and the publisher is making a profit (hardcover costs are maybe 10-13 dollars a book.

ebooks cost the publisher MAYBE 4 dollars to publish electronically, storage costs for an ebook are(or should be since I can store a 5meg file for about a penny a year)less than a penny a year per book.

a if a publisher can sell Hardcover/paperback ebooks direct to you via their own website for 6 dollars individually or sell ~6-8 books(of which ~2-3 are brand new hardcover books-you do not choose the books the books are preselected for you) for 18 dollars collectively in a bundle- and make a profit,(baenebooks.com), then the current ebook prices are....too high.

7.99 for a ebook which being the same price as the paperback version of the book is...a ripoff.

which is why e-book pirating is so rampant currently. i know a book that is coming out - hardcover only- in 8 months, the ebook version will not be out for a few months afterward,,,i WILL have the ebook the DAY it is released in hardcover form. and i will get the hardcover book(i have all the others in the series) and i will -eventually- buy the ebook version (i have all the ebook versions).......just i will read the ebook ~3 months prior to an "official" version is available.

Sounds similar to music when mp3 players came around in the 90's. I guess the book companies missed that whole dilemma? Or was that just too long ago to remember?

Over the past month or so, e-book prices have risen to to like $1.00 less than paper. No. I buy ebooks for convenience and cost. Im not paying near full price for an e-book, period. I dont care about lawsuits, I just vote with my wallet.