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Apple's obligatory response: “Plaintiffs’ proposed injunction is a draconian and punitive intrusion into Apple’s business, wildly out of proportion to any adju

by daegloe 13y ago

Apple's obligatory response: “Plaintiffs’ proposed injunction is a draconian and punitive intrusion into Apple’s business, wildly out of proportion to any adjudicated wrongdoing or potential harm. Plaintiffs propose a sweeping and unprecedented injunction as a tool to empower the Government to regulate Apple’s businesses and potentially affect Apple’s business relationships with thousands of partners across several markets. Plaintiffs’ overreaching proposal would establish a vague new compliance regime—applicable only to Apple—with intrusive oversight lasting for ten years, going far beyond the legal issues in this case, injuring competition and consumers, and violating basic principles of fairness and due process. The resulting cost of this relief—not only in dollars but also lost opportunities for American businesses and consumers—would be vast.” http://allthingsd.com/20130802/apple-slams-feds-proposed-e-book-remedies-as-a-draconian-and-punitive-intrusion/ http://allthingsd.com/20130802/apple-slams-feds-proposed-e-b...

lostlogin 13y ago
Seems a weird solution, given they aren't the gorilla in the ebook market - but what comes to mind when reading this, are the battles Microsoft had with regulation. I wonder if this is the beginning of the same era for Apple.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > Seems a weird solution, given they aren't the gorilla in the ebook market While some of the remedies are related to the market that was affected by the illegal actions they were found to have engaged in, the remedies as a whole aren't limited to the ebook market, and it seems more concerned with Apple using its mobile position and related retail platforms to facilitate similar publisher schemes in other markets to the one it engaged in in the e-book market. Which, IMO, is what you'd expect of a company that wasn't found to be leveraging a monopoly or otherwise abusing power as a dominant player in one market, but instead was found to have used a significant-but-not-necessarily unique position in one market to provide a pivotal role in a price-fixing conspiracy among producers in another market.
  - voodoo123 13y ago
    Perhaps, but it's an insane solution in a competitive environment where the other major players have actual monopolies and are using predatory pricing to enter other markets. Apple has clearly overreached, but this kind of remedy is not about restoring competition.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > Apple has clearly overreached, but this kind of remedy is not about restoring competition. This is about Apple using its retail outlet to advance and profit from a conspiracy among publishers to jointly set the terms on which they sold to retailers, including retail price fixing as the key focus. Insofar as it is about "restoring competition", its about restoring the need for publishers to each seek separately to make the best deals with retailers, rather than unilaterally imposing common terms. (This affects retail prices, but its not about retail competition.) The remedies which benefit other retailers aren't about restoring competition, per se, they are about remedying the harms done by Apple's unlawful activity to other market participants. In Amazon's case, that also happens to reward the incumbent major player, but then, Amazon was the primary target of the illegal conspiracy. So this is not inappropriate. As to your allegations against Amazon, if one assumes they are true, they might be a basis for anti-trust action against Amazon, but they aren't an argument for limiting the remedies imposed on Apple for conspiring with publishers in a price-fixing scheme.
      - jolohaga 13y ago
        I think the conspiracy is really correcting a wrong. The publishers felt they made a mistake giving Amazon so much leverage, so early in the development of e-commerce. To assume that all e-commerce should develop in the open web model is ludicrous. This has to be obvious to some in Washington.
        deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
        deleted 13y ago
- AsymetricCom 13y ago
  Don't be fooled, Apple sells a lot of eBooks, but I don't think anyone has numbers. Apple has a lot of power in the market right now, and has already shown to be willing to abuse it in ways worse than MS ever did in the 90's. They don't have the market power to be subject to anti-trust laws, if they were, I can imagine it being worse than the Microsoft judgment. Having that said, it's really a different case than eBook price fixing. It's almost like they're giving them a punishment for a different case...
  - MBCook 13y ago
    Do you have any numbers on Apple's eBook sales? I always figured they were even smaller than Nook, or at least outnumbered by Amazon most of 10:1.
    - AsymetricCom 13y ago
      I'd say it's closer to 1:1 or 2:1 considering what Iv'e seen in the wild. Other systems can advertise books right in iTunes like a single app. Kindle has to be discovered via Amazon's site so it really only appeals to existing customers. Apple has way more brand recognition.
      - MBCook 13y ago
        Really? They both play this kind of stuff close to the chest. As far as I know Amazon has never released sales numbers for the Kindles, at least Apple tells us that. Anecdotally I use Kindle ecosystem, as do some of my friends and family. I don't know anyone who uses iBooks, so that's probably skewing my viewpoint. I guess they did at least make a name for themselves with textbooks, at a minimum. EDIT: According to All Things Digital, during the trial one of Apple's people estimated their market share at 20% [1]. That's way higher than I would have guessed. [1] - http://allthingsd.com/20130613/apples-e-book-market-share-is-bigger-than-you-think/ http://allthingsd.com/20130613/apples-e-book-market-share-is...
        AsymetricCom 13y ago

