Judge Thinks Apple Will Lose E-Book Price-Fixing Case

Nerval's Lobster writes "Apple could face a difficult time winning its court case against the U.S. Department of Justice over e-book pricing, according to the federal judge overseeing the trial. 'I believe that the government will be able to show at trial direct evidence that Apple knowingly participated in and facilitated a conspiracy to raise prices of e-books,' U.S. District Judge Denise Cote said during a May 23 pretrial hearing, according to Reuters, 'and that the circumstantial evidence in this case, including the terms of the agreements, will confirm that.' Apple's legal counsel is a bit perturbed over her comments. 'We strongly disagree with the court's preliminary statements about the case today,' Apple lawyer Orin Snyder wrote in a statement also reprinted by Reuters. The Justice Department has asserted that Apple, along with those publishers, conspired to raise retail e-book prices in tandem 'and eliminate price competition, substantially increasing prices paid by consumers.' Apple battles Amazon in the e-book space, with the latter company achieving great success over the past few years by driving down the price of e-books and Kindle e-readers; while Apple co-founder insisted in emails to News Corp executive James Murdoch (son of Rupert Murdoch), that Amazon's pricing was ultimately unsustainable, the online retailer shows no signs of flagging with regard to its publishing-industry clout."

Comments

Good

[Northern Pike]

E-book pricing is a sham.

Re:Good

[afidel]

Yes, yes it is. When it costs more to buy the ebook than it does to buy a 500 page printed document you know something is fundamentally wrong.

Re:Good

[rahvin112]

Why do you think every publisher ran for the exits and settled with the Feds? This is a slam dunk case, they have the emails, the meeting notes, they know exactly what happened and it was industry collusion and price fixing under the federal laws. Apple was stupid or arrogant to take this to court. I personally hope the government takes them for several billion. I personally probably paid more than $100 extra because of this price fixing and I've wanted this prosecution from the day the price fixing was publicized.

As you said, you know the market is broken when the digital price is higher than the same thing printed on dead tree shipped to your door. I personally believe there should be people in jail for what happened here. This illegal price fixing cost the public Billions.

Re:Good

[ShanghaiBill]

I personally believe there should be people in jail for what happened here.

I disagree. Jail is expensive and wasteful. It should not be used as a default punishment for non-violent crimes. People should only be incarcerated if they are a physical danger to other people. America already imprisons far more of its population than any other country. We should learn from the rest of the world. Singapore is a good example. If Tim Cook received ten lashes on the bare buttocks with an alcohol soaked raton rod, that would be more than sufficient deterrent, and would be far more cost effective for the taxpayers.

Re:Good

[maccodemonkey]

Why do you think every publisher ran for the exits and settled with the Feds? This is a slam dunk case, they have the emails, the meeting notes, they know exactly what happened and it was industry collusion and price fixing under the federal laws

Probably because from Apple's perspective, all Apple did was let the publishers set their own book prices. That's basically what this case is about. On Amazon, Amazon set the book prices, and Apple said to the publishers they could come to the iBooks store and set their own prices, and get out from under Amazon's thumb. That sort of collusion doesn't seem illegal (but IANAL.)

Publishers may have set prices higher than dead tree books, which is a shame, but also totally not illegal itself.

Re:Good

[alen]

technically you are right, but amazon was selling ebooks at a loss. without apple and the feds they had to take the losses for a few years until B&N bit the dust and then jack up their prices.

apple might have broken the law, but they got amazon to actually innovate in the book selling biz

Re:Good

[0123456]

True. It's not as though Amazon have any competition in the e-book business other than B&N. Like, you know, Apple, Kobo, Sony, etc, etc...

For the sarcasm-impaired, I believe Apple and Kobo are now #2 and #3 in e-book sales with B&N trailing behind because they're US-only.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

If Tim Cook received ten lashes on the bare buttocks with an alcohol soaked raton rod, that would be more than sufficient deterrent, and would be far more cost effective for the taxpayers.

Cost effective? The taxpayers could clean up on pay-per-view!

Re:Good

[Rockoon]

Probably because from Apple's perspective, all Apple did was let the publishers set their own book prices.

Wrong. Part of the agreement with Apple was that the publishers would also not sell anywhere else for less than they do in Apples market.

Re:Good

[CastrTroy]

I'm not so sure. I can buy 500 page printed books from the dollar store (total cost to me, $1). A paper book actually costs very little to produce, even when you count in distribution and retail space, the price is pretty minimal. EBooks aren't expensive, but the cost of them isn't 0 either. I would probably say that the fixed costs for both ebooks and paper books is probably about the same, and both are probably under $1.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally think a more fitting punishment would be to force these thieves to personally give free money to poor people.

Unfortunately, given the constitutional protection against "cruel and unusual punishment," your ten lashes are more likely.

Re:Good

[fahrbot-bot]

I personally probably paid more than $100 extra because of this price fixing ... As you said, you know the market is broken when the digital price is higher than the same thing printed on dead tree shipped to your door.

Of course, you realize that you could have simply bought those dead-tree versions and saved yourself that $100, right?

Re:Good

[TheNastyInThePasty]

The biggest myth with capitalism is that pricing has ANYTHING to do with costs. It sets a floor under which a company cannot be profitable, but it does nothing to dictate how much things cost above that. Capitalism is about profit. Specifically, maximizing it. Companies and greedy people will set their prices as high as they possibly can in order to maximize profit. Cost has nothing to do with that.

Therefore, the cost of an E-book is whatever they can get you to pay for it. Just like the cost of an paperback book is whatever they can get you to pay for it.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad to see you were able to arrive at a conclusion without any evidence.

Re:Good

[0123456]

The biggest myth with capitalism is that pricing has ANYTHING to do with costs.

That 'myth' is nothing to do with capitalism, it's basically the labour theory of value, which people were laughing at even when Marx was promoting it in the 19th century. Of course sane companies charge what their customers are willing to pay, in order to maximize profits.

Re:Good

[radarskiy]

"you know something is fundamentally wrong"

And that wrong thing is your understanding of microeconomics.

Re:Good

[trout007]

You were the one that decided to buy at that price. How is anyone responsible but you? I'll sell you the chair I'm sitting in for $10,000. If you are stupid enough to buy it how is that my fault?

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

This is top level decision makers, not grunts in a warehouse stacking shelves. They are colluding to take money from millions of Americans, abusing their positions. The CEOs should do life, treat each book sold as an individual case and total them up. Stop blaming companies, blame the people that have secret meetings between themselves to illegal fix pricing. Of course, jailing the mega rich for life is a waste of tax payers' money, so death penalty?

Re:Good

[mevets]

Is this any different from a Most Favoured Customer clause? That is a very common instrument in vendor agreements. Is it somehow different in wholesale agreements?

Re:Good

[gl4ss]

Is this any different from a Most Favoured Customer clause? That is a very common instrument in vendor agreements. Is it somehow different in wholesale agreements?

well no.. but the case is apparently more about how apple worked towards that end and organized the collusion between the publishers to not sell under a price X anywhere.

Re:Good

[icebike]

Probably because from Apple's perspective, all Apple did was let the publishers set their own book prices. That's basically what this case is about.

No, continue your reading and research. This is FAR from all the case is about. Apple entered into a collusion with the publishers (who have all ran for the exits) to fix the price of e-books across the entire industry, and to trash the first sale doctrine in the process by forcing every reseller to be the Agent of the publisher.

There is no way this could have been accomplished previously. Apple did this to raise margins because they wanted and demanded 30% on everything sold thru the iTunes store, but there was not 30% to be had with Amazon working on much slimmer margins. The only way this could be pulled off was for all publishers to simultaneously force all resellers to Agency terms. That required one big (new) reseller with nothing to lose, to agree to it, so that the publishers could preserve the e-book market, and force the smaller resellers to toe the line.

And while we like to blame Cook, it was really Jobs who formed this conspiracy.

But the way this lawsuit works the last to agree holds the largest bag. And Apple was too proud to admit its part in this collusion, and as a result they are going to pay up big. Very Big.

