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ummmmm So aren't they basically saying it was Apple's fault? So Apple wanted Agency pricing, at maybe a different point in time than DOJ says. Penguin proposes the wholesale model. Apple says no and then we some how end up with five of the 6 publishing houses adopting the Agency model with a most favored nation clause for Apple at the exact same time.
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DOJ claim: There was a conspiracy between Apple and the publishers to raise ebook prices by imposing the agency pricing model on the ebook retail market.
2. Apple claim: All we wanted was the agency pricing model. We wouldn't have entered the ebook market without it. We don't care about prices. If any collusion on prices happened, the publishers did it.
3. Publisher's claim: No collusion happened. The DOJ is building a mountain of innuedo on a molehill of circumstantial evidence. The DOJ, through its misguided intervention, is ruining an attempt to maintain diversity in the ebook retail market.
The hardware argument: The one device with substantial market presence was the Kindle-made and sold by Amazon. It was a $400 eink reader with limited capability for displaying content. Following the introduction of another hardware manufacturer-Apple-with another device-the iPad-prices plunged for ebook reading hardware and options multiplied. If you are going to blame ebook prices on the agency model, then you are going to have to credit it for lower hardware prices,since Apple wouldn't have entered the market absent the agency model.
Anyway, that's the argument. Would a consumer advocate buy it? Nope-but a federal judge just might.