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Judge rules Apple conspired to raise prices on e-books
- pinaceae 13y agoAmazon 1 : Consumers 0 and another great ruling. let's wait for that monopoly around ebooks to fully develop until it's too late.
- PauliaCred 13y agoJust like the monopoly Apple developed around digital music...
- stephenr 13y agooh yeah, and they've totally destroyed all competition in that market too.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_online_music_stores http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_online_music_stor... Amazon sells ebooks for the sake of selling ebooks - to make a profit. Apple sells music as a tie-in for its hardware offerings - it has no reason to "squeeze out" competitors in this space.
- fpgeek 13y agoHold on. Apple has huge incentives to push content competitors off of iOS. It dramatically increases the switching costs to other platforms (see: video in particular). And while pushing competitors off of iOS technically might not be squeezing them out of the space, it is still awfully damaging - especially when backed up by something like agency ebook pricing.
- jljljl 13y agoSure there are a number of competitors, but iTunes still dominates when it comes to dollar share of music purchases. Regardless of their intention, Apple has certainly "squeezed out" most of the competition, and remains the dominant platform for purchasing music. Similarly, there are still options outside of Amazon when it comes to eBooks. There's Nook, Kobo, iBooks, Google Books, Sony, and others. So Amazon's desire to make profit hasn't completely wiped out the market. So this argument does not really hold in either direction...
- Tyrannosaurs 13y agoDon't disagree with your point on Apple but worth saying if Amazon's goal is to make a profit it's doing remarkably badly. On a turnover of around $60bn it makes a profit of about $90m. Given that it's nearly 20 years old and beyond the point where it should be struggling to break even either it's doing a very bad job of being profitable or being profitable isn't the companies primary goal right now. To me it looks like they're managing profit to zero to continue the land grab. Now that may be legal and fair and in the short term it's good for consumers, but in the longer term I'm not sure it's good for the market (and therefore for consumers) given that most of it's competitors have shareholders who probably do expect profits.
- stephenr 13y agoAmazons goal has to be profit eventually, or there is no point being in business. That they make razor thin margins now, is just evidence they are still undercutting the smaller competition until they're the only player and can set prices to what they want.
- smackfu 13y agoI would think a lot of those online music stores get sales by selling at a lower price than Apple. If Apple had the same kind of MFN clause that they had for books, that wouldn't have been possible. Apple probably thinks it was a bad idea to leave that hole open for the music stores, which is why they closed it for books.
- bjustin 13y ago>Amazon sells ebooks for the sake of selling ebooks - to make a profit. No, Amazon sells ebooks for the sake of selling Kindles first and foremost (or did, before the launch of the iPad). Before the switch to the agency model, Amazon sold many ebooks at a loss. They sold ebooks at $9.99, less than what they paid publishers per copy for popular books.
- JimmaDaRustla 13y agoAmazon found a way to compete before anyone else did, so that makes it excusable for illegally orchestrated price fixing to attack their legal approach? Sorry, but this isn't the "Think Different" approach the customers deserve.
- rimantas 13y agoI am not sure "sell at the prices below the cost to drive out competition" is not some new way.
- JimmaDaRustla 13y agoLose money on one book, earn it on three others because you have customers that are bought into your ecosystem. Also, prices subsidized by Kindle sales. The point is that Publishers weren't losing. But, Amazon is not notorious for making profits, and I can understand how them dominating a market may be a bad thing. Doesn't justify Apple's tactic though.
- smackfu 13y agoInterestingly, the decision PDF says that originally Amazon's $9.99 was not below wholesale cost. The publishers raised the wholesale cost above $9.99 thinking it would force Amazon to raise their prices, but Amazon decided they would rather take a loss: "With a digital book discount, Amazon’s $9.99 price point roughly matched the wholesale price of many of its e-books. " ... "One of the strategies that they [publishers] employed was the elimination of the existing discount on wholesale prices of e-books. This meant that the wholesale price for e-books would equal the wholesale price for physical books, and as a result, the wholesale price that Amazon paid for an e-book would be set at several dollars above Amazon’s $9.99 price point. This tactic, however, failed to convince Amazon to change its pricing policies and it continued to sell many NYT Bestsellers as loss leaders at $9.99.9"
- fpgeek 13y agoBreaking open the ebook market after many other companies had tried and failed certainly was a new thing.