Re:Good

[icebike]

technically you are right, but amazon was selling ebooks at a loss. without apple and the feds they had to take the losses for a few years until B&N bit the dust and then jack up their prices.

apple might have broken the law, but they got amazon to actually innovate in the book selling biz

Amazon wasn't selling e-books at a loss. Yes, they offered some bargains on some books, at some points in time.
But they have stated that they made money on the ebook segment as a whole, and that was NOT by including it in the e-reader segment.

Its is fiction that Amazon sold all ebooks at a loss. A fiction invented by Apple for the most part.

Re:Good

[icebike]

I would probably say that the fixed costs for both ebooks and paper books is probably about the same, and both are probably under $1.

You are close to being right, except you hand waive away distribution and shipping, and stocking costs of dead tree books, which the publisher does not actually pay for. That component costs way more than electronic distribution.

But there is also fiction in the so called production costs of ebooks vs paper books. Yes they both require editing. But that editing is done exactly once. You don't edit again when an ebook is released.

And building an ebook takes LESS time than setting up a press run, (its literally do-able with off the shelf commercial (and free) software with one mouse click.

Author's royalties are the only real constant between books and ebooks. And the publishers force a lot of costs back onto the authors for printed books.

The rest of the cost comparison is bean counter's Bistro Math designed to come out a certain way before a single number is actually crunched.

Re:Good

[spire3661]

You are a fool, with foolish opinions. Corporal Punishment is NEVER the answer to handling an adult. We call that sort of justice cruel and unusual for a reason. What you suggest is blatantly illegal in the United States, and rightly so.

Re:Good

[spire3661]

A dead tree book and an ebook are not equivalent on many levels. Each has unique properties the other does not.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

You're forgetting the 100,000 hours of labor it took some poor out of touch executive to figure out what this "newfangled internet thing is" and how to create a company's online store. We have to charge for that somehow!

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes what they did is significantly different from the common 'most favored' clause: The Apple agreement allowed the publisher to set the RETAIL price to $X of which 30% would go to the retailer (apple, amazon etc).Usually the 'most favored clause' will set the buy price for the retailer/distributor, after which time they can sell it at any profit margin they wish.

The Apple/Publisher collusion specifically prevented anyone to undercut the itunes store on ebooks, preventing the retailer from using certain books as loss leaders or similar.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a fool, with foolish opinions. Corporal Punishment is NEVER the answer to handling an adult. We call that sort of justice cruel and unusual for a reason. What you suggest is blatantly illegal in the United States, and rightly so.

You do realise that execution is a form of corporal punishment, don't you? I'm not sure if water boarding counts, however.

Re:Good

[ShanghaiBill]

We call that sort of justice cruel and unusual for a reason.

A few lashes with a raton cane is painful, but I think most people would consider it less cruel than going to jail for a couple years. Many people in jail have families, which often fall apart once "dad" is gone, resulting in another generation of criminals. People sentenced to longer sentences are more likely to be recidivist than people receiving shorter sentences for similar crimes. Jail is appropriate for physically violent people, but for others it is counter-productive.

If Tim Cook goes to jail, that will cost the taxpayers more than $40k in direct expenses, and cost millions more by removing a smart and capable executive from productive activity. If he gets ten lashes on the buttocks instead, he can be back at work the next day, as long as he has a standing desk.

What you suggest is blatantly illegal in the United States, and rightly so.

Well, it certainly isn't because of public opposition. When an American citizen was sentenced to caning in Singapore for vandalizing cars, Singapore's ambassador went on TV to defend the sentence, and the response from Americans was overwhelmingly in favor of the sentence. Singapore has a far lower crime rate than America. The caning leaves welts, but does not break the skin. Between lashes, it is dipped in alcohol to both sterilize and soften the cane.

If you had a choice of spending a year in jail, or a few lashes, which would you prefer? Which would stick in your memory better the next time you thought about committing a crime?

Re:Good

[nelk]

You were the one that decided to buy at that price. How is anyone responsible but you? I'll sell you the chair I'm sitting in for $10,000. If you are stupid enough to buy it how is that my fault?

One person/company offering a product at a given price point, you're okay. Colluding with the rest of the chair industry to ensure that ALL chairs cost $10,000, not so much.

Re:Good

[spire3661]

It doesnt matter what I or the people who supported Singaporean punishment prefer, as long as the 8th stands, its illegal. You base part of your argument on the economics of putting Tim Cook in jail, which has no place in the discussion of JUSTICE. You lost any moral high ground at this point.

Re:Good

[fahrbot-bot]

A dead tree book and an ebook are not equivalent on many levels. Each has unique properties the other does not.

Possibly, but they share the most important properties for a book, like the words ... :-) The question is whether the "unique" properties of an e vs paper book are worth the extra $100 the parent mentioned. My guess is, for most (set of) books, probably not.

Re:Good

[ShanghaiBill]

It doesnt matter what I or the people who supported Singaporean punishment prefer, as long as the 8th stands, its illegal.

The 8th amendment does not ban corporal punishment. It bans "cruel and unusual" punishment. Caning would not be unusual if it was adopted as a standard sentence, and it should not be considered "cruel" if the canee prefers it over incarceration.

You lost any moral high ground at this point.

Since under current law, DEATH is considered an acceptable and non-cruel sentence, I don't think advocating spanking puts me very low on the moral slope.

Re:Good

[mill3d]

"And now, for this week's spank the CEO sponsored by BigRod (tm)..!"

Can't wait for that shit.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

If Tim Cook goes to jail, that will cost the taxpayers more than $40k in direct expenses, and cost millions more by removing a smart and capable executive from productive activity.

Did you just argue that someone shouldn't go to jail because he makes lots of money?

You did, didn't you?

Re:Good

[TubeSteak]

If Tim Cook goes to jail, that will cost the taxpayers more than $40k in direct expenses, and cost millions more by removing a smart and capable executive from productive activity.

If by productive activity, you mean "presiding over price fixing," then I'm perfectly okay with removing him from productive activity.
There isn't nearly enough personal culpability for corporate criminals.

Without google-ing, name [arbitrary number] of major white collar cases in the last [arbitrary number of years].
You'd think with the massive financial destruction that's been ongoing since 2007, there would be a few highly notable jailings.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest myth with capitalism is that pricing has ANYTHING to do with costs.

More like, the biggest myth among those who DON'T UNDERSTAND capitalism.

Econ 101 would have taught you the price is set by supply and demand, no mention of cost anywhere.

Re:Good

[izzo nizzo]

The equipment that made the e-book possible is not free of costs, just like the equipment that made the paper book. In fact it might even cost more. Just because there are no molecules in the e-book doesn't mean it was less costly to produce than the paper version. Nor does the price have to mirror the cost - the price also reflects the value, which for an e-book is potentially greater than the same book printed on paper and shipped to your door.

Amazon operates at a loss by selling e-books for $10. That essentially meant that no smaller companies could compete since they most likely did not have the luxury of selling e-books at a loss. Apple was trying to move things in a pro-competitive direction.

You may or may not be correct that what they did was illegal. But your implication that they were trying to pad an already-profitable margin is, to my understanding, mistaken. This I find to be an important detail of the case, particularly so because e-books are potentially an important part of healing our economy and culture. This suit has strengthened Amazon's position to the point where a monopoly is not out of the question. That is the scary part.

Re:Good

[neonKow]

That doesn't make it not price fixing. If the only way to get the digital versions is to pay $100 more, and clearly it doesn't cost the publishers that amount to make the books (since the dead-tree versions somehow sell for less), it's still price fixing.

Re:Good

[fahrbot-bot]

That doesn't make it not price fixing. If the only way to get the digital versions is to pay $100 more, and clearly it doesn't cost the publishers that amount to make the books (since the dead-tree versions somehow sell for less), it's still price fixing.

True. I wasn't saying the game isn't rigged; I was saying he doesn't have to play. No one *forced* him to buy a more expensive e-book version instead of a paper one... (Somehow, that got modded "Troll")

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a bit curious, does Singapore deal with white collar crime this way? Seems a bit odd that one would punish a non violent crime with violence.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Torture - (noun) The action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or in order to force them to do or say something.

Sounds pretty cruel (another word I could provide the definition of, if you like) to me.

Even if I should call it "spanking" instead of "torture".

Re:Good

[chrismcb]

Of course, you realize that you could have simply bought those dead-tree versions and saved yourself that $100, right?

