DoJ: Apple considered 'illegally dividing the digital content world with Amazon'

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 95
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by [Greg] View Post


    52*520k*10≠52MM



    Anyway, those both sound like marvelous options, but how beautifully ironic would it be if they bought iPads for students?



    Yikes! That what was bad math.



    I think an iPad can be a huge beneficial for students but I think at this point $52 million would be better spend on improving the classes themselves.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by charlitos View Post


    If Amazon were to set their prices at the level of what Apple charges through their iBooks plattforms customers will have very little incentive to get the content off Amazon as iOS makes it easier and more intuitive to get it off Apple. Amazon can only compete by having the option to sell for the same content cheap(er).



    You can read your Kindle books in many more places than with iBooks that Amazon still has a major leg up.
  • Reply 22 of 95
    ajrajr Posts: 12member
    This article from Apple Insider misstates the basis of the DOJ's lawsuit. The "collusion" with Amazon is merely a passing mention in the complaint. It is not why Apple and the publishers are being sued. Amazon is not a named defendant.



    The primary complaint is that Apple and the publishers colluded among themselves to raise the sale price of e-books. If true, it's price fixing and it's illegal.
  • Reply 23 of 95
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by iSheldon View Post


    Right- just like Steve Jobs and Apple convinced the music industry to let it sell using a $99 cent per song model.

    Who could compete with that?

    Tower?

    Virgin?

    All gone.



    1) http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=dm_bb_69...rd_i=163856011



    2) So now you're moving the goal posts to blame Apple for physical book stores going out of business because Apple sells eBooks?
  • Reply 24 of 95
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gerbinto View Post


    Amazon is competing by offering a lower price. Now when the top 6 publishers collude with Apple, set a e-book price, and tell Amazon to accept the same terms or lose their business, then that is illegal.



    I'm not sure how that's illegal? It seems to be business competition..



    If I owned a restaurant, and I had coke on my fountain soda, and pepsi offered me a lower price, I'd take it.. If coke rep came back to me and said "hey what's the deal?" , I told them I got a lower price. The same would go in Logistics (freight companies bidding for lanes).
  • Reply 25 of 95
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Corrections View Post


    DoJ hasn't batted an eye at the banking institutions that conspired to destroyed the US economy through fraud, but it sees a case in publishers selling ebooks on the open market for $13 rather than $10.



    WTF.



    What an incompetent bunch of morons. Or perhaps just tools of the system. It's getting hard to take America seriously anymore.



    Maybe the $52 million can be invested into the domestic army seeking to invade citizens' homes looking for marijuana. It would probably buy two paramilitary tanks or a set of flack jackets and rocket launchers for the ATF to pursue its policy of prohibition via domestic terrorism.



    Next up: investigate the Facebook conspiracy to sell virtual farmland for nonsense points. Then take down the tech cabal offering free email accounts in an effort to bankrupt the US Postal Service.



    Maybe rig the election for Romney and send the US from quasi-fascist republic to a full on military theocracy where you get thrown in prison unless you tithe the mormons.



    Let me just drop this right here:



    http://www.nasdaq.com/article/top-us...20120209-01506





    $25 billion settlement...I would say they have done something against the banks.
  • Reply 26 of 95
    agramonteagramonte Posts: 345member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by charlitos View Post


    If Amazon were to set their prices at the level of what Apple charges through their iBooks plattforms customers will have very little incentive to get the content off Amazon as iOS makes it easier and more intuitive to get it off Apple. Amazon can only compete by having the option to sell for the same content cheap(er).



    nonsense, you have to be delusional to think iBooks is anywhere near Kindle - getting a better price is just icing on the cake.
  • Reply 27 of 95
    [QUOTE=AppleInsider;2093653]In its newly filed lawsuit against Apple, the U.S. Department of Justice asserts that the iPad maker considered a content partnership with Amazon that would have allowed Apple to "own" digital delivery of audio and video.



    Then why the hell isn't Amazon part of the lawsuit? Seriously, you title alone intimates this should be so.....



    This is all Bull ShiX!
  • Reply 28 of 95
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post


    I wonder how much a HS football stadium costs. Is $52 million enough?



    Yes, but not by as much as you might imagine. A local high school put up at $20 M stadium about 5 years ago. A competing district asked the voters to approve a $75 M (!!!!) bond issue for a competing stadium. Fortunately, it was shot down.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gerbinto View Post


    OK, lets explain this again because some of you are not getting the point.







