Slashdot Mirror
Amazon E-Book Buyers Receive Payment From Antitrust Lawsuit Settlement (idropnews.com)
If you bought a Kindle e-book between April 2010 and May 2012, you might see some Amazon credit coming your way. The company is reportedly distributing funds from an antitrust lawsuit that it levied at Apple in 2013. From a report: Amazon has set up a website listing the available credits, and it has begun sending out emails this morning to U.S. customers who are eligible for a refund. Apple and a handful of book publishers, including Penguin, HarperCollins, Machete Book Group and Macmillan, were found guilty of conspiring to inflate the prices of e-books in order to weaken Amazon's grip on the market. While the book publishers settled out of court, Apple decided to fight the lawsuit and appealed several times. Eventually, it was ordered to pay a total of $450 million in the protracted antitrust case.
Several refunds have already been distributed because of the lawsuit. In fact, the bulk of credits were sent out in 2014 and 2016. The round of credits being sent out today comes from an earmarked $20 million meant to pay states involved in the suit. The Amazon credits have a six-month shelf life and must be spent by April 20, 2018, or they'll expire. In addition the Amazon credits, customers may also be receiving Apple credits that can be used toward iBooks, iTunes and App Store purchases. Apple is currently notifying eligible customers via email.
Several refunds have already been distributed because of the lawsuit. In fact, the bulk of credits were sent out in 2014 and 2016. The round of credits being sent out today comes from an earmarked $20 million meant to pay states involved in the suit. The Amazon credits have a six-month shelf life and must be spent by April 20, 2018, or they'll expire. In addition the Amazon credits, customers may also be receiving Apple credits that can be used toward iBooks, iTunes and App Store purchases. Apple is currently notifying eligible customers via email.
I received a $2.68 credit just today.
Pretty much pushed me over the top, counting what's in the cookie jar, and I'm purchasing an island next to Branson.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I received 78 cents.
So often a used copy of a book, even with shipping, is still less than the ebook price, and you actually own the darn thing with no DRM or other nonsense. You can make your own ebook with a scanner and 45 minutes of your time if you really have to have that.
It's amazing the shit these laywers manage to pull off. Instead of an actual cash refund for how much they illegally ripped you off by, you get "credit" to spend at their store.
Since they have their profit margin on whatever you buy with this, they are still making money from you and being rewarded for their bad behaviour. Plus I see people posting about the tiny amounts they are getting, so if you actually want to buy anything, you will need to spend even more of your money to take advantage of it.
Add to that there is a nice time limit on there which will save them even more money, from all the people who don't claim it within the time limit, this is a joke. You might as well just let them off entirely, this as a "punishment" is a huge green light saying "please do something similar again in future, you'll make more money overall".
Not if Amazon charge, say, 1/3 of the price for distributing through their kindle network.
Fun fact: before Apple and their silly 30% cut came along, Amazon demanded 70% for Kindle Published ebooks. And when Amazon feels like it, they still ask 70%.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Yeah, Amazon was the good guy, because they were the ones keeping eBook prices reasonable.
Only for their customers, because Amazon just took the losses of selling the e-books below what they paid the publishers, that other e-book sellers couldn't. But hey, you don't get a 90+% market share by not cheating.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
The email they sent cost more than that.
Mission: To provide products that consume time and energy as entertainingly as permitted by the laws of thermodynamics.
I buy eBooks from Barnes and Noble, and have been informed that I get a small credit from them because of the suit.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Woohoo! I going to combine it with all that money I keep "saving" at the grocery store and pretty soon I'll have enough for a membership at Mar-a-Lago!