Prior to Apple coming along many ebooks were in the $5 range. After apple came along, the ebook prices were the same or higher than the mass market price (typically 8 or 13)...

Re:Good

[Gumbercules!!]

I imagine that Apple knows they will probably lose - but want to take the "we're innocent" approach. Even if they lose, the Apple Faithful will be able to continue to Believe by deluding themselves that Apple was unfairly dealt with by the feds (i.e. choosing to believe that either Apple was "singled out" (which is wrong - they just didn't settle, while the other players did) or just outright believing Apple was innocent).

If Apple openly says, "yes, we tried to screw customers", this hurts their image far more.

Whatever fine is coming their way for taking this approach - they can afford it.

Re:Good

[Plumpaquatsch]

technically you are right, but amazon was selling ebooks at a loss. without apple and the feds they had to take the losses for a few years until B&N bit the dust and then jack up their prices.

apple might have broken the law, but they got amazon to actually innovate in the book selling biz

Amazon wasn't selling e-books at a loss.

Sure, when you pay 13$ for an ebook to the publisher, and sell it for the magical $9.99, you're not actually losing money, because you make it up in volume. Or after you achieved a monopoly by forcing everybody else out of the market. You just have to think long-term.

Re:Good

[DirtyLiar]

E-book pricing is a sham.

No, it's legit!

I mean the publishers have to move all those bits, an e-book should cost slightly more than the paper version! They have to pay for all those business lunches somehow!

Re:Good

[Xest]

"Singapore has a far lower crime rate than America."

What an utterly disingenuous argument. It also has a completely different culture. Singapore is by and large a police state where you can be charged $5000 and be given a year in jail simply for importing chewing gum or porn into the country. Caning pretty much always goes hand in hand with jail time there as a punishment for crime so your assertion that it's use as a rehabilitative measure separate from jail is false given that fact.

Saudi Arabia also has lower crime rates than the US so by your logic should the US bring in beheading as a punishment? The chopping off of hands of thieves?

The fact that you think justice systems should be about punishment highlights precisely why you're struggling to understand why more modern, progressive societies have outlawed this kind of physical punishment - because making it about rehabilitation and paying back the victim and society has time and time again shown to be far more successful as difficult as it is to go against the primitive mob mentality of vengeful violence instead.

By all accounts it seems like one of the killers of the soldier in London the other day saw your sort of "justice" when he tried to get into Somalia from Kenya and the Kenya police arrested him and raped him before letting him go. That didn't turn him into a reformed individual, it made him so bitter and full of hatred of society that he went out and killed some guy in cold blood in the middle of the street in the most brutal way possible. Yeah, great job a bit of physical punishment and humiliation did there - thanks to the Kenyan police sharing your views on punishment we ended up with a guy finally losing it on our streets in what was effectively an attempt at murder suicide given that he ran with a machete at armed police to try and die death by cop.

If you think humiliating and harming people is the best way to turn them around then the further you're kept away from ideas of justice the better. It doesn't work and can sometimes have quite the opposite effect. The fact you had to completely misrepresent justice in and use of caning in Singapore as a kind of magical standalone method of justice that cures everything doesn't exactly add weight to your argument.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Rattan

Re:Good

[FlyHelicopters]

The only problem... I think jail is cruel and unusual punishment for non-violent criminals...

So in all fairness, you don't have a moral leg to stand on either...

judge in Apple's pocket?

[WGFCrafty]

Can't prejudice such as this get Apple's case thrown out?

Re:judge in Apple's pocket?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shush now, we're trying to get excited about Apple being steeped in legal hot water. This comment section is for pillow-talk only.

Re:judge in Apple's pocket?

[gurps_npc]

No. The judge was asked to rule on the strength of a case, given current evidence. He did so.

Such rulings often determine things such as will bail be required, or in corporate cases, whether or not preliminary injunctions are appropriate.

Re:judge in Apple's pocket?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't prejudice such as this get Apple's case thrown out?

Is it prejudice? The judge has said, based on what he's seen, that he think it likely x will show y. That doesn't mean he's concluded that x has shown y, or that y is even true.

What it does show is that the trial hasn't started out well for Apple, which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone (other than Apple).

Re:judge in Apple's pocket?

[DragonWriter]

Can't prejudice such as this get Apple's case thrown out?

Prejudice is opinion formed independently and prior to evidence being presented. This is a comment about how things stand based on the evidence that has been presented, which is not, in any way, shape, or form, prejudice. Its just "judice", which, you know, is what judges do.

Re:judge in Apple's pocket?

[Anachragnome]

"Can't prejudice such as this get Apple's case thrown out?"

Quite possibly, which leads me to ask a question.

If I wanted to manipulate the market, in terms of Apple stock, how would I best go about doing that to my own profit?

Well, If I am an influential Federal Judge, I can make public statements regarding a lawsuit that appear to weaken Apple and wait for stocks to drop in value and snatch them up, selling them when Apple stocks go back up when everyone realizes that Apple was actually going to benefit greatly by the outcome of that case as a result of my previous statements having legal ramifications directly applicable to the case.

Now, if I was a smart, influential Federal Judge, I leave the buying/selling up to some trusted friend...

Re:judge in Apple's pocket?

[icebike]

Can't prejudice such as this get Apple's case thrown out?

Apparently not, much to my dismay.

Judge Koh said that it was clear that Samsung violated Apple Patents with the Samsung tablet, yet that was the ONE device that the biased jury found not to violate ANY patents.

She has previously issued a Ban on its importation along with her ill advised pronouncements.

(Don't think Samsung is so dumb they won't bring this up on Appeal).

Re:judge in Apple's pocket?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um dude.... Apple's stock has been steadily shitting the bed for over a year now. It is still dropping. I highly doubt they need to do that.

Re:judge in Apple's pocket?

[KGIII]

She... You insensitive clod.

Re:judge in Apple's pocket?

[Anonymous Coward]

...for over a year now.

your memory is wrong, their peak was 9 months ago.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=aapl+today+-+1+year+to+today

Re:judge in Apple's pocket?

[Plumpaquatsch]

No. The judge was asked to rule on the strength of a case, given current evidence. He did so.

Is that so? Not according to TFA, it was "an unusual move before a trial", and "that she had read only some of the evidence so far".

Re:judge in Apple's pocket?

[Plumpaquatsch]

Um dude.... Apple's stock has been steadily shitting the bed for over a year now. It is still dropping. I highly doubt they need to do that.

Errm, up more than 10% in the last 5 weeks.

We did nothing wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

We merely got the main players together to allow them to conspire to fix pricing via our market, thus screwing other outlets like Amazon.

Get over it,
Steve

Bias

[Anonymous Coward]

Are Judges even allowed to make that kind of comments before a judgment is made?

Re:Bias

[tysonedwards]

The real question is whether the Judge presiding over a trial is allowed to make that kind of comment *before* the trial has started.

Re:Bias

[jsm300]

Yes, that is one of the purposes of a pretrial hearing. The judge has to determine whether or not the case should proceed to a trial or be dismissed. In order for there to be a trial, the Judge has to determine if the party bringing the lawsuit (the federal government in this case) has enough evidence to warrant a trial. The Judge also has to make a preliminary judgement about how likely the party bringing the lawsuit will win. This is needed in order to determine whether any preliminary injunctions should be issued prior to the trial (i.e. an injunction that takes place and stays in force until the trial is completed or another hearing reverses the injunction).

ummm the judge did not say lose...poor summary

[Anonymous Coward]

To say that the Government will be able to present direct evidence of liability, is not the same as saying the Government will win. This is today's dumbass Slashdot summary of the day.

Re:ummm the judge did not say lose...poor summary

[Black Parrot]

This is today's dumbass Slashdot summary of the day.

It's early yet.

All I want to know is

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that an ebook costs the same as the cheapest edition out at the time? There is no paper, no printing, no binding, no shipping, no storage, no shelf, an no people to support all of those operations. Yet, for some reason unknown to me, the prices are almost exactly the same as the cheapest edition out.

Re:All I want to know is

[Anonymous Coward]

You can thank Steve Jobs.

Re:All I want to know is

[Black Parrot]

What the market will bear.

(IOW, how willing people are to be screwed.)

