Quote:
Originally Posted by mrscoach
If someone knowingly aids in an illegal act (they know it is illegal)they are just as guilty as the others.
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Who is this "they?"
Steve Jobs? He'd dead. Other executives have moved on. And what is going to happen to the people who are still there and conspired? Are they going to be -- horror! -- written up by their boss? Denied a Christmas bonus? Neither one. Instead they will be gently told by legal how the airlines, after getting a similar hand-slap many years ago, now manage to keep so many prices identical with winking and nodding rather than explicit statements.
Apple is a publicly held company. It's almost 3 percent of the S&P 500 stock basket that a large portion of middle income Americans have their pension invested in. Those average Americans won't be hurt much by this, but they will be hurt a tiny bit, which is also the degree of hurt the conspirators will face. My point in mentioning the pension plans is that the people hurt by this ruling, if anyone, are not likely to have had anything to do with the conspiracy.
Antitrust is even more absurd in publishing than with the airlines. The publishers have a legal life + 70 monopoly on each of their products. They can sell them, or withhold them, as they wish. And they can go to industry conventions and talk to other firms in the same line of business, so long as they vet everything they say first with their lawyers. Obtaining such legal advice is actually part of the slap-on-the-wrist publisher settlements. Yes, I am beyond cynical on this. It's a game nobody wins except a few lawyers.