Category Archives: ebooks – price

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Heads up, ebook buyers: Here’s how much you’re likely to get in the Apple ebook settlement

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Laura Hazard Owen's avatarGigaom

All five publishers who were accused of conspiring with Apple(s aapl) to set ebook prices at the launch of the iBookstore have settled with the federal government and with the states, and until now it has been unclear how much money customers would get from those settlements. On Friday, though, the states released new documentation laying out how much people who made qualifying purchases are likely to receive.

Short answer: If the states’ settlement with the publishers is finalized, customers who bought an ebook from any one of the five settling publishers between April 1, 2010 and May 1, 2012 will be eligible for a refund of up to $3.06 per book. If you’re one of those people, you’ll get that money as a credit to the digital bookstore where you purchased the book.

It’s taken awhile to even get to this “final” — but still preliminary — dollar amount…

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Apple: Feds aim to “give Amazon a significant competitive advantage” in ebooks case

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Laura Hazard Owen's avatarGigaom

In court filings posted Monday morning, Apple (s AAPL) attorney Orin Snyder responded to the Department of Justice’s revised proposed punishment for the tech company in the ebooks case. Snyder criticized the government for filing “a 12-page broadside masquerading as a brief,” and accused them of “seeking a remedy that would give Amazon a significant competitive advantage over Apple.” (The filings are embedded below.)

U.S. district judge Dense Cote found Apple guilty of conspiring with publishers to set ebook prices last month, and Apple is appealing that verdict. Nonetheless, it responded directly to various parts of the DOJ’s proposed injunction. The DOJ is arguing for a number of things: Changes in the way that Apple sells content in the App Store, including allowing ebook retailers to sell ebooks directly through their apps without Apple taking a cut; staggered negotiations with book publishers; and the creation of a third party monitor to…

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Article: Latest on Ebook Price Fixing Lawsuit

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The link below is to an article that reports on the latest developments concerning the Apple ebook pricing lawsuit.

For more visit:
http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2013/08/23/doj-offers-revised-settlement-apple-5-publishers/

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Apple e-book judge: ‘I don’t need to go into that further’

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Unknown's avatar

Article: Ebook Refunds

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The link below is to an article that reports on the issue of refunds as part of a deal with book publishers over the ebook pricing lawsuit deal in the USA.

For more visit:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/content-and-e-books/article/58729-more-than-23-million-consumer-accounts-qualify-for-e-book-refunds.html

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Article: Catch-Up News on the Apple Ebook Lawsuit

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While I have been away the case against Apple has progressed to the ‘punishment’ stage and the link below is to an article reporting on that aspect of it.

For more visit:
http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/judge-cote-devises-brave-punishments-for-apple-in-settlement-hearing/

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Apple slams government’s proposed punishment in ebook pricing case

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Laura Hazard Owen's avatarGigaom

As expected, Apple(s AAPL) has expressed its strong disagreement with the federal government’s proposed remedies in the ebook pricing case, which the government outlined in a court filing released Friday morning.

In July, a federal judge found Apple guilty of conspiring with publishers to fix ebook prices.

Apple’s full court filing is embedded below and is available here as a PDF. Apple calls the proposed injunction “a draconian and punitive intrusion into Apple’s business, wildly out of proportion to any adjudicated wrongdoing or potential harm,” and claimed it is “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.”

The government’s injunction seemingly forces Apple to abandon its in-app purchasing restrictions, at least for digital bookstores, by “allowing Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other ebook app providers to offer a simple…

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Article: Call to End Geo-Blocks for Ebooks in Australia

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The link below is to an article that reports on the call for ending Geo-Blocking for ebooks in Australia.

For more visit:
http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2013/07/30/ebook-prices-in-australia-are-so-bad/

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Apple could pay nearly $500 million in ebook case

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Laura Hazard Owen's avatarGigaom

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:

apple trial publisher damages

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

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Laura Hazard Owen's avatarGigaom

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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