DOJ suing Apple over ebooks.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by stonetools

I think the problem is that it looked like a one sided enforcement of the law.

How have Amazon broken the law?
And if they haven't, how can there be uneven enforcement of the law they haven't broken?

[DiapDealer]

How have Amazon broken the law?
And if they haven't, how can there be uneven enforcement of the law they haven't broken?

Isn't obvious? Amazon should be punished for the crimes they very clearly intend to commit sometime in the near future. This falls squarely under the jurisdiction of the Criminal Intentions Police—who were obviously napping on the job when they let Apple and the various publishers' illegal (albeit rampantly altruistic) plans actually come to fruition. Slackers.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Amazon shouldn't care but the DoJ should care. The DoJ is supposed to represent the interests of the consumer in this fight, not the interests of Amazon. It isn't in the consumer's interest for only Amazon to be left standing.

I think that is the essence of the argument.

No. The DOJ should *NOT* care.
*That* is the essence of the argument.
The letter of the law.

At most, you could argue that "somebody" in Congress should care.
(Say, the Senator from Apple. Or from Google.)
But they don't.
500-plus politicians and none has raised a peep: that should tell you which way the wind blows.

DOJ has one mission: enforce the letter of the law, *not* set policy.
Policy is for Congress.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

Apple and Five Publishers who colluded. Apple is but one of the defendants. Three of the Five Publishers have already settled. In a few months that settlement will go before a judge and it will be determined if the settlement is fair, acceptable, allowable (sorry not a lawyer.) Apparently interested parties can attempt to argue that the settlement should not be allowed for whatever reason. There is already indication that the Authors Guild is going to fight the settlement because of the logic that the collusion allowed BN and others to gain a foothold in the e-book world.

I could be off on those details, if I am, I am sure someone on the baord will happily correct me.

Right on all counts.
What the DOJ is prosecuting is a classic hub-and-spoke conspiracy, with Apple at the hub.

For example, among the email and testimony evidence there is a report that Penguin told Apple they would only sign up for the Price Fix if they were one out of four. Apple promptly passed the word around and came back with assurance that the other BPHs were committed. That is not the behavior of a bystander, but rather of a facilitator. Possibly a ringleader.

[Joykins]

Originally Posted by stonetools

But the price won't be cheaper. Indeed, even if by some miracle the price is cheaper , what about customer service, Whispersync, cloud services, ability to read on more than one device? DRM is the LEAST of Amazon's advantages.

Email your elsewhere-purchased DRM-free mobi ebook to your kindle as a Personal Document, and boy presto, you can take advantage of all the above. It's a reason, at that point, to buy a KINDLE, not books from the Kindle store per se.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

If Amazon breaks the law than the DOJ should get involved. I fail to see how enforcing the law is a bad thing.

It can be, when the government picks a winner.

Another opinion to this effect, Tim Carmody from Wired...

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/...er-settlement/

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

I don't think that the DOJ should choose not to pursue a lawsuit against Apple and the Five Publishers because it had the side benefit of propping up BN.

Again it's not that they should ignore collusion. It's that the settlement terms should not fork over the business to one competitor

Keep in mind that Random House is using the same exact agency pricing policies and is not named in the suit. It's like the DoJ is saying "it was illegal for you to talk to one another, but what you were doing was legal, and we're going to stop you from doing it anyway."

Meanwhile vendor lock-in and freezing out 3rd party vendors aren't even sniffed at. It's a stunning oversight on the part of the DoJ.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Meanwhile vendor lock-in and freezing out 3rd party vendors aren't even sniffed at. It's a stunning oversight on the part of the DoJ.

It has nothing to do with the lawsuit, so how is it an oversight?
Publishing houses and Apple colluded to change retail practice in concert.
That is illegal.
Whether Amazon let other people use its DRM has nothing to with with that.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Isn't obvious? Amazon should be punished for the crimes they very clearly intend to commit sometime in the near future. This falls squarely under the jurisdiction of the Criminal Intentions Police—who were obviously napping on the job when they let Apple and the various publishers' illegal (albeit rampantly altruistic) plans actually come to fruition. Slackers.

