

Apple, publishers hit by class action suit over e-Book price fixing - anigbrowl


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anigbrowl
pdf of complaint:
[http://www.hbsslaw.com/file.php?id=761&key=ecdb5cfd51c02...](http://www.hbsslaw.com/file.php?id=761&key=ecdb5cfd51c029dd03eab73f6ccdd096)

tl;dr Hachette, HarperCollins, MacMillan, Penguin USA & Simon & Schuster wet
their collective pants when Amazon launched the Kindle and the public
responded enthusiastically to Amazon's aggressive pricing. Seeking an
alternative price-marker, they found one in Apple and the 6 companies colluded
to create an 'agency model' that would effectively set a price floor for
e-books that was 30-50% above market equilibrium.

I'm no expert on antitrust or class action law, but I do know a bit about law
& economics; and this looks like a rather nicely tailored suit, so to speak :)
The procedural aspects seem solid, there's a clear and well-stated argument,
and some rather dramatic before-and-after graphs to make its point about the
impact of the iPad's launch on the pricing landscape. I've never bought any
ebooks myself so I have no stake in the outcome.

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fpgeek
Since the key benefit for Apple of this arrangement is weakening Kindle's
influence on iOS, it seems likely that Apple's further restrictive practices
with respect to ebook readers / other third-party content applications will
come up at some point. I'll bet a deposition on that subject would be very,
very interesting...

On another note, it is impressive to see an antitrust complaint that
_benefits_ the market player with a dominant share.

