As proof of the conspiracy, in the class action complaint they gave:
Quote:
69. The fact that Apple brokered the simultaneous switch to the Agency model, and the Publisher Defendants agreed to standardize higher eBook prices, is amply demonstrated by a January 2010 interview in which Apple CEO Steve Jobs told Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal that Amazon’s $9.99 pricing for eBooks was about to end:
Mossberg: Why should [a consumer] buy a book for $14.99 on your device when she can buy one for $9.99 from Amazon or Barnes & Noble?
Jobs: That won’t be the case.
Mossberg: You won’t be $14.99 or they won’t be $9.99?
Jobs: The prices will be the same . . . Publishers are actually withholding their books from Amazon because they’re not happy. (Emphasis added.)
70. Absent Apple’s knowledge of and participation in the unlawful conspiracy, Steve Jobs would not have been able to predict future eBook pricing with such startling accuracy.
71. The Publisher Defendants and Apple could not have switched to the Agency model without a coordinated effort because eBooks are substitutes for each other. For example, if a consumer saw that a title listed through Apple’s iBookstore was $14.99, and was also available at $9.99 if purchased through Amazon’s Kindle App, the consumer could simply just load the least expensive version of the eBook title onto his eReader device. Moreover, if one publisher’s eBook title was priced at $14.99, versus a comparative title available through Amazon at $9.99, there is a risk that the consumer would forego the more expensive title and choose to purchase the less expensive, differently titled eBook. Thus, no single major publisher would risk such loss of sales and insist on the Agency model by itself. Thus, as a matter of economics, the Agency model works only if there is an agreement by a significant number of publishers to the new pricing model. Moreover, the shift to the Agency model occurred simultaneously and almost overnight – under any definition this shift constitutes a radical, structural change to a business model that has been in existence for decades.
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