Re:All I want to know is

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they are generally dearer than paperbacks now. Unless you're talking about self-published tripe from wannabe authors. The reason is control. You can't sell your ebook despite it being in exactly the same condition as a new copy. Layout is negligible for novels, not so for reference and tech e-books, though.

Re:All I want to know is

[alen]

those costs are tiny in the price of an ebook
most of the cost of an ebook are in editing, making the cover art and marketing

EVERY book has to be professionally edited by multiple people. no matter how good or popular the author is. one editor checks for grammer, another for story flow. and there are one or two more kinds of editors but i don't remember the functions. figure $50 an hour or more for each one.

Re:All I want to know is

[gl4ss]

those costs are tiny in the price of an ebook
most of the cost of an ebook are in editing, making the cover art and marketing

EVERY book has to be professionally edited by multiple people. no matter how good or popular the author is. one editor checks for grammer, another for story flow. and there are one or two more kinds of editors but i don't remember the functions. figure $50 an hour or more for each one.

..are you implying that printing it on paper, putting in boxes, shipping to a bookstore and putting on display and taking back returns has a negative cost?

Re:All I want to know is

[gabebear]

The actual printing cost of any paperback where more than a thousand coppies are produced is a buck or two. You can print a single copy of a 6"x4" 100page paperback(color cover) for $5.25 at http://www.lulu.com/calculators/bookCalc.php?cid=publish_book

Re:All I want to know is

[alen]

no, but you still have the editing costs and Amazon takes 20% or 30% commission for selling the book. along with the whispernet fees for any customers who download over 3g.

the printing/shipping costs were always around 10%. the selling costs are still there with amazon/apple taking the commission instead of B&N

Re:All I want to know is

[0123456]

EVERY book has to be professionally edited by multiple people. no matter how good or popular the author is.

Uh, no. You think there's an editor who tells Stephen King to rewrite his story?

And at the other end of the scale, mid-list authors have been complaining that no-one did a story edit on their novel and the copy editors left typos in the back-cover blurb, not just the interior of the book.

In any case, that's work that only has to be done once and can be purchased on the open market for at most a couple of thousand dollars. It's cheap compared to printing 10,000 copies of the book, and once you've produced the edited print version you just reformat it for the e-book.

Re:All I want to know is

[Anonymous Coward]

no, but you still have the editing costs and Amazon takes 20% or 30% commission for selling the book. along with the whispernet fees for any customers who download over 3g.

the printing/shipping costs were always around 10%. the selling costs are still there with amazon/apple taking the commission instead of B&N

What extra editing is there on an ebook vs a regular book? Does it change that much? I would also assume that Amazon taking the 20% cut for an ebook is very similar to the cut they would take on a regular book as well. The whispernet fees are uniquely Amazon and only for kindle users, so I don't think that should calculate in. So where is the extra costs coming from. As stated earlier its probably what the market will bear. Still the pricing doesn't make sense to me.

Re:All I want to know is

[0123456]

I would also assume that Amazon taking the 20% cut for an ebook is very similar to the cut they would take on a regular book as well.

I believe for hardbacks and trade paperbacks, the retailer typically buys the books at about a 50% discount (which is why book stores can afford to have tables of new best-sellers at 30-40% off the list price). They can also return them if they don't sell, so the publisher has to cover the cost of those books too, and the shipping, and pulping the ones they can't sell.

Mass market paperbacks typically aren't returned, they're just binned and the cover sent back for credit.

The whispernet fees are uniquely Amazon and only for kindle users, so I don't think that should calculate in.

It's also added on top of the e-book price, so has no effect on the publisher's royalties.

Re:All I want to know is

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, no. You think there's an editor who tells Stephen King to rewrite his story?

Uh... I would. In a heart beat. For the life of me I can't understand why he's so popular. He has a few really good, well-written stories. The rest of his catalog is a mess... poorly written, rambling tripe. It's like he stopped caring about the quality of his genre somewhere after Dead Zone, and no longer uses three or more syllable words or complex sentences... uh wait a second, come to think of it, he never did. He's writing for the lowest common denominator... those that never made it past third grade reading. Someone should clue him in: quantity is not quality. I'd be happy to do it. "Hey, Steve... write something that in a hundred years we can still legitimately call literature. Please."

Re:All I want to know is

[Anonymous Coward]

EVERY book has to be professionally edited by multiple people.

Have you seen some of these "professionally edited" ebooks?

Re:All I want to know is

[KGIII]

Do you have a citation for that $50 figure? My sister has written a novel and I lack the time or interest to even read it but I want to support her. My question is not because I doubt you but because I'd like to gift her a line edit or a base edit and I'd like to know what the costs should be while I comparison shop. It appears that there are a number of sites that are out there that offer this service and that a good number of them charge by the word. When they charge by the word, somewhere around $0.002 to $0.0085 seems to be in the normal range from my initial research. I do not know what the average editing word rate per hour (ewr/h? I'm just making phrase up.) would be.

Re:All I want to know is

[KGIII]

Uh, no. You think there's an editor who tells Stephen King to rewrite his story?

Of course he has an editor. Don't be silly. See Wikipedia for example, they mention his editor by name at least once. A simple Google search would have revealed to you that he uses an editor. I don't think any professional author doesn't use an editor. They'd be crazy not to.

Citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_King (The word "editor" is used 7 times in that article.)

Re:All I want to know is

[KGIII]

Pardon my formatting. I should use an editor too.

Re:All I want to know is

[KGIII]

http://dvagency.com/agents/

Chuck Verrill is his Literary Agent's name and that's his firm. Contact information is on the site. You can submit your recommendations to Stephen King through his agent.

Why? I was really bored and wanted to see how complicated it was to find that information. It wasn't all that difficult really. I'd say that it took maybe five minutes to find and confirm it through multiple sources (in case you're curious). I figured, as well, that if I was going to go through the effort that I should probably share it with you seeing as you indicated a willingness to give your suggestions to him. He's a nice enough fellow, King - not his agent (I've never met his agent), and genuinely easy to talk to. We've met a half dozen times or so and he frequented a writer's group that I used to attend at the Bangor Public Library.

Re:All I want to know is

[KGIII]

Thank you for that. You've given me an idea which will surely make my sibling happy. Much appreciated. I knew the resources were there for this sort of thing, I knew the costs were fairly trivial for my intents, and I know that she'll appreciate it. However, I hadn't thought of it. She's recently authored a novel, published it online, had some raving reviews and some 4000 or so "likes" where she published it. I'll have someone design a cover (or hack away at it until I manage something acceptable) and I'll get her a handful of copies of her book in paperback format.

Thank you for linking that which gave me the idea to do this. I, and I'm sure she, appreciate it a great deal though it may not have been your intent.

I'd also like to get the book edited but the book would be a surprise. I'm not sure that I'd want to get it edited behind her back, without her input, or without her knowledge. That may be going too far and may not be appreciated as much and could be seen as tampering with her art as she'd have no input. What I'll probably end up doing is getting a small order of paperbacks printed up in the current format and then, when I gift them to her, present her with a coupon, voucher, or log-in credentials to a prepaid account with an online editor. When they've resolved that and settled on a final version I can just get another small order printed up that she can share with friends and family. Perhaps the initial order will be just a single copy so that she can actually hold it in paperback form - it's inexpensive and all that but it is still something that she'd enjoy. Spending less on the initial order would mean I could spend more on the fully edited copy and get her more copies of her work.

So, yeah, thank you. You're probably thinking that it isn't much of a gift (well, the editing is likely to be expensive) but it is really a "thought that counts" type of situation where it really is the thought that counts. It is something that will make her immensely pleased and will be the highlight of her year (or perhaps longer, knowing her) and will be seen as something quite valuable to her. I realize that your intent wasn't this but I'm pleased and grateful that your link triggered the thought and the results should be quite emotional.

It is also smaller than my gift to her last year. It will require less food though I suspect this one will cost me more and will cost her less. Last year I bought her an Arabian horse. It was on sale and she'd wanted an Arabian since she was a child. It had been a lifelong dream for her so it was rewarding to be able to fulfill that dream for her. Given her love for books I also suspect that the books will last longer than the horse will although I don't actually know anything about the longevity of horses.

