Apple eBook price fixing case going to court

[pwalker8]

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...

Friend, I think you have the facts totally wrong. First, you think that a company with 20% of the market should be whacked for using their massive market power against a company with 60+ % of the current market and 90% of the market when Apple opened the iBookstore? Seriously? Second, Apple did not stop their competitors for even *mentioning* their ebookstore. Amazon is not only welcome to mention their ebookstore, they are welcome to sale ebooks from the kindle app. The reason they don't is because Apple wants 30% of the price for the books they do sale, just like every other app. Amazon doesn't want to do that, so you have to buy via the web browser. What might be confusing you is that Amazon use to post the url to purchase the book via the web, which Apple considered a rather transparent attempt to bypass the 30% in app purchase charge.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Friend, I think you have the facts totally wrong. First, you think that a company with 20% of the market should be whacked for using their massive market power against a company with 60+ % of the current market and 90% of the market when Apple opened the iBookstore? Seriously? Second, Apple did not stop their competitors for even *mentioning* their ebookstore. Amazon is not only welcome to mention their ebookstore, they are welcome to sale ebooks from the kindle app. The reason they don't is because Apple wants 30% of the price for the books they do sale, just like every other app. Amazon doesn't want to do that, so you have to buy via the web browser. What might be confusing you is that Amazon use to post the url to purchase the book via the web, which Apple considered a rather transparent attempt to bypass the 30% in app purchase charge.

Y'know, I keep reading this,

a company with 20% of the market

when it comes to ebooks, but I think that somebody, somewhere, is blowing smoke up somebody's ass. Apple has 20% of the ebook market like I have 20% of the ebook-making market. That's daft. We have over 2K books made, of authors ranging from folks you've never heard of to folks you definitely have, and for every thousand books they sell on Amazon, they'll sell one on iBooks, if that. I've seen some very odd niche books (self-hypnosis, for example; not making that up) do comparatively well on iBooks, but generally speaking, whether it's genre or literary or whatever, our client base doesn't sell squat there. And given the number, I'd think it would be fairly representative. A huge chunk of Apple's book database is books from Smashwords (which obviously isn't our client-base, at least, not until very recently when they started accepting ePUBs).

Maybe Apple is claiming it based on the number of books, or something; but man, nothing, nothing I've seen or discussed with anyone else in the biz indicates any numbers remotely close to this. Not remotely.

FWIW. No dog in the fight...just an observation.

Hitch

[fjtorres]

The issue in this case is *not* market share of non-participants; it is the conspiracy to raise prices on consumers.
That simple.
The *How* matters in the court, the *why not at all.

It is like trying to justify away a mugging; a crime is a crime, plain and simple.
If the judge finds the proof of the *actions* compelling she'll find them guilty regardless of how much they profitted from the crime.
"Your Honor, you can't find us guilty of mugging that passerby because all we got out of it was five cents"
"Besides, we only did it because we're broke and bugsy over there has $50 in *his* pockets."

[Graham]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

First, you think that a company with 20% of the market should be whacked for using their massive market power against a company with 60+ % of the current market and 90% of the market when Apple opened the iBookstore? Seriously?

If it turns out that their actions to enable collusion were illegal, then yes. Surely. Wouldn't you agree?

Graham

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Graham

If it turns out that their actions to enable collusion were illegal, then yes. Surely.

No, because copyright is already a grant of a monopoly, and I support copyright. Trying to fine-time how publishers use their legal monopoly power, such as by saying they can only establish agency pricing with a wink and nod rather than explicit negotiation, is a waste of my tax dollars. This is especially true when they are using their monopoly power to prevent Amazon from gaining a different, and I think worse, kind of monopoly.

What Apple and friends are accused of doing, in the US, through illegal agreements, comes close to what they are required by law to do in France and Germany. This doesn't prove that France and Germany have good laws, but it does suggest that the issue is one of policy choice rather than right and wrong.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

It is like trying to justify away a mugging; a crime is a crime, plain and simple.

The Apple anti-trust case is civil, not criminal. And late next year, the publishers can again legally insist on agency pricing, just so long as they don't talk with other publishers about it.

If agency pricing is plain and simple the same as mugging, then it goes something like this: Actually mugging is fine in the US, so long as you don't meet with other muggers to discuss in advance. Whereas, in France and Germany, mugging is mandatory.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Thing is, a sale of an eBook at $4.99 is better for the bottom line then no sale of the same eBook at $12.99.

Exactly. That's why the publishers being able to set the price of their OWN BOOKS is just fine. No one need buy them. They may have "pricing power" but only the consumer defines "price at which I will buy a book".

Originally Posted by JSWolf

A sale of an eBook at $9.99 is better for the bottom line then no sale of the same eBook at $12.99.

Not when the publishers make most of their money selling hard back books which cost $25. A price the public had already established that they are willing to pay (Retail price, $25...actual price sold $20).

Of course folks who were willing to pay $20 would be even MORE willing to pay $9.99. And so Amazon was teaching the market that a new book should ONLY cost $9.99

And once Amazon drives the rest of the competition out of business....then they say to the publisher "we are no longer willing to pay $12.50 wholesale price"...meanwhile the public is no longer willing to pay $20+ for a book. So that's why the publishers fought so hard...it's to keep Amazon from taking their $12.50 wholesale price and turning it into $7.

[ottdmk]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again now: I am grateful that the Agency model came in.

