[PatNY]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

It hardly shows that. The context that is missing is that price points was the price structure that the music industry had negotiated with Apple in iTunes. Apple wanted all music to be 99 cents, the music industry wanted multiple price points so they could charge more for the more popular music. Jobs was simply offering a similar price structure to the book industry.

In business, companies negotiate with other companies. Saying that you want to start selling ebooks and starting the negotiation isn't proof that you recruited and organized a conspiracy.

The language in that Jobs quote is direct evidence of Apple’s attempt to recruit one of the publishers into the plan. It’s clear that you think this plan was just a bilateral business agreement between 2 companies. But Cote, the DOJ, two appeals court judges -- and the majority of the people in this thread -- all believe that Jobs was recruiting Murdoch into the illegal horizontal price fixing scheme. There are lots of clues. Take the email itself. Had it just been Jobs and HarperColins, he likely would have said “throw in with Apple and see if we can make a go of this.” Instead Jobs said “throw in with Apple and see if we can all make a go of this” meaning more than just the two of them. But then, most importantly, there are the mountains of other evidence – other emails, phone calls, meetings, testimony -- and the timing of it all, which when viewed together, all paint a picture of collusion among all parties involved to fix prices.

ITunes/music pricing is totally irrelevant to this discussion. This is about ebooks, not music.

The fact that the contract ended up going in a totally different direction is pretty solid evidence that Apple wasn't the recruiter and organizer of a conspiracy, otherwise Apple would be selling ebooks like they do music, at various price points.

This makes no sense. First, the agreements Apple struck with the publishers were totally consistent with the aims of the conspiracy – to raise ebook prices to around 12.99 to 14.99 and to assure Apple a higher profit on ebook sales than would have been possible under the previously established system. Second, just because an alternative agreement may have been even more favorable for a participant doesn’t absolve them in any way from the act of planning or participating in an illegal act. Why would you think Apple could have just dictated terms to all the other members of the conspiracy anyway?

--Pat