And so, thanks again. Butterflies flapping wings causing hurricanes and all that. Much appreciated and surely much appreciated by her.

Re:All I want to know is

[chrismcb]

EVERY book has to be professionally edited by multiple people.

Are you suggesting the ebook version has to be re edited?
I'm not saying the ebook should be free. But if I have a choice between purchasing a physical book at 10% of a suggested price of 7.99, or the ebook at 7.99 or higher... I'll choose the physical book. I'm getting the same content. But I'll save my 10 to 25%.
Actually, lately, I've stopped purchasing books from the big 6, because of this practice. So they aren't even getting my 10% of 7.99 anymore. The independents get my money now.

Re:All I want to know is

[remas100]

EARN MONEY EARN MONEY

That's what beancounters do in every company

[boorack]

In few short years (three, maybe four) they went from being innovative company creating groundbreaking products to being a pain in the ass. Now they represent the worst aspects of corporate America: from tax evasion to legal system abuses to price fixing to screwing up their own customers on every possible occasion. With their innovation pace fading and their products increasingly lagging behind competitors. Maybe it's time to fire their management and hire some less parasitic, more innovative CEO ?

Re:That's what beancounters do in every company

[Black Parrot]

Jon Stewart had a comment along these lines back when the police raided someone's residence over the loose iPhone prototype (or whatever it was):

"What happened? Bill Gates is curing AIDS in Africa, and Steve Jobs is kicking down people's doors in Palo Alto!"

It used to be so simple to keep track of who was the good guys and who was the bad guys...

Re:That's what beancounters do in every company

[Anonymous Coward]

...from tax evasion...

Citation please.

Can't take you seriously when your first accusation has no foundation, at all, in fact.

_AVOIDING_ taxes is not the same as evading taxes. If it were then every single American who's ever taken advantage of any tax deduction (which probably counts every American who's filed taxes for more than five years) would be guilty of tax evasion. But they aren't because they are legally reducing their tax burden. Same as Apple (and Google and Facebook and Yahoo and....).

But, hey, claiming they're evading taxes sounds better, doesn't it. /eyeroll

Re:That's what beancounters do in every company

[Anonymous Coward]

In few short years (three, maybe four) they went from being innovative company creating groundbreaking products to being a pain in the ass. Now they represent the worst aspects of corporate America: from tax evasion to legal system abuses to price fixing to screwing up their own customers on every possible occasion. With their innovation pace fading and their products increasingly lagging behind competitors. Maybe it's time to fire their management and hire some less parasitic, more innovative CEO ?

Ah, who are you referring to here? I'm sorry I can't quite tell by the tax-dodging, customer-screwing accusations if you're referring to Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, or the other 873 companies who do this.

And unless that innovation you speak of is to not be a greedy fuck, pay an honest share of taxes, charge a fair price to obtain a reasonable profit, all without bowing to the elitist cocksuckers representing the Board demanding millions, nothing will change.

Re:That's what beancounters do in every company

[Ryanrule]

Well, it was obvious as shit when they put a supply chain guy in charge. The epitome of bean counter. Financial safe choice, but shows a complete lack of balls. Jobs is to blame.

Re:That's what beancounters do in every company

[Anonymous Coward]

It used to be so simple to keep track of who was the good guys and who was the bad guys...

That's because they weren't all using the same spin methods. Now that they are, the rational conclusion is that there never were any good guys.

Finally!

[slashmydots]

A judge without a pro-Apple bias! It's a miracle. Hey, maybe Samsung should counter-sue for more patent violations with this guy so they might actually get a fair trial for once.

Re: Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

I expect the judges are normally pro US rather than pro Apple. Samsung isn't American, the US Dept of Justice on the other hand is.

No prejudice

[Anonymous Coward]

Posters over on Ars, here on Slashdot, and elsewhere have been suggesting that the statement in question demonstrates some sort of "prejudice" on the part of the judge, thereby revealing their ignorance of the legal system. First, this was said at a pretrial hearing and not in (for example) an interview with the media - this statement was intended for the consumption of the parties to the case and not directed to the public. Second, it is routine and proper for judges to make their beliefs known to the parties to litigation - this is so that (1) the judge does not have to issue a written order on every point that comes up during the trial; (2) the parties can use their time and the court's time effectively instead of wasting it on arguments that will be foreclosed by an order yet to be issued; and (3) to dissuade parties from proceeding with claims or defenses that appear weak to the court. Finally, Judge Cote is not prejudging anything - she has seen the parties' arguments and learned at least basic information about which evidence each party possesses and will present at trial.

Rich people don't go to jail, silly!

[Anonymous Coward]

The enforcers of laws are just as vulnerable to corruption as anyone else. Those who can pay, pay their way right out of taking responsibility for the harm they cause. That is just how humans do things.

Don't forget, the rich and powerful receive such wealth and power as a result of being favored by God. The poor basically deserve their lot, since they are not favored by God. Just as it is ok for man to exploit animal, it is ok for rich to exploit poor (within reason) under God's law.

Re: Rich people don't go to jail, silly!

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't go to jail, they pay for lobbying groups and PACS that hire retired politicians.

The Judge is a Woman

[Anonymous Coward]

It's amazing how many people assume that since it's a judge it must be a man. If you read the summery her name is Denise and they say in the summery " Apple's legal counsel is a bit perturbed over her comments"

Re:The Judge is a Woman

[Anonymous Coward]

As you pointed out before in the case where the judge said that RAM must be handed over to see what it contained judges with chicks' names tend to be chicks.

Depends on the stock price

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

If Apples was at $700 a share, then they win all their cases, but when they lost $300 in value for a share, they are easy pickings to be rejected.

No judge want's to tell the world's highest valued company they are wrong, until they are no longer the highest valued company.

too bad apple already lost the ebook war

[alen]

amazon has won
ibooks is crap, and that's saying it as an ipad owner
the ibook store is crap as well. pain in the a$$ to use
no web book reader like the kindle
amazon is cheaper and amazon has kindle singles and now you can write your own fan fiction

Re:too bad apple already lost the ebook war

[geekmux]

amazon has won ibooks is crap, and that's saying it as an ipad owner the ibook store is crap as well. pain in the a$$ to use no web book reader like the kindle amazon is cheaper and amazon has kindle singles and now you can write your own fan fiction

I'll believe the ebook war is finally over when I'm not paying $250 for a college textbook. Until then, save your celebrations, because there are still millions of book buyers out there getting screwed exponentially.

Re:too bad apple already lost the ebook war

[Anonymous Coward]

I once had a college class with an 80 page textbook that cost 200 dollars. Every 5th page or so was a full of blanks lines for a required "journal" entry. Every 20th page was a quiz or test which had to be torn out and handed in. Professor was the books author.

Re:too bad apple already lost the ebook war

[CastrTroy]

The reason that college textbooks are so expensive is because of many reasons.

Nobody wants to write them
The market is actually quite small
People have no attachment to the books

If you think college texts are so expensive, go and write your own, and sell it to all the universities. There's not much stopping you from doing this. But writing text books is boring. Nobody does it just for a couple extra bucks because it's fun. And it's definitely not that easy. You also won't get any book signing deals, or have the possibility of your book being made into a movie. Because people have no attachment to the text book, you are pretty much forced to create a second/third/fourth edition of your book, or else after the first year, you will probably only sell 50% of the books you did the first year, and the third will be 50% of the second year, on and on until you are selling very few books. Also, I'm sure that many of the reasons why new editions are published is not only to correct mistakes, but also to appease the professors who use the books in their class. If your book doesn't cover a specific topic that is taught in the class, the professor will either have to have an additional text for that topic, or they will have to buy a different book altogether that does cover all the topics. It's kind of like how MS office 97 was feature complete for most people, and we wonder why they keep on tacking on new features. Because a small percentage of their user base wants a specific feature, so they add it on, even if 95% of people don't use that feature. If you lose 5% of your market to a single feature, and 5% to another feature, add on a few more missed features and you all of a sudden have lost your monopoly status.

Re:too bad apple already lost the ebook war

[Anonymous Coward]

> nobody wants to write them

really?

What about all those tenured academics who want to say "I wrote the book on X"?

There are tons of people writing high-quality math notes and graduate-level textbooks and putting them on the Internet for free, in the hope that you will learn something from them and then cite their textbook in your papers.

