Apple files appeal

[John F]

I think this is a new appeal (for the ebook price fixing decision).

"Apple asks federal appeals court to overturn finding in antitrust case, or award new trial"

http://www.usnews.com/news/business/...antitrust-case

[Barcey]

Yes the full appeal is here.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/209318743/...E-Books-Ruling

I've just glanced through the table of contents. It appears to be the same arguments they made in the trial.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Barcey

It appears to be the same arguments they made in the trial.

There are no other arguments to be made.
They are down to asking for a new chance to sell the same story to a new judge, hoping that with the extra practice their dodgy arguments will sound more credible.

[pwalker8]

Not exactly the same arguments in the trial. The four appeal points are
That Judge Cote erred in

1) saying that Apple's negotiation was in violation of the Sherman anti-trust act
2) That Apple was per se liable.
3) excluding Coe's testimony when there was no evidence to the contrary.
4) the injunction exceeded her authority.

I think that 2) is the biggie, that's where Judge Cote deviated the most from the current case law and where I think that the case is most likely to be overturned.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I think that 2) is the biggie, that's where Judge Cote deviated the most from the current case law and where I think that the case is most likely to be overturned.

Even if that's true, Cote wrote in her opinion that even if the evidence did not support a per se violation, the case would come out the same under the rule of reason standard, because Apple cannot show any pro-competitive effect of the publisher agreements.

I don't know if anyone's mentioned it yet, but Apple has also filed to move the damages trial for the consumer lawsuit to California and for the states' trial to Western Texas.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...ges-trial.html

Oh, and any time Apple claims that their entrance into the market caused lower prices, I'll just show the prices I paid before 4/1/2010, and the prices of the same books 1-2 years later. I would have paid 2-3 times as much.

[robko]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

Oh, and any time Apple claims that their entrance into the market caused lower prices, I'll just show the prices I paid before 4/1/2010, and the prices of the same books 1-2 years later. I would have paid 2-3 times as much.

Ya, I haven't quite figured out how the start of agency pricing (which legal or not Apple had a big hand in starting) REDUCED prices which Apple claims to have done.
And since e-books themselves haven't changed much in the last while, what innovation did they push? You could easily argue Kobo and B&N caused a lot more innovation related to ebooks (since the hardware side has changed).

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by robko

And since e-books themselves haven't changed much in the last while, what innovation did they push? You could easily argue Kobo and B&N caused a lot more innovation related to ebooks (since the hardware side has changed).

Obviously, they popularized reading on devices, because who'd ever do anything without Apple telling them its a good idea? Why, if they hadn't made an official Apple ereader app, the whole ebook industry might never have gotten off the ground!!

[frahse]

More rotten core from Apple.

[PatNY]

Apple is pure comedy. In their appeals brief, they claim they did “nothing more than hearing out the publishers’ complaints” and that Apple “had no knowledge that the publishers were engaged in a conspiracy.” The evidence showed otherwise, revealing Apple directly manipulated and actively orchestrated a horizontal conspiracy. It wasn’t just a spectator; they were the ringleader. You can’t do that and claim protection as a vertical player and exemption from per se liability.

In the words of the inimitable Judge Judy, “Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.” I believe the appeals court will feel likewise and deny Apple a new trial or reversal of Cote’s decision.

On another front, the cat is still refusing to take a bath in regards to the monitor. Apple recently told Cote that they would only turn over to Bromwich documents which they themselves felt were relevant to his official duties. Cote quickly nixed that, telling Apple to comply with ALL of Bromwich’s requests or bring up any disagreements first with a referee she assigned to iron out any disagreements between the two parties.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...or-appeal.html

Apple is losing at every turn. But for their highly paid external lawyers, of course, it's win-win. Without Apple's cavernous pockets, I don't think you'd be seeing any of this litigation. Most companies would simply have recognized and accepted their precarious legal position long ago and settled with the DOJ, just like the publishers did.

--Pat

[alanHd]

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

From a neutral point of view it makes me wonder what apple is trying to stop coming out.

[pl001]

Originally Posted by alanHd

From a neutral point of view it makes me wonder what apple is trying to stop coming out.

Yeah, I've been wondering that too. It makes little sense to continue this otherwise. The damage to their image is already done and only gets worse the more they fight.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by robko

Ya, I haven't quite figured out how the start of agency pricing (which legal or not Apple had a big hand in starting) REDUCED prices which Apple claims to have done.
And since e-books themselves haven't changed much in the last while, what innovation did they push? You could easily argue Kobo and B&N caused a lot more innovation related to ebooks (since the hardware side has changed).

The discussion about the change in prices depends on the segment of books in question. The prices for bestsellers were increased, but readers turned to indie books which are cheaper so while the average price of a bestseller went up, the average price being paid if you consider all the books, not just bestsellers went down.

The supposed point for the this whole maneuver was to limit Amazon's market share, but it came out on top anyway because 1) it distributes both indie books and bestsellers so a shift in readers' choice doesn't matter, 2) it got viewed as a fighter for consumer rights 3) it went from using ebooks as loss leaders to using ereaders as loss leaders.

Aside from the legal impacts the publishers lost 1) revenue both because of lower profit margins and loss of sales and 2) importance because they used to be the gatekeepers but readers got to see that some of the books that didn't match the quality threshold of publishers matched the quality threshold of publishers.

Originally Posted by alanHd

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

From a neutral point of view it makes me wonder what apple is trying to stop coming out.

I don't think that they are trying to stop something from coming out, I think that they consider themselves to be above the law. The judge was very lenient with them and despite being convinced by the evidence that Apple broke the law she didn't even want to appoint a monitor and was singing Apple's praises. That ruling only came to be because Apple didn't show any intention to be antitrust compliant and even this judge couldn't ignore that.

[robko]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

The discussion about the change in prices depends on the segment of books in question. The prices for bestsellers were increased, but readers turned to indie books which are cheaper so while the average price of a bestseller went up, the average price being paid if you consider all the books, not just bestsellers went down.

That's a really interesting point and probably how Apple's lawyers will try to spin things. The way I would view it is that while the OVERALL market price paid went down, that was due to a shift in the market, which you could claim was caused at least in part by Apple/agency pricing. But if you look at apples (not the company ) to apples, the actual price of most books either stayed the same (I assume indie prices didn't drop but stayed the same) or, in real price paid, went up (most agency priced books).

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by alanHd

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

From a neutral point of view it makes me wonder what apple is trying to stop coming out.

Apple is afraid that the DOJ will use this as a fishing expedition to find reasons to supervise the iTunes and Apple app stores.

[Sydney's Mom]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

Apple is afraid that the DOJ will use this as a fishing expedition to find reasons to supervise the iTunes and Apple app stores.

Agreed. That is what happens when you decide to go to trial. At least it wasn't a choice between 20 years or the death penalty!

Apple was found guilty. While ebooks were the subject, the issue now is company culture. I don't know who the idiot is here (lawyer or apple exec.) Just set up a program and require all your employees to complete it! Every time my company does something wrong, there is a new training video that I have to watch and take a test to show I understand the material. Even though I don't set prices, and don't deal with members of the military, I have had to take training programs on all of them. And then my company just shows the regulator the results--we had X number of employees take the training and demonstrate mastery of the material. "If it happens again, it is not our fault."

Not only is Apple's reputation in the toilet, they are bleeding money to the attorneys. There must be some executive who thinks Apple will someday be seen as a hero for taking on big, bad Amazon. Except Amazon stands for low prices, and Apple stands for huge margins. Don't hold your breath, boys.