https://web.archive.org/web/20201124015540/https://www.theregister.com/2013/07/10/apple_found_guilty_ebook_price_fixing/ #The Register: whole site The Register: Policy section search El Reg Search The Register(R) -- Biting the hand that feeds IT search ____________________ Sign in Off-Prem CloudInternet of ThingsChannelBusiness (X) On-Prem ServersStorageNetworksPersonal Tech (X) Software All SoftwareDevOpsArtificial IntelligenceVirtualization (X) SecurityOff-Beat DebatesScienceGeek's GuideBOFHVerity StobPolicyBootnotesSite News (X) Vendor Voice AdobeIntelNutanixVeeamVmware (X) Policy Dead STEVE JOBS was a CROOK - judge Fruity firm ruled guilty of fixing ebook prices in 2010 Brid-Aine Parnell Wed 10 Jul 2013 // 15:27 UTC (BUTTON) Share reddit Twitter Facebook linkedin WhatsApp email https://www.theregis (BUTTON) Copy __________________________________________________________________ A US judge has found Apple guilty of conspiring with major publishers to fix the price of ebooks and has called for a trial on damages. District Judge Denise Cote stayed true to her initial impressions of the case, and ruled that Apple had colluded with Macmillan, Hachette, Penguin, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster on digital tome prices when it entered the ebook market with its iPads in 2010. At the time, Apple - led by its co-founder Steve Jobs who died in 2011 - was competing with tech juggernaut Amazon. The fruity firm's price fixing pushed up costs for readers, and was its attempt to eliminate its rival from the market, the judge said in the ruling. The beak said: 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. Without Apple's orchestration of this conspiracy, it would not have succeeded as it did in the Spring of 2010. The fruity firm now faces a trial on damages from various states, which the judge has said are entitled to injunctive relief. All five publishers settled the case brought by the US Department of Justice before the trial, leaving only Apple alone in the dock to face charges stemming from the company's agency contracts with the bookhouses. Before Apple came along, the ebook market was run in the same way as the ink-and-paper book market, where books were sold at a wholesale price and sellers then decided what price to charge consumers for them. Under this model, Amazon was steadily lowering the price of ebooks, choosing to sell them below cost price in order to shift its Kindle ereaders and establish dominance in the market. Under the agency model, publishers decided the price of ebooks and sellers took a 30 per cent cut of that price. Moving to the model gave the bookhouses the ability to set prices, while most-favoured-nation clauses - which stopped them offering a better price to sellers than they'd given Apple - further homogenised prices. Apple has always contended that being brought to court on antitrust charges was somewhat ridiculous, since its entry into the market helped to ease off Amazon's fast-developing stranglehold on the market. However, Judge Cote rejected that argument. "This trial has not been the occasion to decide whether Amazon's choice to sell NYT Bestsellers or other New Releases as loss leaders was an unfair trade practice or in any other way a violation of law," she said. "If it was, however, the remedy for illegal conduct is a complaint lodged with the proper law enforcement offices or a civil suit or both. "Another company's alleged violation of antitrust laws is not an excuse for engaging in your own violations of law. Nor is suspicion that that may be occurring a defence to the claims litigated at this trial." Apple had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication, but the DoJ said in a statement that the result was "a victory for millions of consumers". "After carefully weighing the evidence, the court agreed with the Justice Department and 33 state attorneys general that executives at the highest levels of Apple orchestrated a conspiracy with five major publishers to raise e-book prices," the assistant attorney general in charge of the DoJ's antitrust division, Bill Baer, said. "Through today's court decision and previous settlements with five major publishers, consumers are again benefiting from retail price competition and paying less for their ebooks." (R) Bootnote Apple has reportedly declared its intention to appeal against the guilty verdict. Get our Tech Resources * MORE * Apple Corrections Send us news 99 Comments reddit Twitter Facebook linkedin WhatsApp email Get our Weekly newsletter Most Read 1. Linus Torvalds worried Linux kernel might get messy around Christmas 2. The GIMP turns 25 and promises to carry on being the FOSS not-Photoshop 3. It's always DNS, especially when a sysadmin makes a hash of their semicolons 4. 'Unmute' named one of Oxford Dictionary's words of the year 5. US Air Force deploys robot security dogs to guard base __________________________________________________________________ Keep Reading Big Tech to face its Ma Bell moment? US House Dems demand break-up of 'monopolists' Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google 'These once scrappy, underdog startups have become the kinds of monopolies we last saw in the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons' Amazon settles for $11m with workers in unpaid bag-search wait lawsuit Puts to rest claims staff should've been paid for time spent in security lines Amazon Transcribe can now ID 31 languages from audio so uncultured swines don't have to Give that tagging finger a rest Amazon gets green-light to blow $10bn on 3,000+ internet satellites. All so Americans can shop more on Amazon Jeff knows you've gotta spend money to make money CSI: Amazon.com coming soon to a screen near you 'Counterfeit Stuff Investigation' team staffed by former federal prosecutors to go after dodgy merchants and makers At historic Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google CEOs hearing, congressmen ramble, congresswomen home in on tech market abuse Analysis We watched six hours of congressional hearings so you didn't have to If you're on invite-only tech-testing scheme, take care with Amazon's Alexa-powered answer to Google's Glass iFixit reveals repair won't be trivial Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google told: If you could cough up a decade of your internal emails, that'd be great Oh, and you have four weeks to comply, says US antitrust probe Tech Resources Navigating the New Era of Cloud Computing Hear from Steve Sibley, VP of Offering Management for IBM Power Systems about how IBM Power Systems can enable hybrid cloud environments that support "build once, deploy anywhere" options. Simplifying Hybrid Cloud Flash Storage According to industry analysts, a critical element for secure hybrid multicloud environments is the storage infrastructure. Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Services Buyers Guide Organizations are increasingly looking towards managed detection and response (MDR) services to run their security operations program. IBM and Nvidia(R) Solutions Power Insights with the New AI IBM is well-positioned to help organizations incorporate high-performance solutions for AI into the enterprise landscape. ABOUT US * Who we are * Under the hood * Contact us * Advertise with us MORE CONTENT * Latest News * Popular Stories * Forums * Whitepapers * Webinars SITUATION PUBLISHING * The Next Platform * DevClass * Blocks and Files * Continuous Lifecycle London * M-cubed Situation Publishing The Register - Independent news and views for the tech community. Part of Situation Publishing SIGN UP TO OUR DAILY NEWSLETTER Subscribe Twitter Facebook LinkedIn feeds no-js Biting the hand that feeds IT (c) 1998-2020 Do not sell my personal information Cookies Privacy Ts&Cs