Re:too bad apple already lost the ebook war

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason that college textbooks are so expensive is because of many reasons.

Nobody wants to write them

The market is actually quite small

People have no attachment to the books

If you think college texts are so expensive, go and write your own, and sell it to all the universities. There's not much stopping you from doing this. But writing text books is boring. Nobody does it just for a couple extra bucks because it's fun. And it's definitely not that easy. You also won't get any book signing deals, or have the possibility of your book being made into a movie. Because people have no attachment to the text book, you are pretty much forced to create a second/third/fourth edition of your book, or else after the first year, you will probably only sell 50% of the books you did the first year, and the third will be 50% of the second year, on and on until you are selling very few books. Also, I'm sure that many of the reasons why new editions are published is not only to correct mistakes, but also to appease the professors who use the books in their class. If your book doesn't cover a specific topic that is taught in the class, the professor will either have to have an additional text for that topic, or they will have to buy a different book altogether that does cover all the topics. It's kind of like how MS office 97 was feature complete for most people, and we wonder why they keep on tacking on new features. Because a small percentage of their user base wants a specific feature, so they add it on, even if 95% of people don't use that feature. If you lose 5% of your market to a single feature, and 5% to another feature, add on a few more missed features and you all of a sudden have lost your monopoly status.

Yeah right.

Professors or universities forcing you to have the latest edition of the book when two paragraphs worth of content changed and the upped the price by $40 from the last edition. Of course, this is also supplemented by the professors own $80 book that he/she wrote 15 years ago, and was too lazy to write another edition, but somehow the first (and only) edition from 1997 is still valid for the class.

There's only so much you can do with an early American history book, so spare me the software analogy. Seems our public school system can get away with 20-year old textbooks on the topic, and yet universities mandate you buy a new edition every three semesters, because history somehow changed, right? How many editions do you really need to have it 100% fact-corrected? Infinite? Yeah, that sounds about right.

Of course, we'll just overlook the fact that this little thing called the "Internet" was birthed, with the same content available online for free, but NO, we can't possibly have that. We won't be able to profit an extra million or thirty this year if we don't charge for books...

And on top of all this, to counteract your "boring" claim, I don't need to make a damn thing more exciting with college textbooks, other than the price tag. When your book is offered at a reasonable $40, and all of the others are offered at $200+, you will have a "national bestseller" on your hands. You're right. No one creates an attachment with them. But with the best-priced book on the shelf, no one has to. You win by default.

Of course, none of this is possible because of the corruption within universities and price gouging/partnering with specific monopolies who control the entire market. You might as well go lobby congress for more lax gun laws.

Re:too bad apple already lost the ebook war

[Anonymous Coward]

amazon has won
ibooks is crap, and that's saying it as an ipad owner
the ibook store is crap as well. pain in the a$$ to use
no web book reader like the kindle
amazon is cheaper and amazon has kindle singles and now you can write your own fan fiction

As another iPad owner who uses Kindle on iPad to read Amazon's ebooks, I got to agree.

The iBook store, with the same stupid region locking (i.e. your country specific Apple ID can only buy books offered in your country's iBook store, which means practically nothing in Asian countries), is no match for Amazon's Kindle store where I can buy ebooks from US and UK as soon as they are available.

Plus, it is dead easy to have multiple Kindles for my family members all sharing from my single Amazon account. OTOH, I still cannot create any Apple ID for my kids.

Re:too bad apple already lost the ebook war

[Anonymous Coward]

There are tons of people writing high-quality math notes and graduate-level textbooks and putting them on the Internet for free, in the hope that you will learn something from them and then cite their textbook in your papers.

Really? Got any examples?

(I have needing to add this to the end of it, but: I'm not trolling. I'm genuinely curious. Asking "got any examples" has lead me to many very interesting things. I'm hoping this is another.)

Re:Apple conspiracy?

[geminidomino]

Unless I'm mistaken, this charge is about the condition that ebook sellers cannot allow their products to be sold anywhere for less than on ITS.

There's never been any doubt that they did that. The argument is whether or not it constitutes something illegal, and the judge was apparently not convinced by the preliminary arguments.

Priced way too high, considering tax effects

[coats]

"Dearer than paperbacks" means they are priced far too high. With a paperback I can donate it to charity when I finish. Valuing it at used-book prices, I still get a 60% tax writeoff. Given a marginal tax rate of 50%, the book then costs me a net 70% of its face value.

I can't donate e-books, so for me to break even the price needs to be no more than 70% of the paperback face value.

Re:Priced way too high, considering tax effects

[ZombieBraintrust]

For some people that will be offset by the fact that ebooks are smaller than paperbacks and can be purchased at 1am on a Sunday. Think gas station prices versus super market prices. Or vending machine prices versus super market prices. There will also always be some books that are cheaper than ebooks. At some point physical book stores need to get rid of books that don't sell. So they slash prices below cost and eat the loss so they can put new product on the shelves. Digital stores never have an inventory problem.

Re:Priced way too high, considering tax effects

[Anonymous Coward]

At some point physical book stores need to get rid of books that don't sell. So they slash prices below cost and eat the loss so they can put new product on the shelves.

Publishers, not retailers, eat the loss on remainders.

Re:Priced way too high, considering tax effects

[KGIII]

Isn't that what the notice inside the jacket is about? "If you bought this book without a cover it has been stripped and the publisher has not been paid for this work." (Or something akin to that.) I figured that that meant that bookstores, as opposed to paying to ship the books back to the publisher, would sometimes have the retailer "destroy" the work by cutting off the front cover.

I never looked into it but that's what the text implied to my reading. It is in a lot of books and those books are from various publishers which also leads me to believe that this is (was? There aren't a lot of new book stores left.) an industry standard. I know I've seen coverless* books at various flea market type places (usually romance type stuff) and always assumed they'd received their ill-gotten goods via the dumpster or a shady bookstore employee. Being the apathetic person that I am I have, of course, never bothered to report them as the notice indicated they would like me to do.

* **A quick Google, M-W, and a "hacked" OED account indicate that "coverless" is not, in fact, a word. I'm disturbed by that.
**Slashdot ate my superscript 1 which was input using the International Keyboard Layout - how odd.

-----

€¼½¾‘üúí It allows those characters but not superscript 1, 2, or 3 it seems. It doesn't appear to allow 'sup' as markup either. Oh well. I haven't been a paid subscriber for years so I don't think they'll offer me a refund. ;)

Re:Priced way too high, considering tax effects

[Anonymous Coward]

and then considering the DRM and total lack of resale rights, besides ability to donate, lending, etc... the break even for loss of those rights is more like 15%....

if a book costs $12.99, that'd be about $1.95 for a digitally distributed, digitally restricted license to the ebook.. which is essentially a rental of the bits for the life of the particular device it gets tied to.

people will pay that, willingly.. most won't pay $12.99 or the original hardback's $39.99 price tag for a digital book.

And the answer is "Yes"

[DragonWriter]

The real question is whether the Judge presiding over a trial is allowed to make that kind of comment *before* the trial has started.

And the real answer is "yes". In certain circumstances, they are even required to (e.g., the standard for granting preliminary injunctions, often sought before trial, is explicitly call for a determination of the likelihood of success on the merits.)

MSRP

[ZombieBraintrust]

Probably because from Apple's perspective, all Apple did was let the publishers set their own book prices.

If you go open a physical book and look at the inside cover you will see something like the following: MSRP $19.99
MSRP stands for Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price. It is a suggested price. The seller can sell below this. (stores will slap a 30% off sticker on the book) Legally, suggesting a price is different than enforcing a price with a contract. They don't set prices on physical books because there is case law saying that is illegal. Basically this issue has already been through the courts.

Re:MSRP

[ShanghaiBill]

there is case law saying that is illegal.

There is more than just case law. Price fixing by a manufacturer is specifically prohibited by Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Resellers can charge any amount they want, including giving a product away for free (maybe as a promotion) and the manufacturer cannot retaliate in any way.

During the 1990s I worked for a company that sold CDROMs containing free software, and we were occasionally threatened with legal action by authors of these programs, claiming that the software had to be given away free, and charging for it was illegal. We explained to them that they could recommend their program be given away free, but by trying to coerce us into setting the price, even to zero, they were committing a crime.

