Article: Kindle App Updates

31 July 2013 by particularkev

The link below is to an article reporting on the latest updates to the Kindle Apps for iPad and iPhone.

For more visit:
http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2013/07/30/kindle-for-ipad-iphone-updated-w-new-dictionary-support/

Apple could pay nearly $500 million in ebook case

26 July 2013 by particularkev

Apple (s AAPL) could get smacked with a $500 million bill from the states and class action lawyers in the ebook pricing suit, based on the amounts that the settling publishers have already paid out.

Earlier this month, federal judge Denise Cote found Apple guilty of colluding with five publishers to fix ebook prices at the launch of the iBookstore. The five publishers named in the case — Hachette, Penguin, Random House, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster — have already settled and paid damages to the states and in the class action suit. In a document that the court made public Tuesday, the Texas attorney general provided Judge Cote with a chart showing the amounts that the states have agreed to pay. The red markup is by me:

The chart shows that the publishers have paid out over $166 million so far. Earlier this month, a lawyer from Hagens Berman…

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European Commission and Penguin finally wrap things up in Apple ebook pricing case

26 July 2013 by particularkev

Gigaom

Over six months after the European Commission reached an ebook pricing settlement with four publishers and Apple (s AAPL), the EC has approved a similar settlement with Penguin. Penguin, which was trying to clear the decks for its upcoming merger with Random House, had offered its proposed settlement terms in April.

According to an EC press release:

“Penguin offered substantially the same commitments as those proposed by the other four publishers and made legally binding on those companies in December 2012…They include, in particular, the termination of on-going agency agreements and the exclusion of certain most-favoured-nation (MFN) clauses in Penguin’s agency agreements during the next five years. Penguin also offered to give retailers freedom to discount e-books, subject to certain conditions, during two years. After a market test (see IP/13/343), the Commission is satisfied that the commitments offered by Penguin remedy the competition concerns it had identified.”

The…

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Article: Ebook Reading Apps

23 July 2013 by particularkev

The link below is to an article that takes a look at various ebook reading apps.

For more visit:
http://bookriot.com/2013/07/22/the-quirky-world-of-e-reading-apps/

Byliner’s new iPad app aims to find your next long read

18 July 2013 by particularkev

Article: Apple Antitrust & Book Widgetification

13 July 2013 by particularkev

The link below is to an article that takes a look at the recent Apple antitrust lawsuit and the widgetification of books.

For more visit:
http://www.themillions.com/2013/07/the-apple-antitrust-case-and-the-widgetification-of-books.html

The real villain in the ebooks case isn’t Apple or Amazon — it’s publishers’ addiction to DRM

11 July 2013 by particularkev

Gigaom

After much back-and-forth, a verdict came down on Wednesday in the Apple (s aapl) ebooks case: a judge found the company guilty colluding with five of the big six major book publishers in a scheme designed to inflate prices. The publishers (all of whom settled with the government before the trial) have tried to argue in the past that they were forced to cut a deal with Apple because of Amazon’s (s amzn) monopoly — but when it gets right down to it, the real culprit is the DRM lock-in that the publishers themselves pushed for. In effect, they forged the chains that bound them to Amazon in the first place.

My GigaOM and paidContent colleagues Jeff Roberts and Laura Owen have written about the details of the judgement itself, and also about the potential impact on Apple and the ebook business as a whole, but what really interests…

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