That's not to say that there aren't many, many irritating things about the Agency model. Chief amongst them is the lack of ebook sales. (As in "20% off the latest Dresden Files", etc.)

Without Agency though, Amazon was very, very close to establishing a monopsony in the ebook retail market. Without Agency, I wouldn't have Kobo. Barnes & Noble's ebook division probably would've folded ages ago. Sony? Likely the same.

Amazon took the concept of loss leaders to an entirely insane level. No other retailer was willing to take the massive losses Amazon was on ebooks... and who can blame them? And the question always was: when would Amazon use their clout to not only dictate release dates of ebooks (the infamous "kiss the buy button goodbye" incident) but price?

I much prefer the market as it is now as it was before Agency. And since most books I want are now a few dollars less then a paperback... I'm good.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by ottdmk

Amazon took the concept of loss leaders to an entirely insane level. No other retailer was willing to take the massive losses Amazon was on ebooks... and who can blame them? And the question always was: when would Amazon use their clout to not only dictate release dates of ebooks (the infamous "kiss the buy button goodbye" incident) but price?

And of course you have documentation on those massive losses, right? Cause, you know, Amazon has already shown that they were making a profit overall in their ebook line.

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

[Fluribus]

I would don't like collusion to raise prices. Collusion makes it easier and safer to raise prices. You can have the confidence that your competitors won't undercut you. If Sony had not ambushed MS on DRM, I doubt that MS would have paid any attention to the complaints.

It's especially irksome when it's spun as being for my own good. I'm poor. Forgive me if I don't understand how paying more money is good for me.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

And of course you have documentation on those massive losses, right? Cause, you know, Amazon has already shown that they were making a profit overall in their ebook line.

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

Yes, please provide proof of this assumption.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

And of course you have documentation on those massive losses, right? Cause, you know, Amazon has already shown that they were making a profit overall in their ebook line.

Sounds plausible. But showing it would require making accounting assumptions about how to allocate, between business areas, items like taxes, corporate buildings, executive pay, and software development. Did they release all that?

Before agency, Amazon took losses on books widely sold by competitiors while keeping prices high on less popular books. Here's an example of the sort of book (and one I've been meaning to read) that they wouldn't likley sell at a loss.

I see the same author now has a popular book -- one I'll definitely read -- that is published by Bloomsberry of Harry Potter fame:

http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Shoot-Fel...1950543&sr=1-1

Kindle edition is $9.89. Kobo sells it for $11.99. I wonder what Amazon and Kobo pay.

[pwalker8]

All I can say is that this is the figure that Apple used in court filings. If it isn't accurate, then I would have expect the Gov't to pile on a charge of perjury. I wouldn't be surprised if a large part of their sale is to the occasional reader, rather than the dedicated reader, i.e. beach books and best sellers.

Originally Posted by Hitch

Y'know, I keep reading this,



when it comes to ebooks, but I think that somebody, somewhere, is blowing smoke up somebody's ass. Apple has 20% of the ebook market like I have 20% of the ebook-making market. That's daft. We have over 2K books made, of authors ranging from folks you've never heard of to folks you definitely have, and for every thousand books they sell on Amazon, they'll sell one on iBooks, if that. I've seen some very odd niche books (self-hypnosis, for example; not making that up) do comparatively well on iBooks, but generally speaking, whether it's genre or literary or whatever, our client base doesn't sell squat there. And given the number, I'd think it would be fairly representative. A huge chunk of Apple's book database is books from Smashwords (which obviously isn't our client-base, at least, not until very recently when they started accepting ePUBs).

Maybe Apple is claiming it based on the number of books, or something; but man, nothing, nothing I've seen or discussed with anyone else in the biz indicates any numbers remotely close to this. Not remotely.

FWIW. No dog in the fight...just an observation.

Hitch

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

All I can say is that this is the figure that Apple used in court filings. If it isn't accurate, then I would have expect the Gov't to pile on a charge of perjury. I wouldn't be surprised if a large part of their sale is to the occasional reader, rather than the dedicated reader, i.e. beach books and best sellers.

Link please.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by ottdmk

I've said it before, and I'll say it again now: I am grateful that the Agency model came in.

That's not to say that there aren't many, many irritating things about the Agency model. Chief amongst them is the lack of ebook sales. (As in "20% off the latest Dresden Files", etc.)

Without Agency though, Amazon was very, very close to establishing a monopsony in the ebook retail market. Without Agency, I wouldn't have Kobo. Barnes & Noble's ebook division probably would've folded ages ago. Sony? Likely the same.

Amazon took the concept of loss leaders to an entirely insane level. No other retailer was willing to take the massive losses Amazon was on ebooks... and who can blame them? And the question always was: when would Amazon use their clout to not only dictate release dates of ebooks (the infamous "kiss the buy button goodbye" incident) but price?

I much prefer the market as it is now as it was before Agency. And since most books I want are now a few dollars less then a paperback... I'm good.

Before Apple came into the scene, Amazon had roughly 90% of the market. If I recall at the time, their main competition was Sony. Since then, a number of stores have entered the market and Amazon's market share has dropped to 60%. What Amazon did was sell big name books that a lot of people wanted to buy for less than what they payed the publishers for those books. The rest of the ebooks were at normal price levels. Whither or not Amazon was actually losing money on ebooks is something that I don't think is public known, certainly, I don't think that Amazon has actually announced it one way or the other.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Link please.

Google is your friend.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/13/a...-ebook-market/