by daegloe 13y ago

lostlogin 13y ago

Seems a weird solution, given they aren't the gorilla in the ebook market - but what comes to mind when reading this, are the battles Microsoft had with regulation. I wonder if this is the beginning of the same era for Apple.

dragonwriter 13y ago
> Seems a weird solution, given they aren't the gorilla in the ebook market While some of the remedies are related to the market that was affected by the illegal actions they were found to have engaged in, the remedies as a whole aren't limited to the ebook market, and it seems more concerned with Apple using its mobile position and related retail platforms to facilitate similar publisher schemes in other markets to the one it engaged in in the e-book market. Which, IMO, is what you'd expect of a company that wasn't found to be leveraging a monopoly or otherwise abusing power as a dominant player in one market, but instead was found to have used a significant-but-not-necessarily unique position in one market to provide a pivotal role in a price-fixing conspiracy among producers in another market.
- voodoo123 13y ago
  Perhaps, but it's an insane solution in a competitive environment where the other major players have actual monopolies and are using predatory pricing to enter other markets. Apple has clearly overreached, but this kind of remedy is not about restoring competition.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > Apple has clearly overreached, but this kind of remedy is not about restoring competition. This is about Apple using its retail outlet to advance and profit from a conspiracy among publishers to jointly set the terms on which they sold to retailers, including retail price fixing as the key focus. Insofar as it is about "restoring competition", its about restoring the need for publishers to each seek separately to make the best deals with retailers, rather than unilaterally imposing common terms. (This affects retail prices, but its not about retail competition.) The remedies which benefit other retailers aren't about restoring competition, per se, they are about remedying the harms done by Apple's unlawful activity to other market participants. In Amazon's case, that also happens to reward the incumbent major player, but then, Amazon was the primary target of the illegal conspiracy. So this is not inappropriate. As to your allegations against Amazon, if one assumes they are true, they might be a basis for anti-trust action against Amazon, but they aren't an argument for limiting the remedies imposed on Apple for conspiring with publishers in a price-fixing scheme.
    - jolohaga 13y ago
      I think the conspiracy is really correcting a wrong. The publishers felt they made a mistake giving Amazon so much leverage, so early in the development of e-commerce. To assume that all e-commerce should develop in the open web model is ludicrous. This has to be obvious to some in Washington.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 13y ago
AsymetricCom 13y ago
Don't be fooled, Apple sells a lot of eBooks, but I don't think anyone has numbers. Apple has a lot of power in the market right now, and has already shown to be willing to abuse it in ways worse than MS ever did in the 90's. They don't have the market power to be subject to anti-trust laws, if they were, I can imagine it being worse than the Microsoft judgment. Having that said, it's really a different case than eBook price fixing. It's almost like they're giving them a punishment for a different case...
- MBCook 13y ago
  Do you have any numbers on Apple's eBook sales? I always figured they were even smaller than Nook, or at least outnumbered by Amazon most of 10:1.
  - AsymetricCom 13y ago
    I'd say it's closer to 1:1 or 2:1 considering what Iv'e seen in the wild. Other systems can advertise books right in iTunes like a single app. Kindle has to be discovered via Amazon's site so it really only appeals to existing customers. Apple has way more brand recognition.
    - MBCook 13y ago
      Really? They both play this kind of stuff close to the chest. As far as I know Amazon has never released sales numbers for the Kindles, at least Apple tells us that. Anecdotally I use Kindle ecosystem, as do some of my friends and family. I don't know anyone who uses iBooks, so that's probably skewing my viewpoint. I guess they did at least make a name for themselves with textbooks, at a minimum. EDIT: According to All Things Digital, during the trial one of Apple's people estimated their market share at 20% [1]. That's way higher than I would have guessed. [1] - http://allthingsd.com/20130613/apples-e-book-market-share-is-bigger-than-you-think/ http://allthingsd.com/20130613/apples-e-book-market-share-is...
      - AsymetricCom 13y ago