- Kylekramer 13y agoThis angle of "why prosecute Apple when Amazon has the monopoly" is just lazy. Monopolies, which Amazon does not even have and is unlikely to gain, aren't illegal. Conspiring to raise prices is illegal. Amazon just has the potential to abuse consumers (maybe, possibly, in the future) due to their entirely legal success. Apple already did abuse consumers.
- DannoHung 13y agoGive me a call back when Amazon removes the drm from their file formats and I'll give a flying fuck about what's legal or not.
- fpgeek 13y agoTo be fair, any book a publisher wants sold DRM-free, Amazon sells DRM-free. Many publishers insist on DRM as a condition of sale. Your beef is with them, not Amazon. And by the way, DRM is at the heart of this ebook conspiracy. One of the publishers' fears was that too many readers would be trapped in Amazon's ecosystem by DRM, giving Amazon too much leverage. The correct response to that problem is to drop the pointless, self-inflicted DRM (as some have started doing in response to the antitrust cases). Instead, the publishers chose to work with Apple to try and limit Amazon's power...
- ernesth 13y ago> To be fair, any book a publisher wants sold DRM-free, Amazon sells DRM-free. But only after threatening them that their books won't benefit from the latest amazon technologies such as text-to-speech if they opt out of DRM!
- fpgeek 13y agoOh? I hadn't heard about that. It certainly sounds bad. Do you have a pointer to more on this?
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- MatthewPhillips 13y agoThis is a cynical view point. Do we really have to choose between monopoly and collusion?
- fpgeek 13y agoAmazon's customer service (especially with respect to books) second-to-none, by a large margin. Consumers are doing far better than zero. And I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that ebook monopoly. Even if Microsoft/B&N and Apple both decide to bow out (not at all likely they both care too much about content for mobile devices to do that), Amazon still would have Google and Kobo/buy.com/Rakuten (aka "the Amazon of Japan") to contend with both of which are more than capable of fighting a price war.
- josefresco 13y agoYes let's totally raise prices now to protect us from Amazon whom may or may not raise prices in the future.
- esolyt 13y agoIrrelevant. If they do, that would be another trial.
- Pxtl 13y agoAmazon has built its empire on undercutting the competition in price. If there was a real competition in prices, Amazon's e-book offerings would stomp the paper publishers and Apple alike. No matter what, price-fixing or not, Amazon can do just fine. The only way they don't completely win is if they're forced to keep prices on e-books high and at identical level to dead tree ware and the glitzier Apple brand. And that's just what happened, thanks to collusion between Apple and the publishers.
- k-mcgrady 13y agoCould someone explain how they came to this judgement? It doesn't make any sense to me. For example: >>"The U.S. Department of Justice said this conspiracy was designed to undercut online retailer Amazon.com Inc's (AMZN.O) dominance of the fast-growing e-books market." How can they undercut Amazon's dominance by charging more?? It might make them look better to publishers but not consumers. From my perspective Apple looked at the market (Amazon), realised their pricing wasn't sustainable, and agreed to a more sustainable model with publishers. I could understand the problem if Apple tried to raise prices and had a monopoly on ebooks but the fact consumers could just download the Kindle app to an iOS device and get the lower prices (and Apple was new to the market) rules out that argument.
- JimmaDaRustla 13y agoApple (Jobs) were bullying publishers into contracts and abandon Amazon. The best part is how Apple decided that the Publisher sets the price, and Apple gets 30% regardless of profit margin. Apple also stated that they were able to price match anyone who undersold them, and they STILL get 30%, pushing losses onto the Publisher. At least with Amazon, they ate the loss due to their price fixing. Edit: Fixed last paragraph
- darkchasma 13y agoExactly how would Apple bully a Publisher? Jobs went and pulled down the CEO's pants?
- ceejayoz 13y ago"Lower the price or we won't sell your books"?
- JimmaDaRustla 13y agoIt was more like "Let us sell your books at higher prices, or lose money to Amazon and piracy."
- aroch 13y agoWhat I find highly annoying about this trial is Judge Cote had already formed her opinion prior to trial... in a statement to reporters she essentially said she thought Apple was guilty before hearing any evidence. This is, essentially, a sham trial in which the USG was always going to win.
- dchest 13y agoDiscussed here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5775291 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5775291
- nknighthb 13y ago> in a statement to reporters she essentially said she thought Apple was guilty before hearing any evidence Are you talking about this[1]? The statement wasn't to reporters. It was a tentative in-court statement in response to an inquiry by one of the lawyers. Hardly the basis for a serious accusation of misconduct against a federal judge. [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/23/us-usa-apple-ebooks-idUSBRE94M19A20130523 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/23/us-usa-apple-ebook...
