Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
DRM is not illegal.
Walled gardens and proprietary formats are not illegal.
Any single publisher choosing to sell books through agency agreements is not illegal.
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I never said it was. The Apple/publisher apologists argue that they did this illegal action to counter the Amazon monopoly. I'm arguing that despite it being illegal, it did nothing to counter the Amazon monopoly (except allowing Apple to profitably set up the same sort of walled garden Amazon did with much lower risk to Apple), and that if the publishers wanted to counter Amazon's natural monopoly, there were legal alternatives that would do a better job of it than the illegal action that they took.
But you're correct, this is a side topic, and I will not discuss it any more on this thread.
On topic: I think the real reason why Apple is making a stink on this is because they're afraid that the DOJ will somehow use this case to get oversight for iTunes as well as the iBookstore. When IBM and Microsoft were fighting their antitrust suits with the DOJ, even though they finally prevailed, they ended up being forced to change their business practices for a long time. Since I don't think they're going to get this conviction overturned on appeal, they're running a big risk that their recalcitrance will end up with even more government oversight than what they've got now.