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Apple Loses Ebook Price Fixing Appeal, Must Pay $450 Million
An anonymous reader writes: A federal appeals court ruled 2-1 today that Apple indeed conspired with publishers to increase ebook prices. The ruling puts Apple on the hook for the $450 million settlement reached in 2014 with lawyers and attorneys general from 33 states. The Justice Dept. contended that the price-fixing conspiracy raised the price of some e-books from the $10 standard set by Amazon to $13-$15. The one dissenting judge argued that Apple's efforts weren't anti-competitive because Amazon held 90% of the market at the time. Apple is unhappy with the ruling, but they haven't announced plans to take the case further. They said, "While we want to put this behind us, the case is about principles and values. We know we did nothing wrong back in 2010 and are assessing next steps."
You mean Tim Cook might have to deal with a slightly less than full scrooge mcduck swimming pool? The inhumanity!
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Every publisher believes that the e-books don't really compete against one another in price because each one is unique. They aren't interchangeable...someone won't say "wow, I bet I can get this same book cheaper somewhere else..."
But they are wrong. Lately, people have been able to get the same book cheaper by buying a used physical copy (still cheaper even after shipping costs). But, apart from that, when the price of a book exceeds the potential customer's sense of the book's value, they absolutely will buy a completely different book instead.
No product is immune to market forces, which is a good thing, and price-fixing harms the majority.
I'm still irked by the pricing. Now, I don't expect to be able to buy an ebook for the price of a used book, but by golly, I refuse to pay more for the book than I do for a dead-tree version, and given that I'm a halfway 'smart' shopper, 30% under 'list' is the average for me, I can often reach 50% or more, for a book that's not quite a new release. As such, I'm pretty much stuck buying from Baen for now.
They need to hold more sales like Steam. But no, the publishers don't want that. Apple & Amazon don't want that.
I don't read AC A human right
Enh... ok.... the pedantic in me is speaking up. Apologies in advance.
Although it may not apply in this case, I feel compelled to point out that "doing nothing wrong" and "not being criminally liable" are two entirely different things. The first is a moral judgement, and the second is decided by law, which may or may not be related to anything moral.
Conversely "doing something that any reasonable person would know is wrong" and "being criminally liable for such action" are two entirely different things as well. You could probably think of several recent examples in the news.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
"Ok, and with annual sales revenue of 180 Billion (with a B) or thereabouts, $450 Million amounts to the change you'd find under the couch cushions."
That is 1/4% If you routinely find 1/4% of your annual household revenue in your couch not doing very well.
Even for a household making a modest 30,000$/year; that would be like finding $75 in the couch. Hell, I make several times that per year, and I'd still consider finding $75 in the couch a pretty good day.
Now... http://www.macrumors.com/2014/...
According that Apple only had net revenue of $42.1 billion. So that's like our 30k household finding $320 in the couch. A rather nice day I'm sure.
And of that Apple only profited 8.5 billion...so more like the equivalent of finding $1588 in the couch. Come now, that's not couch money anymore... that's getting into hidden mattress money!!
"While we want to put this behind us, the case is about principles and values. And we're hoping to find someone who can explain to us what those words mean."
According that Apple only had net revenue of $42.1 billion. So that's like our 30k household finding $320 in the couch. A rather nice day I'm sure.
Not really. $320 is a lot of food money for the family living on $30,000.
It may be the same percentage, but after a certain amount, it doesn't affect your lifestyle(or business) in any real sense.
You think that if Bill Gates lost 1/2 billion overnight, his life would change at all?
I guarantee that the family will feel the loss of $320 far more than Gates or Apple losing $500,000,000.
The fine is a joke. The US needs to start adding in punitive damages to corporate bad behaviour. Off the cuff numbers: If the price fixing gave Apple $1 billion in profit, the fine should be $4 billion.
Even with the fines, it is more profitable to behave badly than it is to be honest. Apple would do it all over again, except try a little harder to get away with it.
Only if you are dumb enough to think that the price to the consumer is related to the cost of production. Cost of production may set the minimum that a producer will sell for. The actual selling price is what people will pay. Pretty simple, actually.
I know for the (originally print-only) technical books I published through "traditional" means, I get less than half of the royalty per copy that I get for a print book, even though the electronic copy is priced the same as the print copy. The way this was explained to me (~15 years ago) was that the publisher would not be able to charge as much for the electronic copy (!), but that is BS because the royalty is a % of the gross book cost and not a % of the sale price, and there is no manufacturing cost to speak of for electronic books (just the initial cost of editing/promoting the book.)
Publishers also hold back thousands of dollars in royalties to cover returns, even for electronic books and even long after the book has gone out of print...
Needless to say, I don't use traditional publishers anymore - even with lower numbers of sales, I've made more on my two self-published books than on the three books I did before that. Not enough to live on (I don't write books for a living) but enough to justify the time spent...
I print, therefore I am.