- 300bps 13y agoThis happens all the time in court cases. When I sued a home builder for fraud, after reading the pleas and within 20 minutes of being in court the judge said to the Defendant, "Look. I'm finding 300bps to be a credible witness. I have another case I have to go to now. There's a room over there, I suggest you settle with him." They ended up settling with me. In Apple's case, every conspirator involved except Apple settled with the government. Apple are the only ones that chose to go to court. The "tentative view" that Judge Cote formed by reading the pleadings was a way to tell the Defendant: you sure seem guilty based on the evidence you and the government provided. If you want to save yourself some money, I suggest settling. Sometimes cases are so clear cut that it is just not right for it to proceed to a full trial. That's where things like tentative views and Summary Judgments come in.
- jmduke 13y agoin a statement to reporters she essentially said she thought Apple was guilty before hearing any evidence. The judge had received a preponderance of evidence both in pre-trial and related rulings before making that statement. Pre-trial opinions are specifically designed to inform the two parties of the judge's current temperament.
- antitrust 13y agoRIP "The Nice Guy Company" Google 2010 Apple 2013
- jusben1369 13y agoThe idea that Steve Jobs ever spent a single day at Apple where he didn't play extremely hard to win is kind of funny. He just overstepped the line here.
- ianstallings 13y agoI don't like price rigging but reading the material around the case I don't think it was unfair of Apple to try and charge more with its partners through their own venue. I'm gonna play armchair legal analyst here and say this is a smack down by the government because Apple didn't want to settle and pay the fine. Because they thought they were in the right. I tend to agree. Let me clarify since people are already down voting because they disagree: What if Walmart told Hasbro that it could sell its GI Joe action figures for $5 more than K-Mart could? Then they went to negotiate an agreement to purchase as many as possible. Would it not be in Hasbro's best interest to sell as many as possible through Walmart? When K-Mart comes to negotiate it will have to make a justification for why it can't charge more, that's how markets work. K-Mart will either convince Hasbro to still sell the items for cheaper or it will have to renegotiate. Now throw in the fact that these were not real-life items. There is no limitation on how many items each retailer can acquire. The number is infinite. Does it really seem so terrible now? Try not to appeal to emotion when making the decision.
- Kylekramer 13y agoThe most favored nation clauses and the subsequent agency deals that were pushed on competing ebook sellers by the publishers make it clear it wasn't just Apple and partners working in their own venue to raise prices. It was a tactic to use the iPad's launch as a moment of uncertainty that would allow the publishers to raise prices across the entire industry. Edit: To address your added analogy, I agree. Your proposed example does not seem terrible. It is also not at all close to what happened with Apple and the book publishers. It wasn't one company increasing prices successfully at one store and then shopping the new deal to other stores. It was nearly the entire industry swiftly pushing new deals designed to increase prices and break Amazon's position of power in the industry. The increased prices weren't due to the success of the prices in the iBookstore, but the legally binding clauses and assurances from Apple and the other publishers that they would present a united front. If Hasbro, Mattel, and every other major toy manufacturer raised prices to K-Mart at the same time due to suggestions from Walmart, I would object on intellectual and emotional levels. And I am sure the DoJ would too.
- blinkingled 13y agoFrom Walmart and Hasbro and their shareholder standpoint - not terrible at all. From consumer standpoint, terrible.
- jljljl 13y ago"At trial, the Justice Department said it wanted to block Apple from using the agency business model for two years, and to stop the company from entering contracts that insure it will offer the lowest retail prices." Does anyone know if this just applies to ebooks? Or might this ruling impact their ability to apply agency model and "most favored nation" contracts across all their content marketplaces?
- fpgeek 13y agoThat's one of the issues that's still up in the air. If this verdict holds up, Apple is going to have some sort of antitrust compliance program, but I don't think anyone has a handle on what that might look like yet.
- skygazer 13y agoFrom the ruling, it appears Apple is in trouble for knowingly and actively providing a venue for conspiring publishers to conspire, which is illegal. Interestingly, the judge points out there's no evidence that Apple wanted to raise prices at all. But there wasn't anything inherently wrong with the agency model or MFN clauses, except in relation to the publishers intent to increase prices.
- faddotio 13y agoCommence with the cognitive dissonance!
- skc 13y agoAlready happening. It's generally acceptable to describe Microsoft as a "convicted monopolist" (despite there not having been a criminal case). One wonders if people will also accept the labelling of Apple in such a manner when the dust finally settles.