Pictured above, the DOJ's Pre-Crime Division.

[ProfCrash]

The settlement says that those Publishers have to void their contracts with bookstores and renegotiate with them. The terms allow for discounts but do not allow for any bookstore to sell books at a net lose.

Random House is not involved because it waited a year before moving to the Agency Model and was not involved in the collusion.

The settlement is not handing Amazon anything. It is negating policies that were deemed to be illegal because they were set in place due to collusion not because the policy itself was illegal.

So Random House can keep Agency Pricing. I doubt it will because its books will probably be more expensive then the other Publishers. The settlement itself might even allow Agency Pricing on some level while still allowing for some type of discounting and bundeling.

We don't know what the end contracts are going to look like. The DOJ is not handing Amazon anything, they negotiated a settlement to right an illegal situation.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

So Random House can keep Agency Pricing. I doubt it will because its books will probably be more expensive then the other Publishers. The settlement itself might even allow Agency Pricing on some level while still allowing for some type of discounting and bundeling.

The settlements do allow agency pricing. They don't allow most-favored status or restraints on discounts (for 2 years) for those who settle. You've been going off about this for a few days, and you didn't know that?

RH can also keep agency and reduce prices at will, if it needs to respond to competitive pressures. The DoJ isn't even forcing RH to allow discounts or abandon its most-favored status, yet that's what gets targeted in the settlement. So again... it's like the DoJ is preventing the settling publishers from engaging in otherwise legal activity.

Again, we're going to wake up one day, and Amazon is going to have 80% or more of the market in ebooks and no viable competitor left standing. Try not to be shocked when it doesn't work out quite as fantabulous as you expect....

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

RH can also keep agency and reduce prices at will, if it needs to respond to competitive pressures. The DoJ isn't even forcing RH to allow discounts or abandon its most-favored status, yet that's what gets targeted in the settlement. So again... it's like the DoJ is preventing the settling publishers from engaging in otherwise legal activity.

The publishers concerned have been demonstrated to be happy to use illegal methods when setting contracts, so their behaviour is going to be more closely monitored and circumscribed, to make sure they don't do it again.
The entire contracts would have been legal if they had been entered into without collusion, but that wasn't the case.
Random House didn't engage in any illegal activity.

Whether this results in Amazon's market share going up or down is completely irrelevant to the case at hand.

[ProfCrash]

As an Amazon user I have a feeling that I am not going to be too worried about it.

And even if that is the end result, it is not DoJ's responsibility to help BN compete with Amazon. That is BN job.

[howyoudoin]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

Can some one explain to me why Amazon should care about BN, Apple, or Google and their resources or lack of interest in competing?

If BN cannot afford to provide a discount program or discount e-books because of its current financial position, why should Amazon and its customers be punished? If Apple and Google don't see the e-bookstore business as something that they are really interested in pursuing, why should Amazon and its customers be punished?

The argument I am reading is that the DOJ is wrong to go after Apple and the Five Publisher for collusion because the action protected BN, Apple, and Kobo from a competitor that had the resources to discount books and was interested enough in the market to work at building the Kindle brand name and eco system.

Amazon is a threat because Amazon had spent the time and resources developing its brand name, a part of that meant discounting books. Apple and Google do not seem all that interested in competing. They will play as long as they don't have to work at the game (Give Apple MFN status and raise e-book prices), make them actually compete and they are likely to walk away because, well they don't want to spend the time responding or innovating in their bookstores. BN cannot compete because it does not have enough cash to be able to match Amazon.

So as a customer of Amazon, I should be ok with higher e-book prices in the name of providing artifical competition in the e-book market?

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to ProfCrash again.

[ProfCrash]

Originally Posted by howyoudoin

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to ProfCrash again.

Thanks for the thought

[tlrowley]

Originally Posted by howyoudoin

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to ProfCrash again.

Took care of that for you (and for myself, of course!)