Re:MSRP

[similar_name]

including giving a product away for free (maybe as a promotion) and the manufacturer cannot retaliate in any way.

I'm not disagreeing with you but I'm reminded of this.

Re:MSRP

[Anonymous Coward]

you are not correct, manufacturers are allowed to enforce miniumum prices. I'm not an expert on this, Sherman anti-trust is about monopolies abusing their power, but there are plenty of products that you mostly can't find discounted. Cheap Apple iPods or Macs? Bose audio systems? Sonos?

Re:MSRP

[chrismcb]

. It is a suggested price. The seller can sell below this.

You do know for e-books the seller could NOT sell below the "suggested" price. Hence this lawsuit.

Re:Apple conspiracy?

[PhrostyMcByte]

Amazon has that exact sort of deal if you want to list items with them: The item's price at Amazon must be the lowest. Your price at other places can match it, but not be any lower. (Doesn't make Apple doing it any better or worse, of course. They're both being douchebags.)

Different Article

[tuppe666]

amazon has won

Amazon has done no such think, what is the most sick part of this whole thing is the illusion of sides. I hate what Apple did, Someone needs to go to jail...I would say Steve Jobs if he wasn't dead. And Apple banned from selling products in the US. What should be happening is a serious look at why books should be locked to a device(Any Device). The fact is Amazon is offering best value right now, but the battle should be to preserve some kind of portability.

Semantics

[tuppe666]

But, hey, claiming they're evading taxes sounds better, doesn't it. /eyeroll

Maybe in your universe not in mine. In my mind I have more respect for real criminals not massive corporations who can legally buy off the political system, so they can essentially pay no tax...When I work long hours and am heavily taxed and cannot afford an accountant to hide my money in a foreign company...or throw a politician a few Million in return for Billions.

...yeah much better.

Apple is Evil

[tuppe666]

True. It's not as though Amazon have any competition in the e-book business other than B&N. Like, you know, Apple, Kobo, Sony, etc, etc..

Why are we not talking about being able to buy from multiple sources. Why are we talking about a format tied to a device.

Re:Apple is Evil

[0123456]

Publishers are the ones tying books to devices, with DRM. No-one is forced to put DRM on their Kindle books, it's a publisher's option.

Then, after those publishers have tied readers to their Kindle by putting DRM on their books, they complain that other stores can't compete with Amazon because all the readers have Kindles.

Straw man

[ZombieBraintrust]

Capitalism is about profit. Specifically, maximizing it.

That is a nice Straw man you got there. Setting your prices as high as possible is not the same as setting your prices to maximize profit. Lowering prices can lead to more sales resulting in more profit. Free Market Capitalism is about letting supply and demand dictate where the price will be. Apple has attempted to abuse contract law to have the government enforce a price control. Anti Trust laws are about enforcing Free Market Capitalism. They are there prevent control of supply and to prevent price manipulation. What Apple is pushing is Crony Capitalism.

Re:Straw man

[Carewolf]

It is not a straw man, and you basically agree with the parent post. Companies work to maximize profit, which means setting prices as high as possible as long as it doesn't hurt sales too much (maximize sales*price). This can lead to prices especially in the electronic business that has absolutely nothing to do with cost (most electronics are dirt cheap to make), but when what customers find reasonable is set by what the production cost is, the cost will generally have to follow production cost, or at least.. customer perceived production cost, which can be very different.

Re:Straw man

[ZombieBraintrust]

but when what customers find reasonable is set by what the production cost is

I don't agree with the above statement. Most of the time customers have no idea what the production cost is. Customers base their decisions about price based on utility and competition. If they can get the same effect with something cheaper then the price is too high. New patent protected electronics can have a high price because of the artificial scarcity imposed by the patent. Or the price is high because the customer is looking for a status symbol. They are spending money on status not utility.

Re:Straw man

[Anonymous Coward]

Customers base their decisions about price based on utility and competition.

That's very black and white thinking, but very much in line with slashdot groupthink. Like, people only buy iPhones as a status symbol... Yeah, right.

If you got your head out of your ass you'd realize that utility and competition are only small parts of a purchase decision. Aesthetics, comfort, feel, ease of use, reliability, compatibility and many factors all play a part as to what price a customer will pay. Some people care about function, some care about form and most want some mixture of both.

If your assertion was correct (which it isn't), there would be only a few models of motorcycle on the road, since there are only a few "utilities" outside of basic transportation that a motorcycle can provide.

Re:Straw man

[AthanasiusKircher]

Aesthetics, comfort, feel, ease of use, reliability, compatibility and many factors all play a part as to what price a customer will pay. Some people care about function, some care about form and most want some mixture of both.

I think you completely missed the point of GP's post. There may be various aspects of "utility" (and even "competition") that involve all these things. "Utility" doesn't always just mean "useful in some basic functional way." It can also refer to what is "useful" to you, which might include things like comfort, ease of use, reliability, compatibility, etc. All of these things can make a product much more "useful" for a given person and therefore can be part of "utility" overall.

GP's point was simply that people don't generally care about the cost of actually making a product as a big factor. In some situations, a markup of only 5-10% over the cost of production is about the all the profit producers can expect, while for other products the standard markup might be 1000% or even 2000% over the cost of manufacture. Consumers mostly judge price based on relative costs for similar products, as well as actual perceived differences (including "utility" in all possible forms, as well as aesthetics, etc., which I don't think was deliberately left out by GP). They just don't tend to care a lot about cost of manufacture, unless that's somehow brought to their attention (and no manufacturers generally do that, because it can only work against both them and their competitors).

Remind me why this is illegal?

[trout007]

I fail to see the victim here. Nobody has to buy an e-book. They can try to fix the price they will sell an e-book at all they want. It requires a buyer to agree to that price for a sale to take place.

Re:Remind me why this is illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_fixing

Re:Remind me why this is illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Colluding together to set a pricing structure so there is no competition is what makes it illegal. There are laws all over the planet to stop this kind of thing, yet these companies decided their lobbying money should be enough to bribe the judicial system to turn a blind-eye.

They all knew this was illegal, and they all settled rather than fight. Had they been innoncent, they'd have fought tooth and nail in court for years. Apple is the facilitator as well as the instigation. They can't hide behind the curtain after setting the stage.

Re:Remind me why this is illegal?

[mu51c10rd]

Easy. Would you like all the cell phone carriers to fix the price (removing competition) for service and phones? How about the big farms with the price of soybeans or corn? How about clothing manufacturers? Car manufacturers? Think of a world with zero competition between companies on price...and you will realize why price fixing is a bad idea.

Re:Remind me why this is illegal?

[KGIII]

Colluding together to

Colluding to... "Together" is redundant. See? I'm Mr. Big Helper today. I'm hoping for a gold star to put on the refrigerator.

Re:Remind me why this is illegal?

[Plumpaquatsch]

Easy. Would you like all the cell phone carriers to fix the price (removing competition) for service and phones? How about the big farms with the price of soybeans or corn? How about clothing manufacturers? Car manufacturers? Think of a world with zero competition between companies on price...and you will realize why price fixing is a bad idea.

Yeah, before the collusion, Amazon had a 90% market share, driving all others out of the market by selling below price. Can't you see how bad it was for competition that this has changed?

You don't know what that means, do you.

[Anonymous Coward]

It means that you can't offer someone else a cheaper price than you offer Amazon, but you are allowed to offer ANY price.

If you offer it to everyone at a 3000% profit margin, then that is the price that Amazon will take.

If you offer it to three publishers at a 120%, 180% and 200% then Amazon will only accept the 120% mark-up.

If you offer it at a loss, Amazon will take that offer.

Can't sustain..

[Falkentyne]

As a consumer I expect to pay less for digital media as opposed to physical media. I understand the cost of distributing physical media is much higher and involves several more processes in that distribution chain. Pricing should reflect that.

I see pricing digital and physical media close together as an artificial construct put in place to take advantage of new processes that reduce overhead. If you made X% on the physical book previously then yes you should make a similar percentage on the digital book.