- mitchty 13y agoWhat is this kind of reply, they've been convicted of monopoly behavior. Stop rooting for companies like they are a sports team. Here, Apple: convicted monopolist. Done. That was easy. I own a mac mini, macbook pro, ipad, iphone5, 4s, etc.. and I'm a member of the developer program to demonstrate my bias and proclivity to the platform. Doesn't mean I'm pathologically tied to it (pathos in the debate sense).
- dragonwriter 13y agoWell, since this case, while it was anti-trust, did not involve Apple having or illegally leveraging a monopoly (that is one kind of anti-trust violation, but not the kind here, which was Apple being a member of an illegal price-fixing conspiracy), Apple hasn't been found to be a monopolist at all, so that labelling would be inappropriate in a way which it was not for Microsoft.
- mmuro 13y agoWow, I'm a little surprised at this considering the arguments Apple's legal team made. Seemed pretty clear to me there was nothing that Apple did to force Amazon to raise their prices.
- jvm 13y ago> An MFN provision will frequently appear in contracts between wholesalers and retailers and it ensures that the wholesaler will provide the retailer with the best wholesale price. But Apple adopted it in the agency model to require that the publishers adjust e-book prices in the iBookstore to match the lowest price offered by any other retailer — regardless of whether the publisher controlled the pricing in that retailer. That last sentence means that publishers basically had to force Amazon onto the agency model, or else lose money selling on Apple's store. And their intention was clearly to force Amazon onto the agency model causing Amazon's consumer prices to increase.
- morgante 13y agoYet another miscarriage of justice. The entire line of logic seems to have been that because Apple's actions led to increased prices it must be a conspiracy. Amazon was, and is, the monopolist using classic monopolist tactics (lock-in, undercutting prices, etc.) to retain a monopoly. Of course once their monopoly was ensured they'd pivot to make a true profit if pesky Apple hadn't interfered: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/05/business/as-competition-wanes-amazon-cuts-back-its-discounts.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/05/business/as-competition-wa... I can't help but feel that this was driven by politics/optics (to your average person, of course lower prices is better).
- fpgeek 13y agoPut Apple to the side for the moment and just look at the publishers. Did they conspire? I think it is obvious that they did. At the time of the agency switch it was obvious something fishy was going on with the whole Amazon v MacMillan "buy button" battle. The DoJ's investigation uncovered plenty of evidence about what that was: a conspiracy among publishers to force Amazon to the agency model. And all the publishers settled before getting to trial, which certainly supports the strength of the DoJ's evidence and case. Now consider a publisher conspiracy. The DoJ's argument against Apple is that they were the enforcer that made the publisher conspiracy possible. You may agree or disagree with the judge about whether or not the evidence supports that argument, but it is a serious, carefully-thought-out line of logic either way.
- jasonlotito 13y ago> Amazon was, and is, the monopolist using classic monopolist tactics (lock-in, undercutting prices, etc.) to retain a monopoly. 1. Being a monopoly isn't illegal. You don't say this, but using the word monopolist makes it seem like you think that such a thing alone is criminal enough. 2. Lock-In? What part is the lock in? The fact that I can buy a Kindle and never purchase anything from Amazon? The fact that the DRM used for ebooks from Amazon are optional and decided by the publisher? 3. Undercutting prices? So?
- dragonwriter 13y ago> Yet another miscarriage of justice. The entire line of logic seems to have been that because Apple's actions led to increased prices it must be a conspiracy. No, the line of logic was that because there was specific evidence of them conspiring with the Publishers, it was (to the standard required in civil cases, which is far from "must be") apparent that there was a conspiracy. > Amazon was, and is, the monopolist using classic monopolist tactics Whether or not Amazon is a monopolist (or even illegaly leveraging a monopoly) might be relevant in an anti-trust trial of Amazon, but it really doesn't have any relevance to an alleged price-fixing conspiracy involving several of Amazon's suppliers and one of their competitors.
