4 ms·
I'm having a hard time understanding exactly what actions are under suspicion. The actual price of the books isn't being established by either the agency or th
by gwright 15y ago
I'm having a hard time understanding exactly what actions are under suspicion. The actual price of the books isn't being established by either the agency or the wholesale model.
A little googling at the DOJ indicates that the Sherman act prohibits adoption of "a standard formula for computing prices". In the case of the agency model it would seem like a standard formula is being established for the distribution services (but not the actual book prices). Is this the problem?
Any anti-trust lawyers out there?
- jamesaguilar 15y agoIANAL, but the problem is when Apple says that publishers must prevent Apple's rivals from selling the books for less. Without that, the agency model is fine, but when Apple and the publishers conspire to prevent undercutting, that's tantamount to conspiring to raise prices.
- Cadsby 15y agoAmazon does the same thing. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/when-it-comes-to-content-amazons-kindle-wont-be-undersold/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/when-it-comes-to-co...
- jamesaguilar 15y agoInteresting. Maybe the problem is with the fact that the books tend to cost more on Apple's setup combined with the MFN clause? I don't think that the government could sue Amazon for conspiring to raise prices since it has a public and prolific history of trying to reduce them. It's also telling that Amazon tried to force publishers to do things they don't want to do, which is not like a conspiracy, whereas Apple is giving them what they want, which is. But in the end, IANAL so I can't give you a definitive answer. I'm just speculating, same as everyone else on this thread. ;)