I remember when I used to buy books in a store and they weren't $9 - $10 for a paperback. They were maybe $4-$5. I understand that costs have gone up since I was a teenager but a gallon of water doesn't cost $2. It's gone up maybe 15 - 20 cents. A bean burrito costs maybe 20 cents more. If consumed goods have gone up 20% then why has media gone up 200% when it costs even less to distribute them digitally? Bring the cost down and sales will increase.

When allofmp3.com was around I spent quite a bit there as I thought I was getting my money's worth. I refused to pay a couple bucks for one song that I only listen to a couple times. I've since bought some music after that disappeared but surely not as much as I did previously in the same span of time. I don't go out and buy movies on dvd but I will pay for Netflix and have been paying for it for years as I feel it's good price for consuming media. They're making money and the people that made the movie are making money - so why can't the same work for books?

I might not be the norm when it comes to consumers and what they're willing to pay but I assure you there are others like me (cheap bastards). Look at humble bundle and the like where the minimum is $1 but there are plenty who paid more and they sold thousands and thousands of bundles with games you'll probably never play but it was so cheap people ehhh why not it's only a dollar. I think $4- $5 is a good price point for a book and that's what I'm willing to pay. Can we cut out the publisher though? Hard to say - some books wouldn't be as popular as they are now without somebody pushing them in your face and most authors can't do that without a publisher.

Steam and Netflix need to have a baby and it needs to sell books.

Re:Can't sustain..

[KGIII]

Interesting thoughts but they made me think... I think the price of media has gone down, not up, when adjusted for inflation.

VHS cassettes used to be anywhere from $60 to $120. Amazing, I know. These days it is $10 for a DVD.

CD prices have remained much the same, they appear to have gone down a bit actually, which definitely means a lower price when it's adjusted for inflation.

Books have gone up a bit more than inflation but part of that is likely due to the increased cost of paper. Paper has gotten more expensive, we're now expecting mills and timber harvesting operations to be good stewards of the environment which adds significant costs. (I dare say the price is worth it.)

eBooks are what the market can bear or is willing to pay (except in conditions of collusion, like this suit points out) and I think that, from a publisher's view, they are selling you a license to the content or a physical copy of the content. The content, for the most part, is the same - they're selling you an experience of reading the content. Thus, to them (I'm guessing here - I'm not one of them), the idea is the same and thus the price should be the same. Their goal is price maximization and profit, they'll sell it at whatever they want to sell it at. (What that leads to is a whole other subject but it is the way things are.)

In all of these cases they're really not selling you anything except a distribution platform (a DVD, a CD, or a dead tree printed book) but, rather, they're licensing it to you. You own the physical media but your rights to the content within are limited so to them (again, I'm guessing - I am not one of them) it is pretty much the same thing regardless.

Don't get me wrong, I pretty much agree with you on everything except that the price is actually lower than it used to be in many areas. Books are an exception though I still see some priced at around $5.00 (they were much cheaper when I was a wee lad by the way). I can only imagine that's because the price of paper has increased (and it has, see the increase in printer paper pricing for example).

Actually, let me be more specific, see the increase in printer paper pricing for printer paper that is made in the United States. A lot of the paper comes from other countries that do not have the environmental laws that we have. (The debate over the value of such laws is another topic entirely, I'm personally in favor of them and consider the price increase to be worth it.)

Like I said, I agree with you. It is only logical that the price for digitally delivered material to be less than the physical copies of that same material. There are very few benefits to getting a digital copy in my experiences though there have been some nice technical manuals that included links to online content that made a difference.

However, to them, I see little incentive to price them differently. Why should they? You're going to pay so they may as well make a greater percentage of profits on the digital forms. I suppose they have bean counters who also factor in the cost of the increased personnel to maintain the digital infrastructure, the cost of servers, the cost of power, the initial setup costs to also offer digital forms, and things like that. I doubt that, spread over a bunch of purchases, it adds up to a great deal more but that too must be considered and, still, they have no incentive to offer lower prices.

I'm not saying that what they're doing is right but it is what I'd expect a business to do these days. If they have something you want then they're likely to price it at a point where it maximizes profit while still not dissuading MAJORITY of people from making the purchase. I guess that's kind of the point of businesses today. They don't really look towards long term profit or the good of society (a healthy society is more likely to be able to support that business for longer but they seem to ignore that part) these days. They seem to be all about maximizing quarterly profits at the expense of good will or good stewardship

Re:Can't sustain..

[Anonymous Coward]

Movies on VHS cassette used to be $120 because the Hollywood studios were trying to stick it to the rental shops. Because of that pesky First Sale provision ("if you buy something, it's yours"), the rental shops could purchase a movie, and then rent it out many times, without paying royalties to Hollywood on each rental. (Just as car rental places are free to buy cars at retail, and then not pay any royalties to GM or Ford.). So Hollywood jacked up the prices of the tapes to $100+, a level that scared away most home buyers (whom Hollywood couldn't care less about at that time), but that grabbed a lot of money from the pockets of the rental shops (who had no choice but to pay if they wanted to stay in business).

Movies on DVD and Blu-Ray are often only $5 to $30 now not only because optical discs are cheap to stamp out, but because the business model is now one of selling movies directly to homes. If the movies were priced at $120 each, very few would buy them, just as few bought the $120 VHS rental tapes or the $80 LaserDiscs.

Re:Can't sustain..

[KGIII]

That sounds sound. It is kind of how I remember it as well though I (sadly) didn't pay much attention to the legal cases back then. I was unconcerned about things like First Sale and pretty ignorant of even copyright. My how the times change.

I read A LOT of books

[ronmon]

When ebooks first became available I thought that this was a great opportunity to have access to more of them for a cheaper price. After all, the costs of printing and distributing them is reduced to practically zero. Granted, there are still editing and some other minor costs, but very little in the scheme of things. But before I actually purchased an ebook reader I watched the costs of the books for a while. Quickly it became clear that a dead tree version was almost always cheaper than the ebook version and once I had it, nobody could take it away on a whim or technicality. Suffice it to say that I never bought an ebook or a reader, but I still buy, read and enjoy plenty of great books.

Screw you, you greedy bastards.

Re:I read A LOT of books

[takshaka]

When ebooks first became available I thought that this was a great opportunity to have access to more of them for a cheaper price.

I won't be satisfied with ebook prices until I can get an epub for the price of its used physical counterpart. I rarely buy new dead tree books and lament that my money doesn't find its way to the author when I buy used books. My conscience doesn't bother me enough to buy one new book instead of several used ones, of course, but I would love to be able to spend the same amount while actually supporting my favorite authors.

With no legitimate electronic equivalent of a used book, and with publishers and authors only profiting from sales of new books, there is little incentive for the industry to reach for customers like me by lowering ebook prices. If there was, they would've already done so with mass-market paperbacks.

So the only hope for cheaper ebooks is to reinstate the price war aborted by Apple's price-fixing cartel. Hopefully, this case will get us there.

Re:I read A LOT of books

[KGIII]

Wasn't there some sort of lawsuit in the works (I have no idea of its success, failure, or whatnot) that had the goal of suing to be able to resell used eBooks? I could have sworn there was an article on Slashdot a number of years ago concerning this. I am not sure but I think the person/people were attempting to use the First Sale Doctrine as a way to ensure that they could sell their "used" digital versions after they were done with them just like you can sell your dead tree copies of books?

With the bullshit about them "licensing" the content I didn't think they had much of a chance but I seem to recall this having popped up on my radar in the past. Hmm... A search of Slashdot (I'm not so sure that the search does a good job) doesn't show anything though so it may just be a figment of my imagination.

Re:Apple conspiracy?

[KGIII]

How is that a troll? It was pretty funny and obviously intended as such.

license violation = copyright violation

[Anonymous Coward]

A license is a conditional grant of permissions. If their license prohibited you from charging for their software, then by exercising your legal right to charge for it you also forewent the benefits of their license offer. You were then redistributing their copyrighted work without their permission, and engaged in commercial infringement of their copyright. Just be glad you're not still doing it today, since criminal copyright infringement is a felony these days. (You can thank the RIAA.)

Insider Trading?

[koan]

So now you short or wait and buy depending on your opinion of apple.

Fuck Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

As an e-book reader, here is me, showing my middle finger in Apple's direction
They can go fuck themselves as far as I am concerned.