Apple gripes about antitrust monitoring

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by afv011

except != accept

Unless they look at the other areas, how can they be sure they're not related to the ebooks shenanigans?

Well just one simple one... making computers doesn't produce eBooks or have anything to do with them... and thanks for the typo error correction but couldn't you also have commented on the rest of the point, "so if you get found guilty of one offence (say speeding) then you'll accept CCTV monitoring of your entire life and tagging for a two to five years... cool..."

[AnemicOak]

No, but if you're found guilty of a crime you might very well be put on parole with a very different set of rights and expectations until you've finished that parole. I don't know if the guy's trying to check into every aspect of their business or not, but we know they used at least one aspect of the business, the app store and blocking apps, as one method to try and get Random House to join Agency pricing. One of the monitor's jobs is to assess the companies anti-trust policies. I'd think interviewing top execs would be a necessity to completing that task.

Sounds to me like Apple's lawyers are doing what their paid for (being pains in the butt) as is the monitor and this probably wouldn't get as much notice if it was some other company bitching.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

No, but if you're found guilty of a crime you might very well be put on parole with a very different set of rights and expectations until you've finished that parole.

Exactly.
Criminals on parole have to toe the line and obey the parole officer or they get the full penalty dropped on them.
And it was *Apple* that was convicted, not iBooks, so the monitoring applies to all of Apple, at the monitor's discretion. Just as parole officers can drop in on convicts at home, at work, at any time they choose, not when it is convenient for the convict.

[Barcey]

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Sing it Sammy Davis Jr....

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Barcey

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Sing it Sammy Davis Jr....

Funny you should pick Robert Blake

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by elcreative

Well just one simple one... making computers doesn't produce eBooks or have anything to do with them... and thanks for the typo error correction but couldn't you also have commented on the rest of the point, "so if you get found guilty of one offence (say speeding) then you'll accept CCTV monitoring of your entire life and tagging for a two to five years... cool..."

It is more like someone being found speeding in the company car, with evidence that the boss issued the order to speed, and after the trial the new boss insists that there is no need for a monitor to tell all the drivers not to speed, or to talk to management about not giving orders to break the law.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

That's the mistake they made with eBooks.

So, it wasn't a mistake to conspire to fix ebook prices?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

So, it wasn't a mistake to conspire to fix ebook prices?

Well, now...
There is a school of thought that says nothing's a mistake as long as you don't get caught.

One thing that comes to mind is that the risk-reward assessment at Apple was (and remains) way beyond anything reasonable.

Starting with the fines: one estimate I saw put the possible damages/fines on Apple at $850M, with the possibility of treble damages raising it to $2B. Chump change for Apple, I know.

However, the entire US ebook business in 2012 was estimated at $2B and Apple's share at 10-12%, which works out to a gross of $250M. Apple's net on that would be in the $50-60M range for 2012; lower in 2011, higher in 2013, so a $5M a month net for iBooks US is a fair bogey.

So, we have a company that makes well over a billion a month jumping headfirst into a sewer of illegal activity over a business worth a half of one percent of their normal net. And that now faces the prospect of fines amounting to 5-10 years worth of iBook profits.

There is a school of thought that would call that a mistake of historical proportions. And if things escalate...

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

So, it wasn't a mistake to conspire to fix ebook prices?

It depends if the case gets over turned on appeal. What Apple did was previously been held as perfectly legal. Apple of course insists that they didn't conspire to fix ebook prices. As far as I know, there was no actual evidence presented that they did.

[afv011]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

It depends if the case gets over turned on appeal. What Apple did was previously been held as perfectly legal. Apple of course insists that they didn't conspire to fix ebook prices. As far as I know, there was no actual evidence presented that they did.

There were some rather incriminating emails.

Evidence in the case included emails from Apple's late co-founder, Steve Jobs, to News Corp executive James Murdoch that the government said reflected Jobs' desire to boost prices and "create a real mainstream e-books market at $12.99 and $14.99."

Source

[Sydney's Mom]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

It depends if the case gets over turned on appeal. What Apple did was previously been held as perfectly legal. Apple of course insists that they didn't conspire to fix ebook prices. As far as I know, there was no actual evidence presented that they did.

Not exactly. While MFN price clauses can be legal, in conjunction with the horizontal conspiracy it becomes classic anti-trust behavior. There are a lot of threads on this topic. The issue here is Apple continues to refuse to see the error of its ways. If you violate anti-trust laws, this is what you get. What a cry-baby. If you can't do the time . . . .

[rdfry]

I have no sympathy for them what soever, they continue to show the crap company they are.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I mean really...
Who better than the convicted entity will know whether the sentence is fair and/or being carried out properly?

This post made me laugh, but then I realized that, in certain other cases, the convicted party was not only correct about the sentence being unfair and the means being improperly executed; they were also the only party who chose to point out the issue. Not to draw hilariously inapposite parallels, but retrials that hinge on bias often make the same argument, do they not?

Apple is in the wrong in many other ways, but that particular argument is one that isn't necessarily without merit. It might not be credible for Apple to complain about unfairness in this case, but perhaps it can be so for other parties in trials that involve corruption and/or prejudice at the judicial level.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

Not exactly. While MFN price clauses can be legal, in conjunction with the horizontal conspiracy it becomes classic anti-trust behavior. There are a lot of threads on this topic. The issue here is Apple continues to refuse to see the error of its ways. If you violate anti-trust laws, this is what you get. What a cry-baby. If you can't do the time . . . .

Yes exactly. There was quite a bit of literature about this at the time of the trial. This is the first time that a non horizontal company was treated as a horizontal company for purposes of anti-trust. that is the novel legal theory that the prosecutor used.

Yes, there are a lot of threads on the topic. The issue is that for it to be anti-trust, you have to prove a conspiracy. There was very little public evidence of that Apple did indeed conspire with the publishers to set prices. Mostly of the evidence appears to be an email that was never sent, the fact that Apple used the same contract for each of the publishers (once again a standard business practice) and Judge Cote saying that she didn't believe the Apple exec who said that they did not work with publishers to fix prices.

As far as I can tell, most of the opinions are divided between the anti stick to beat Apple with, the Apple fan boys, and a small group of postings that question the legal aspects of the trial itself. Things like Cote writing most of her opinion before the trail, saying before the trial that she thought that Apple was guilty, and Judge Cote's history of prejudicial (in the sense of favoring one party over another in trials) behavior. Then there is the question of how can a party with zero market share be guilty of anti-trust when the market leader has 80 to 90 percent of the market?

Finally there is the concern of the growing trend of government prosecutors using threats of company destroying fines to extort large amounts of cash from a wide range of companies without any admitting of guilt on the part of the company. This gives rise to the impression that it's all about raking in the bucks as opposed to justice.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by afv011

There were some rather incriminating emails.



Source

That of course just shows what can be "proven" by taking things out of context. Here is a link to the whole email

http://allthingsd.com/20130515/heres...james-murdoch/

That doesn't even go into the fact that the email was from when Apple was trying to establish a price point that they were going to sale ebooks at rather like what they were doing in iTunes with music, a strategy that they eventually abandoned and went with the strategy of letting the individual publishers set the price as long as they didn't sale it for less elsewhere.