Apple, publishers 'sued for price fixing' • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple, publishers 'sued for price fixing'

#41

Post by fpgeek » Sun, Aug 14, 2011, 4:33 AM UTC

nirvana wrote: post #20

capnrefsmmat wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow. The price-fixing claim stems from publishers forcing Amazon to raise their prices by threatening to cut off Amazon's access to their books; it doesn't have to do with competition from the iBook Store. However, it alleges that Apple was complicit in forcing Amazon to raise prices, not through competition, but through threats.

Apple offered a better deal. That may be a competitive threat, but that is competition, not a threat of... violence? criminality? What are you implying? Amazon was not forced to do anything, they chose to offer the same deal Apple does because they wanted to keep the business. If Amazon only capitulated to this deal in order to keep the big six on board, why do they offer it to everybody, including small publishers?…

"Apple offered a better deal." As was extensively documented at the time, unless you include anti-competitive factors, Apple did not offer the better deal. Amazon paid more money per eBook (and sold the eBooks downstream for less money) before the agency model than after it.

The incentive that Apple offered was helping publishers control downstream prices, which is exactly the price-fixing this case is about.

Re: Apple, publishers 'sued for price fixing'

#42

Post by fpgeek » Sun, Aug 14, 2011, 4:37 AM UTC

nirvana wrote: post #22

healsdata wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, publishers could just sell their ebooks to everyone at a wholesale cost and then not concern themselves with what the retailer sells it for. In this situation, if Amazon wanted to do deep discounts, that's on them. Isn't this how Amazon works in other areas? According to this infographic ( http://p.printingchoice.com/e-books-vs-real-books/ ) that wholesale price would be about $10 on average for both p…

Let's just take for the sake of argument that this wholesale model is "better" for some definition of better. The question at hand is, what right do you, or I, or anyone have to force- and here I mean, using the threat of violence or imprisonment if one doesn't comply- this model onto Amazon, Apple, or the publishers? Amazon and Apple own their stores. The publishers own their books. Freedom of association says they…

In the previous model it is true that prices for eBooks on Kindle were set by one entity: Amazon. However, that did not mean that the prices of eBooks were fixed by Amazon. There are these things known as "other eBookstores" (e.g. Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo and Sony Reader) that set their own prices for eBooks after paying the wholesale price for the eBook, just like Amazon.

There is clearly less pricing diversity after the agency model than before, where there is a single entity setting eBook prices on a book-by-book basis: the publisher.

Re: Apple, publishers 'sued for price fixing'

#43

Post by fpgeek » Sun, Aug 14, 2011, 4:45 AM UTC

Even better (from the perspective of those suing), it appears that Apple and at least one publisher (Simon and Schuster) might be "cheating" on the agency model:

http://theorangeview.net/2011/08/is-simon-and-schuster-cheat...

As the iBookstore seems to be the only bookstore with this kind of special deal, that certainly adds some evidence pointing towards collusion.