- pico303 13y agoThe judge was absolutely correct to rule this way. Some people cry "miscarriage of justice", but you need to look back on what happened when the iPad and iBooks came out. Amazon ruled the ereader/ebook marketplace, because it was the first company to offer both a reader and electronic books together, so you could order books right of the reader. A page from Apple's playbook, a la the iPod. At the time, ebooks were sold like print books, where the retailer set the price. This is how most retail works, and let Amazon drastically discount their ebooks so they weren't taking any profit, just to move Kindles. The publisher had no say over the price of the book, so a Kindle owner could get ebooks cheaper than print (which, if you think about it, makes perfect sense). The publisher didn't make any less, so the only one paying the price was Amazon (and they took a hit on their stock for it, if I recall). The publishers were forced into this model by Amazon because there was no other resource for ebooks, and everybody loved their Kindles so to deny that market meant your competition would kill you if you didn't play along. Apple came along with the iPad and that gave publishers an out. If you go back to that time and read the articles on this, Apple actively worked with publishers to change the model to one that was better for publishers and Apple, but worse for consumers. They created a new kind of contract that let the publisher set the price of the ebook, which is really unheard of in retail, except for maybe video game sales. At its heart, it's really an anti-competitive practice, though that may seem counterintuitive. Look at it this way: it's a great way to break into a marketplace controlled by a stronger competitor without really competing. You force your competitor to raise their prices and thus reduce the attractiveness of what they offer, and suddenly you have a share in the market without having to compete with better products or prices. I also don't understand pro-Apple stance on this issue. I'm a huge fan of Apple products, but I was not a fan of this change in the ebook market. My guess is this opposition is coming from people that don't buy a lot of ebooks on either the iBook store or Amazon, or ever experienced the Kindle store prior to this change in the market. It used to be that ebooks on Amazon were priced around or less than the price of a paperback. Now they tend to cost the same or more than the hardbound edition. How is this a good thing for consumers? You now have publishers in control of the ebook market the same way they're in control of the video game market, through price fixing and predatory pricing models, and retailers have no say in the matter.
- skygazer 13y ago
- mullingitover 13y agoI'm shocked, SHOCKED, that a company that was colluding with competitors to suppress their workers' wages[1] would also collude with publishers to rig the ebook market. [1] http://www.inquisitr.com/486164/google-intel-and-apple-under-investigation-for-hiring-collusion/ http://www.inquisitr.com/486164/google-intel-and-apple-under...
- astrodust 13y agoContracts of that sort have been around for decades. The enforceability of them is somewhat questionable.
- mullingitover 13y agoAt least in California, I was under the impression that there was really no question--they're totally unenforceable unless you plan to pay your employee full wages for the entire duration that they're not allowed to work for the competition. But this wasn't about no-compete clauses, this was about the companies having an off-the-books agreement not to give unsolicited job offers to the competitors' employees.
- srik1234 13y agoApple is absolutely wrong with Most Favored clause. Even if they did not conspire with publishers directly, publishers effectively had the same opportunity and re-did their contracts with Amazon. The most concerning thing is that current law is granting amazon an unequivocal monopoly status. Lossleader strategy is employed to the extreme by amazon. Laws need to address that. At some point Amazon will raise prices. Current situation is essentially a loss for consumers and publishing industry.
- fpgeek 13y agoThere are plenty of other companies that can check Amazon. Consider Google. They make they can easily out-discount Amazon, they're also cross-platform and... and now that the Google Books scanning cases are turning in their favor they may soon have an huge new asset Amazon (and others) will have some trouble matching or beating.
- srik1234 13y agoI'm sure other cash rich companies can mimic amazon strategy. Apple,google, microsoft, samsung certainly can. That is not good for industry though. Startups will have unbelievably tough time competing with Amazon. I cant remember any startup in recent times that ventured into ebook sales. Innvoation from other startups in ebooks creation, consumption is hard to come by, when amazon is playing a lossleader strategy forever.
- fpgeek 13y agoFirst, no one has proven that Amazon was ever playing a true loss-leader strategy in ebooks, as opposed to losing money on bestsellers and making it up on the backlist. Second, the existing DoJ settlement specifically allows publishers to police this. One of the terms the settling publishers are allowed to insist on is "no losing money on my catalog overall". That's more than enough to prevent truly anti-competitive discounting. Third, yes, startups will have a hard time. But they had a hard time with the agency model too - which restricted their maneuvering room in significant ways. For instance, with a publisher-specified price you weren't just forbidden from charging "too little", you couldn't charge "too much" either. That means models where startups charged a premium for ebooks in order to support other services their target readers wanted were no longer possible.
