Here is an article describing how the lawsuit that was filed against the Big 5 publishers and Apple has expanded. Back in August it was just one lawsuit, but now over a dozen lawsuits have been filed. Amazon and Barnes & Noble have also been named as defendents, and now the court system is looking at consolidating these lawsuits into one mega class action lawsuit.
I have no idea if these lawsuits will prevail, but two quotes towards the end of the article caught my attention. The first is--
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To prevail, the publishers will have to persuade a court that their pricing scheme is reasonable. They may argue that it is on the grounds that the alternative was destroying their business.
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I think the publishers will have a hard time with this since the typical cost of a new ebook is about $13 and they get 70% or $9.10, but they were receiving around 50% of list price which was around $24 or $12.00 a book. So now the book costs the consumers more, and both the publisher and the author make less. Yeah, good luck with that arguement.
The other quote is--
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“They can’t just cry, ‘we’re losing business’,” said Barbara Sicalides, an anti-trust expert at Pepper Hamilton. She says publishers and Apple will likely have to produce sensitive business records to prove that the agency pricing model is ultimately necessary to protect consumers.
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Once again, how are higher prices protecting the consumer?