4 ms·
> Makes sense. Apple gets sued for charging more than a retailer that owned 90% of the market in an Anti-Trust case and is fined $450 million. No, Apple got su
by jonknee 11y ago
> Makes sense. Apple gets sued for charging more than a retailer that owned 90% of the market in an Anti-Trust case and is fined $450 million.
No, Apple got sued for conspiring with the publishers to raise the prices and force Amazon to rise the prices as well (through agency pricing).
The iBookstore has been a near total failure too, so all Apple really accomplished is to make readers pay more for books on Amazon.
- mcphage 11y ago> force Amazon to rise the prices as well (through agency pricing). I think those Amazon <---> publisher contracts all got nullified as part of their settlements with the government.
- hga 11y agoAs far as I know they're still in effect, those publishers have seen their ebook sales go down substantially, which is blamed on the enforced price increases due to agency pricing. And you'd otherwise see Amazon's return to its old scheme where normal ebooks never cost the consumer more than $9.99, whereas, to take a random example I just looked up, Jim Butcher's latest novel published half a year ago goes for $13.99, ~$1.50 more than the paperback and only ~$2.50 less than the hardback: http://www.amazon.com/Cinder-Spires-Aeronauts-Windlass/dp/0451466802/ http://www.amazon.com/Cinder-Spires-Aeronauts-Windlass/dp/04...
- mcphage 11y agoI'm not finding much in the way of settlement results (overshadowed by similar sounding, more recent news), but articles like this: http://goodereader.com/blog/commentary/agency-pricing-for-ebooks-returns-this-is-a-good-thing http://goodereader.com/blog/commentary/agency-pricing-for-eb... claim that the publishers were forced to abandon the agency model: "When the publishers all settled out of court they were forced to renegotiate their e-book distribution contracts with Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google and all of the other minor players." That article also says HarperCollins since returned to it, and this one: http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2014/simon-schuster-strikes-amazon-deal-reviving-agency-ebook-pricing/ http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2014/simon-schuster-strikes-... says Simon Schuster returned to it as well. I'm not sure about the others.
- jonknee 11y agoDefinitely agency model pricing, it even says on the page "This price was set by the publisher".
- mcphage 11y agoRight, but the original contracts were voided, and the publishers have since gone back to the agency model on their own in the past few years.