- DannyBee 13y agoThis is no surprise, the judge is essentially constrained to rule this way, given the evidence. Some people are arguing about amazon, but again, that is irrelevant legally. As I wrote 43 days ago here: "A finding about Amazon will be completely irrelevant to Apple's conduct in this case. The question is whether Apple committed horizontal price fixing. Amazon's possibly illegal conduct is going to be completely irrelevant in that, as horizontal price fixing is still per-se illegal. They could prove Amazon hurt the market a lot. They could prove whatever they like. As long as the DOJ proves they committed horizontal price fixing, it's game over. Now, the supreme court may, in the end, decide horizontal price fixing should be analyzed under the rule of reason instead of being a per-se violation, but that's completely irrelevant to the current state of the law, and in fact, Apple's behavior. SCOTUS is not going to change the doctrine because they think Apple did the right thing here, they will change doctrine because they think the doctrine was wrong in general. However, that doctrine is the current state of the law, and what this case, and the appeal, will be analyzed under." This is exactly what happened. From the decision: "In sum, the Plaintiffs have shown not just by a preponderance of the evidence, see Herman & MacLean v. Huddleston, 459 U.S. 375, 390 (1983), but through compelling direct and circumstantial evidence that Apple participated in and facilitated a horizontal price-fixing conspiracy. As a result, they have proven a per se violation of the Sherman Act." I think, sadly, there is a good chance the supreme court will change horizontal price fixing to be under the rule of reason, and then we will finally all be screwed (The rule of reason analysis is why you see so much vertical price fixing these days, since it is no longer a per-se violation) Note that the judge, being prescient, also wrote part of the decision to explain why she believes Apple would also be guilty under the rule of reason (IE if it was not a per-se violation). This portion of the decision takes into account Amazon's conduct. This was done so that if the supreme court declares horizontal price fixing to be subject to the rule of reason, they won't need a new trial.
- tunesmith 13y agoCan you explain the distinction between horizontal price fixing and vertical price fixing with an example?
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- bjustin 13y agoEven if Amazon never got into selling ebooks, Apple would have wanted the same terms: a 30% cut of the sale price, and sane pricing for ebooks. It matches their terms for music[1] and they take the same 30% cut for apps. I wonder what would have happened if Apple never mentioned or alluded to Amazon in licensing discussions. It seems like mentions of Amazon are included in all of the damning evidence. [1] I don't know about TV shows and movies, but I imagine it is the same for them as well.
- josephlord 13y agoI think as long as they were acting as the conduit for pricing information and plans between competitors they were in a risky position (or were at least putting the competitors in a risky position). The talk about their ability to raise/increase prices looked fairly incriminating to my eyes. What I wonder is if they could have achieved the same result with less explicit talk about what the other publishers were doing and without discussing it as an opportunity to raise prices but to set whatever prices they wanted.
- JimmaDaRustla 13y agoGreat article just posted by Ars: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/how-apple-led-an-e-book-price-conspiracy-in-the-judges-words/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/how-apple-led-an-...
- July413 13y agoWow: Random House, the largest publisher, resisted Apple's call to adopt the agency model in 2010. But the company capitulated a year later in order to get its books on the iPad. "Apple decided to pressure Random House to join the iBookstore," Cote wrote. "As Cue wrote to Apple CEO Tim Cook, 'When we get Random House, it will be over for everyone.' Apple had its opportunity in the Fall of 2010, when Random House submitted some e-book apps to Apple’s App Store. Cue advised Random House that Apple was only interested in doing 'an overall deal' with Random House. By December, they had begun negotiations, and Random House executed an agency agreement with Apple in mid-January 2011. In an e-mail to [Steve] Jobs, Cue attributed Random House’s capitulation in part to 'the fact that I prevented an app from Random House from going live in the app store this week.'" For a second I thought I was reading about Bill's Microsoft not Steve's Apple.
- fpgeek 13y agoThe biggest tactical difference between Bill's Microsoft and Steve's Apple was always in the level of market power each could exert at any given point in time.
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- lippykid 13y agoApple is evil: Apple decided to pressure Random House to join the iBookstore," Cote wrote. "As Cue wrote to Apple CEO Tim Cook, 'When we get Random House, it will be over for everyone.' Apple had its opportunity in the Fall of 2010, when Random House submitted some e-book apps to Apple’s App Store. Cue advised Random House that Apple was only interested in doing 'an overall deal' with Random House. By December, they had begun negotiations, and Random House executed an agency agreement with Apple in mid-January 2011. In an e-mail to [Steve] Jobs, Cue attributed Random House’s capitulation in part to 'the fact that I prevented an app from Random House from going live in the app store this week.'" http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/how-apple-led-an-e-book-price-conspiracy-in-the-judges-words/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/how-apple-led-an-...
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