Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
I'm not disagreeing to what Apple said in court, I'm disagreeing that it's true. I don't think Apple has 20% of the eBook market because (IMHO) I think that if we were able to tally up ePub (including B&N but not Apple) and Amazon into one, we'd have more then 80% (in the US and world wide).
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Does it matter? Apple thinks they have 20%....it's probably 20% of the sales of the publishers that sell through Apple. They don't have to know what Amazon sells, they just know what their publishers tell them. But does it matter to this discussion?
Apple is going to win this because there is no proof of conspiracy....whether or not one actually happened. Apple was able to show they had good, legal and legitimate reasons to negotiate with each -- individually -- of the 6 publishers. When you have a real, legal and legitimate reason something --may-- have happened....and an inference/suspicion that something illegal -- may-- have happened....you won't have met the criteria to be guilty...no matter what ACTUALLY happened.
Apple was able to show that their interest was to be able to sell ebooks at a profit. That's legal. While it may have benefitted Apple for the publishers to force agency on Amazon....Apple showed that with "most favored nation" clause they did not care what the publishers did with Amazon.
Far from being the ring leader, it was established that the publishers were considering the agency model before Apple was considering going into the ebook business.
It was also established that the publishers were already putting "windowing" of ebooks into practice BEFORE dealing with Apple.
The threat of Apple as a competitor took away Amazon's power to say "we'll stop selling your ebooks"...and that didn't take a conspiracy.
I think the publishers could have won their cases as well...but we'll never know. Maybe there were secret meetings between them that they didn't want brought to light. We'll never know.
It is not illegal in this country to control the price of your own product. The publishers were well within their individual rights to stop letting Amazon sell their best selling products below cost. They just can't collude with other publishers.
Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. Apple established legitimate business reasons for their actions. True or not, lacking any real proof of actual collusions (say...Jobs and the CEO's got together at Camp David and worked out an agreement), the government has lost.