    Amazon is competing by offering a lower price. Now when the top 6 publishers collude with Apple, set a e-book price, and tell Amazon to accept the same terms or lose their business, then that is illegal. Amazon could not lower prices in order to force competition. How come Apple just couldn't follow Amazon's suit and take a loss? Are you really defending the corporations bottom line? So you would rather pay more, and line the companies pocket, instead of saving money?





    Please do not be blinded because this is Apple. Every corporations bottom line is to get as much money as they can. We should all be on the side of the consumer, not the company. If Google colluded with the RIAA, set the price of MP3 songs and then forced Apple to raise their price, I would assume everyone would be up in arms against this.



    Apple, Google, Amazon, MSoft are all great companies, however that doesn't mean I want to be screwed out of my hard earned money by them.



    Who says that price is the only way to compete? Amazon has Kindle Books which gives them a great advantage - their books are cross-platform and can be played on any device that the customer wishes to buy. They also have the advantage of being the #1 online bookseller in the world. Jumping immediately to "price is the only way we can compete" is a logical fallacy.
  • Reply 29 of 95
    I don't understand what's wrong here. The Agency Model is just how Apple does business. The iTunes store works the same whether it's an app or a book or a piece of music being sold. You set the price, they take 30% and the product is sold by them.



    Now, if the publishers are trying to force Amazon to take the agency model or they don't want to sell them the books, that's a potential antitrust case. But I don't see where Apple is involved. Surely it should be allowed to sell books on the terms it offers and publishers accept? (I think this is why Apple is staying in the suit and the publishers are settling.)



    Amazon's prices are often significantly lower for books. If the books are available on both iBooks and Amazon at roughly the same price, I will go with iBooks because the presentation is superior. Also, if you are an author, Amazon's terms are much less generous than Apple's. Apple pays you only 1/3 of sales in many cases. It will pay you 70% (which is what Apple pays) if you sign special agreements, but it charges you for bandwidth and has other fees. Apple's fees are a straight-up 30% and you will always get 70% (subject of course to minimum payments and other standard terms).



    So if you want to support authors who self-publish, Apple is offering a significantly better deal and you should buy your books through the iBookstore instead of Kindle.



    D
  • Reply 30 of 95
    ajrajr Posts: 12member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by domerdel2 View Post


    I'm not sure how that's illegal? It seems to be business competition..



    If I owned a restaurant, and I had coke on my fountain soda, and pepsi offered me a lower price, I'd take it.. If coke rep came back to me and said "hey what's the deal?" , I told them I got a lower price. The same would go in Logistics (freight companies bidding for lanes).



    What you described is competition and it's perfectly legal. What Apple and the publishers are alleged to have done is collude to limit competition, which is illegal.



    To use your example, if Coke, Pepsi and all other major soda makers agreed, among themselves, that neither would charge less than $5 per bottle of soda, then the restaurant would be forced to pay $5, even if it was possible for an established seller to sell at $3 per bottle. That's anti-competitive price fixing, and it's illegal.
  • Reply 31 of 95
    christophbchristophb Posts: 1,482member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by charlitos View Post


    If Amazon were to set their prices at the level of what Apple charges through their iBooks plattforms customers will have very little incentive to get the content off Amazon as iOS makes it easier and more intuitive to get it off Apple. Amazon can only compete by having the option to sell for the same content cheap(er).



    Or they could make the product better. One of the points about competiion, no? Some like hardcover, some wait for paperback, some like kindle, some like iBooks, some wait a few hundred years for it to be released on http://www.gutenberg.org/ .
  • Reply 32 of 95
    ajrajr Posts: 12member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by David Dennis View Post


    I don't understand what's wrong here. The Agency Model is just how Apple does business. The iTunes store works the same whether it's an app or a book or a piece of music being sold. You set the price, they take 30% and the product is sold by them.



    Now, if the publishers are trying to force Amazon to take the agency model or they don't want to sell them the books, that's a potential antitrust case. But I don't see where Apple is involved. Surely it should be allowed to sell books on the terms it offers and publishers accept? (I think this is why Apple is staying in the suit and the publishers are settling.)



    Amazon's prices are often significantly lower for books. If the books are available on both iBooks and Amazon at roughly the same price, I will go with iBooks because the presentation is superior. Also, if you are an author, Amazon's terms are much less generous than Apple's. Apple pays you only 1/3 of sales in many cases. It will pay you 70% (which is what Apple pays) if you sign special agreements, but it charges you for bandwidth and has other fees. Apple's fees are a straight-up 30% and you will always get 70% (subject of course to minimum payments and other standard terms).



