Justice Department threatens Apple, publishers with lawsuits over alleged e-book fix

[Dallas]

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department has warned Apple Inc. and five of the biggest US publishers that it plans to sue them for allegedly colluding to raise the price of electronic books, according to people familiar with the matter.

Several of the parties have held talks to settle the antitrust case and head off a potentially damaging court battle, these people said. If successful, such a settlement could have wide-ranging repercussions for the industry, potentially leading to cheaper e-books for consumers. However, not every publisher is in settlement discussions.

The five publishers facing a potential suit are CBS Corp.'s Simon & Schuster Inc.; Lagardere SCA's Hachette Book Group; Pearson PLC's Penguin Group; Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH; and HarperCollins Publishers Inc., a unit of News Corp., which also owns The Wall Street Journal and NewsCore.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...alleged-e-book/?test=latestnews#ixzz1oXfVWx3I


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It will be interesting to see just who was responsible for steering this little group of outlaws.


They got caught and now are scrambling to keep the polish.

FREE BOOK FOR EVERYONE 1 YEAR !!

 

[Cythim]

The WSJ article give much more detail about the situation. It sounds like Apple was trying to prevent Amazon from monopolizing the market by having publishers sell at a higher price.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203961204577267831767489216.html

Thankfully, my wife has figured out how to borrow books from the library instead of buying them through Amazon. I am renting an e-book textbook through Amazon for about $50 a semester when the e-book price was about $150.

 

[YosemiteSam]

The WSJ article give much more detail about the situation. It sounds like Apple was trying to prevent Amazon from monopolizing the market by having publishers sell at a higher price.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203961204577267831767489216.html

Thankfully, my wife has figured out how to borrow books from the library instead of buying them through Amazon. I am renting an e-book textbook through Amazon for about $50 a semester when the e-book price was about $150.

I haven't read this article, (will soon enough) but this is what happen and it happen a long time ago. Apple said they were going to charge more for books in their app store. They did and books were still selling, so publishers told Amazon, that they now have to charge more. (since they knew people would still buy them) Amazon fought it, but at some point they were forced to cave in some ways. (has to be the first time in a very long time that Amazon got bullied.)

Go to Amazon.com and look for the Game of Thrones books. You can buy the first four books in the set paperback for $19.99, but the ebooks 4 pack is like $35. What the hell? Ebooks cost nothing to make and paperbacks definitely do. Not only to make, but to ship too yet it's almost half the price of the ebooks.

Amazon didn't do that, the publishers did.

 

[vta]

They should instead consider suing oil companies for colluding to raise gas prices.

 

[YosemiteSam]

They should instead consider suing oil companies for colluding to raise gas prices.

Or we could convert to something other than oil.

The US should have been suing oil refineries and the auto makers. The refineries were paying the automakers to not produce cares that don't use oil for a long time.

I believe that has pretty much died our since oil prices shot threw the roof. It started curbing auto sales.

 

[vta]

Or we could convert to something other than oil.

The US should have been suing oil refineries and the auto makers. The refineries were paying the automakers to not produce cares that don't use oil for a long time.

I believe that has pretty much died our since oil prices shot threw the roof. It started curbing auto sales.

Can we convert melted down tablets into a viable energy source? They are petroleum products after all.