PG at The Passive Voice Blog has some interesting and well informed comments on the actions of Apple and the Publishers.
Amazon Price Collusion Action
This is a relevant extract:
Quote:
Such collusive price-fixing was and is, of course, wildly illegal under US antitrust law. In PG’s transcendently-humble opinion, only rank stupidity on the part of publishers and complete arrogance on the part of Apple’s highest execs can be concluded from such a stupid move.
PG is acquainted with some attorneys who work or have worked for Apple and is confident that if Apple execs had consulted inside or outside counsel, they would have been informed that it was a dumb thing to try and had a high probability of being slipping out into the light in one way or another.
Shortly after the suit was filed, each of the publishers caved, paying a fine and agreeing never to fix ebook prices again. Apple fought the matter and lost in the trial court, the US Court of Appeals and the US Supreme Court.
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Some here seem to purport to know the motives of Amazon without troubling themselves about little things such as evidence. I set out the findings by the Appeal Court on the evidence in an earlier post in this thread. Basically, Amazon adopted a classic "loss leader" strategy.
The theory advanced here by at least one poster seems to be that the incumbents controlling a market, in this case the large publishers, were entitled to engage in a price fixing conspiracy to protect their prevailing business model. Innovators in a market routinely challenge and destroy existing business models. The result should this type of vigilantism be allowed would seem to be to stifle innovation and damage consumers.