Motion to dismiss e-book suit rejected

[carld]

NEW YORK - Apple Inc. and five book publishers lost a bid Tuesday to have a private antitrust suit over electronic book pricing dismissed.

US District Judge Denise Cote denied a request by the defendants to throw out the complaint by plaintiffs seeking to represent a nationwide class of consumers who bought e-books from the defendants. They allege that Apple and the publishers violated federal and California state law by agreeing on e-book pricing.

This would be a class action suit separate from the US Government's suit.

Link to a Boston Globe story.

[plib]

I don't think this will make stonetools' breakfast cereal slide down very easily but, even though it might spoil his breakfast, it appears the US District Court is not too impressed with Apple's protestations of innocence.

Cote does note, however, that Apple disclosed parts of its pricing negotiations between publishers, which implies the company could have been working to get the publishers to agree to raise prices. "Apple contends that these were legitimate disclosures that Apple was entitled to use in order to gain leverage. Apple argues that Jobs’s statements that the customer would '[pay] a little more' and that prices would 'be the same' at Apple and Amazon were simply accurate descriptions of the MFN clauses and accurate predictions of the consequences of the Agency Agreements," Cote wrote. "[T]hese arguments misconstrue the standard for pleading an antitrust conspiracy in this district."

Edit: Looks like carld beat me to it by a few minutes. Maybe the two threads should be merged by the mods?

[kennyc]

good stuff!

[fjtorres]

PaidContent's coverage has more detail and juicy quotes from the ruling.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...9&postcount=29

http://paidcontent.org/2012/05/15/ju...=Google+Reader

[fjtorres]

Chris Meadows at Teleread has some nice comments on this:
http://www.teleread.com/chris-meadow...e-fixing-suit/

[Top100EbooksRank]

Before: price competition between booksellers like Kindle, Nook, Sony, Kobo etc..
After: no price competition between booksellers



With no price competition, the prices that consumers pay will rise. This whole DOJ lawsuit is about price competition (before) and the lack thereof (after).

Itunes use wholesale for selling digital music, digital movie and digital movie rental. There is price competition in digital music (a popular song like We Are Young or Somebody That I used to know have different prices on Itunes vs AmazonMP3 vs GooglePlay). Not so with popular ebook titles. "The price will be the same."

[Top100EbooksRank]

"The prices will be the same."



Steve Jobs admit to it back in January 2010 in this video



Walt Mossberg: "Why should she buy a book for $14.99 on your device when she can buy one for $9.99 from Amazon or Barnes & Noble?"

Steve Jobs: "That won't be the case."

Walt Mossberg: "You won't be $14.99 or they won't be $9.99?"

Steve Jobs: "The prices will be the same."

Steve Jobs: "Publishers are actually withholding their books from Amazon because they're not happy."





And this is a few months before the publishers forcing Amazon to abandon wholesale (April 2010).

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by kennyc

good stuff!

Look out now

The outgoing French cultural minister reckons ebook price fixing is a good thing!

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=178465

[Top100EbooksRank]

MOTIVE:

http://gigaompaidcontent.files.wordp...der-on-mtd.pdf

The CAC plausibly alleges that each of the defendants shared the twin purposes of raising the price of eBooks and eliminating retail competition even though their motives for joining that conspiracy were different. Apple’s motives for joining this conspiracy are alleged to have included its desire to enter the eBooks market and earn a profit, which it could not as easily do when Amazon had the power to set the market price for eBooks at $9.99. The Book Publishers were allegedly motivated by their interest in protecting the market for higher-priced, higher-margined hardcover books. The CAC acknowledges these divergent motives, but plausibly alleges that these motives converged to cause the Publishing Defendants and Apple to join a single conspiracy to eliminate price competition at the retail level and raise the prices consumers would pay for eBooks.



Apple: don't want to compete on price with Amazon
Publishers: protect the market for the $26-$28 hardcover books

[Fbone]

The Judge seems to have decided they are guilty without even hearing the evidence at trial. It's no wonder the companies want a jury trial. And there are bets the lawyers are already working on their appeals.

[ProfCrash]

The Judge decided that the case would have to go to trial based on the information he had at the moment. And that information points to collusion between Apple and Five of the Six BPH. A trial will determine if that collusion actually happened.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Fbone

The Judge seems to have decided they are guilty without even hearing the evidence at trial. It's no wonder the companies want a jury trial. And there are bets the lawyers are already working on their appeals.

Read the Teleread post.
Mr Meadows addresses that: procedurally, the judge had to accept *both* sets of claims as valid and weigh them to decide whether to dismiss or not.
What her ruling said is that the plaintiff evidence, if valid, outweighs the defendants claims, *even if valid*.
So now the case goes to trial to see how much of the evidence is valid, instead of the Conspiracy Gang walking free.

The problem for the defense is that the bulk of the logic for the ruling to proceed comes from documentary evidence (emails) not just inference and rebuttable testimony.
The judge hasn't made up her mind; she *is* signalling to the defense that their case is weak.

[ProfCrash]

I love that they send emails on this type of thing. One would think that people would have figured out that if you are going to do something that looks kind of illegal, like making a decision that has the appearence of colluding, that you would not send emails and give interviews announcing your attentions.

Call me silly

[5thWiggle]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

I love that they send emails on this type of thing. One would think that people would have figured out that if you are going to do something that looks kind of illegal, like making a decision that has the appearence of colluding, that you would not send emails and give interviews announcing your attentions.

Call me silly

That's part of the defence strategy: "If we really were conspiring ilegally, we wouldn't be sending open text e-mails about it, now would we????"

[abookreader]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

I love that they send emails on this type of thing. One would think that people would have figured out that if you are going to do something that looks kind of illegal, like making a decision that has the appearence of colluding, that you would not send emails and give interviews announcing your attentions.

Call me silly

”At the conclusion of the e-mail, the executive urges his boss to ‘double delete’ this e-mail from his files.”