Quote:
Originally Posted by BWinmill
It kinda makes me wonder how much of that pentality will actually be a penalty.
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None.
The ebook business in 2012 was worth $2Billion and the price fixers raked in half of the gross on which they overcharged 20-40%. Take the lower bound and the price fix cost consumers over $200M in 2012. Add in 2011 and late 2010 (when overcharges ran as high as 50% on some titles) and the conspiracy cost non-boycotting consumers well north of $300M and possible as high as $500M. Add in the reduced competition in both ebooks and ereaders and the six conspirators are not paying even a fraction of the damage they caused to authors, consumers, and other victims.
The only consolation is that they set the stage for the mainstreaming of indie publishing and that is going to keep on biting them in the rear unto eternity.
(Or reasonable facsimile of same.)