DOJ Warns Apple, Publishers about Potential Price-Fixing Lawsuit
I just saw a news headline that the US Department of Justice has warned Apple and five of the “Big Six” publishers concerning price-fixing of e-book prices. The details can be found on the Wall Street Journal’s web site.
Sources told the WSJ that the DoJ has threatened Apple with antitrust lawsuits if it indulges in raising prices of e-books by colluding five of the biggest book publishers.
Some of them are reportedly in settlement talks with the Justice Department to avoid a court battle. A settlement or a successful lawsuit will see customers gaining access to cheaper e-books.
The publishers include Hachette Livre (Lagardère Publishing of France), Harper Collins (News Corp. of USA), Simon & Schuster (CBS Corp. of USA), Penguin (Pearson Group of U.K.) and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holzbrinck (owner of inter alia Macmillan of Germany).
The so-called “agency model” which this alleged collusion forced upon Amazon.com has meant that Amazon is not able to apply any discounts to e-book prices from those publishers (and their many subsidiaries). My hope is that either through out-of-court settlements or actual litigation, we e-book consumers will eventually benefit from lower prices. Of course, the way things go with the court system, I would not recommend getting your hopes up for $9.99 best-sellers again any time real soon.
Looks Like ‘Agency Model’ Pricing Is On the Way Out — I Hope | eBookworm:
September 10th, 2012 at 4:29 pm
[...] this is all largely a result of the collusion talks/settlement/judgment/whatever that the US DoJ had with Apple and those 5 publishers; and ideally in the long run it will mean [...]