Apple eBook price fixing case going to court

[kennyc]

Not my friend, Amazon is MY friend!

And that's NOT a link to anything other than another report of a claim which started this. Please provide proof that Apple has 20% of the market as you claimed or admit that you don't have a clue. That link is just one more restatement of the claim. [inappropriate comment deleted - MODERATOR]

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

Some you keep repeating this line, in the hope that folks will begin to believe it.

Big lie theory: repeat something often enough in as many venues as possible and *eventually* enough people will start to believe it. It's the foundation of the astroturf campaign mode of lobbying.

As most dilligent observers around here remember, Apple and the recalcitrant BPHs and friends tried this as a way to derail the DOJ settlements and the judge made it clear in no uncertain terms she wasn't buying any of their crap no matter how many peons they had repeating it.

The case is not about Amazon at all.
It isn't about Market Share or Agency; It is about six companies cooking up a deal to screw consumers six ways from sunday and then try to hide behind Agency and mudslinging.

The whole point of the deal was to move BPH ebook pricing from a $9.99 baseline to a $12.99-14.99 baseline, making $12.99 the pricing floor. That they agreed to do, simutaneously, and that they did, simultaneously. And the BPH emails make it clear they only did it because Apple reassured all of them that the others were doing the same thing.

That is textbook conspiracy.

The rest is just obfuscation repeated a zillion times in the hope the unwary will see the same lie 100 times on a Google search and believe it.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Big lie theory: repeat something often enough in as many venues as possible and *eventually* enough people will start to believe it. It's the foundation of the astroturf campaign mode of lobbying.

As most dilligent observers around here remember, Apple and the recalcitrant BPHs and friends tried this as a way to derail the DOJ settlements and the judge made it clear in no uncertain terms she wasn't buying any of their crap no matter how many peons they had repeating it.

The case is not about Amazon at all.
It isn't about Market Share or Agency; It is about six companies cooking up a deal to screw consumers six ways from sunday and then try to hide behind Agency and mudslinging.

The whole point of the deal was to move BPH ebook pricing from a $9.99 baseline to a $12.99-14.99 baseline, making $12.99 the pricing floor. That they agreed to do, simutaneously, and that they did, simultaneously. And the BPH emails make it clear they only did it because Apple reassured all of them that the others were doing the same thing.

That is textbook conspiracy.

The rest is just obfuscation repeated a zillion times in the hope the unwary will see the same lie 100 times on a Google search and believe it.

Thanks! I concur!

[kennyc]

Hmmm, Walmart is discounting, wonder why Apple doesn't get to set the price?

http://mashable.com/2013/06/22/walma...-5-price-drop/

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Hmmm, Walmart is discounting, wonder why Apple doesn't get to set the price?

http://mashable.com/2013/06/22/walma...-5-price-drop/

...we need Agency pricing for devices! How dare retailers charge less than the manufacturers!

[DiapDealer]

I paid MSRP for my new car, even though I didn't have to, just because I knew that doing so would help make the world a better place.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Hmmm, Walmart is discounting, wonder why Apple doesn't get to set the price?

What makes you think Apple doesn't?

I can't recall Apple products being prominently advertised with the same scale of Black Friday price reductions as seen with other tech products. Unless you have evidence otherwise, I'm suspecting that Apple gives WalMart a range of prices it can sell between.

[kennyc]

Suspect all you want but unless you have proof that Apple controls the price you are blowing smoke. I suspect that if Walmart wanted to give them away it could.
Prove me wrong.

[rdfry]

Apple is all about maintaining their high profit margin they could give a damn about their customers they have been selling them the same shit since 2007. They are guilty of collusion and should be hit with a hammer.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Suspect all you want but unless you have proof that Apple controls the price you are blowing smoke.

I was indeed blowing smoke, just in the opposite direction from your claim that "Apple doesn't get to set the price" on hardware. But, Googling, I now find actual evidence that Apple has set minimum prices retailers undercut at their peril:

The company supplements its tiny wholesale discounts to resellers with more substantial monetary incentives that are available only if those resellers advertise its products at or above a certain price, called the “minimum advertised price” (MAP). This arrangement enables retailers to make more money per sale, but it prevents them from offering customers significant discounts, resulting in the nearly homogeneous Apple pricing we are used to.

[kennyc]

"at their peril" so, basically you now agree with me. Apple is a wholeseller, the retailer (Walmart) sets the price.

Thanks.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by kennyc

"at their peril" so, basically you now agree with me.

Not on this.

Originally Posted by kennyc

Apple is a wholeseller, the retailer (Walmart) sets the price.

Apple sets the maximum price. Apple sets the minimum price. Within a narrow range, according the Macworld, Walmart sets the actual price.

From a consumer POV, it doesn't matter how Apple's protects that minimum price from being undercut, just that their products never are deeply discounted.

Is this harmful to humanity? I'm neutral on that.

[Barcey]

There's a good article in the Huffington Post on the trial.
www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-sagers/the-fate-of-apple-and-ant_b_3480835.html

That government enforcement in a case so clear as eBooks could challenge American sensibilities suggests that we have lost faith in something that should remain dear, and one might have thought especially dear to Wall Street Journal personages like Mr. Crovitz. If so many of us fail to see a case like this for what it is, then we as a people no longer believe in markets or competition at all.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Barcey

There's a good article in the Huffington Post on the trial.
www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-sagers/the-fate-of-apple-and-ant_b_3480835.html

Thanks Barcey. Here's the opening of the article:

As the Justice Department's so-called "eBooks" antitrust trial winds down in a Manhattan federal courtroom, it is remarkable how many people have failed to see how easy the case really is. Defendant Apple, as the government has shown by overwhelming evidence, orchestrated a garden variety price-fixing conspiracy among five of the six large publishing companies that dominate electronic books. They had motive to do it and the evidence is strong that they successfully raised retail prices for a long time. And while the judge overseeing the trial just caused a minor dither with comments at the close of evidence, hinting that she might have reconsidered her widely reported view that Apple seemed likely to lose, I seriously doubt it. She is a 20-year veteran of the bench, is extremely smart and has handled a number of antitrust cases. I find it very hard to believe she could find, on this evidence, either that there was no conspiracy or that it didn't violate the antitrust laws.
....

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Ah, another believer in the 11th Commandment!

(For the uninitiated: Thou shalt not get away with it. Any of it.)

Apple instigated the whole scam because they were late to ebooks and knew they couldn't carve a chunk of the market without. Even *with* it, iBooks was failing until they stopped their competitors from even *mentioning* their ebookstores in the IOS apps. (I bet there's already a cadres of Apple customers who think iBooks is the only ebookstore that will sell them books.)

So yeah, forcing them to get out of ebooks would be a good first step.

I'll settle for the judge publicly declaring them to have conspired and abused their market power, opening them up to civil lawsuits from BoB, Kobo, B&N, and (heh) even Amazon.

Not going to happen, but if the Apple Fen can insist Apple is in the right, I can dream of a world with real (instead of pretend) justice where Apple gets exactly what they've got coming for this.
Jus a dream, mind you...

But it would be what's right because Apple caused harm to people all over the world. Apple caused money to be taken from our pocket by getting the BPHs together and causing prices to be raised to silly amounts.