    So if you want to support authors who self-publish, Apple is offering a significantly better deal and you should buy your books through the iBookstore instead of Kindle.



    D



    It's illegal if Apple colluded with the publishers to present Amazon with the ultimatum: accept our agency agreement, or none of us will allow you to sell new releases for 7 months after Apple is allowed to. That's what is alleged to have happened.
  • Reply 33 of 95
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ajr View Post


    It's illegal if Apple colluded with the publishers to present Amazon with the ultimatum: accept our agency agreement, or none of us will allow you to sell new releases for 7 months after Apple is allowed to. That's what is alleged to have happened.



    If Apple did indeed do that then I agree wholeheartedly that Apple is wrong and should be punished.
  • Reply 34 of 95
    agramonteagramonte Posts: 345member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by domerdel2 View Post


    I'm not sure how that's illegal? It seems to be business competition..



    If I owned a restaurant, and I had coke on my fountain soda, and pepsi offered me a lower price, I'd take it.. If coke rep came back to me and said "hey what's the deal?" , I told them I got a lower price. The same would go in Logistics (freight companies bidding for lanes).





    If you want to give a free soda or half off that soda if someone buys a burger at your restaurant - PEPSI comes and tells you - you can not - because they set the price you can sell Pepsi at your store, and they have a deal with the Deli around the corner where no one can sell Soda cheaper over their price.



    So when you go to COCA-COLA and tell them you want to buy soda from them they tell you the same thing - you have no choice, you sell at the price they tell you to.



    at the same time Coca-Cola and Pepsi get together and say Soda will cost 2.00



    At that point The price is artificial, it is fixed.
  • Reply 35 of 95
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by domerdel2 View Post


    I'm not sure how that's illegal? It seems to be business competition..



    If I owned a restaurant, and I had coke on my fountain soda, and pepsi offered me a lower price, I'd take it.. If coke rep came back to me and said "hey what's the deal?" , I told them I got a lower price. The same would go in Logistics (freight companies bidding for lanes).



    What you failed to grasp about the Amazon situation is this:



    When Apple and the publisher's colluded to set e-book prices, the big publishers told Amazon to restructure their contract to match it or lose their business. So if Amazon did no agree to change their model, they would LOSE their e-book titles. Not much of a choice and at the same time no company can offer lower prices to compete.



    Do you see the difference between what Apple did and your example? In your example Pepsi could offer you that lower price and compete. No one forced Pepsi to set that price. Now if Pepsi and coke got together and said that they would only offer one price, then that would be collusion and it's illegal.



    I hate to cite Wikipedia but they had the most information available on one site:



    "Collusion is an agreement between two or more persons, sometimes illegal and therefore secretive, to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading, or defrauding others of their legal rights....It is an agreement among firms to divide the market, set prices, or limit production..."



    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collusion



    Therefore the problem is not the fact that Apple entered these clauses with the publishers, its that they set prices and then forced every other business to accept those prices. Which is collusion and illegal.
  • Reply 36 of 95
    christophbchristophb Posts: 1,482member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post


    If Apple did indeed do that then I agree wholeheartedly that Apple is wrong and should be punished.



    They'd better have more evidence than a quote from a biography of a guy who cannot be brought to testify. A quote explaining agency model and what the mutual benefit to both companies would be.
  • Reply 37 of 95
    isheldonisheldon Posts: 570member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post


    So now you're moving the goal posts to blame Apple for physical book stores going out of business because Apple sells eBooks?



    Nice try - but no I am not. I'm not blaming anyone for anything that pushed the price down in my favor. Apple in this case supposedly colluded with publishers to strangle eBook market share from Amazon by forcing them to raise their prices to match Apple's and at the same time getting more money for the greedy publishers hence driving my buying price up. Some else blamed Amazon for that which you've just mentioned. I blame neither- it's simple digital evolution. Same for Kodak film. But in your world nothing lasts forever- except Apple- right?
  • Reply 38 of 95
    msanttimsantti Posts: 1,377member
    I just don't know what's wrong with Apple here.



    I would think they would be doing backflips at the thought of losing money on each book sold.



    In fact, they should apply that idea to hardware as well.



    Would be a brilliant move
  • Reply 39 of 95
    mrstepmrstep Posts: 513member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Corrections View Post


    DoJ hasn't batted an eye at the banking institutions that conspired to destroyed the US economy through fraud, but it sees a case in publishers selling ebooks on the open market for $13 rather than $10.



    WTF.



    What an incompetent bunch of morons. Or perhaps just tools of the system. It's getting hard to take America seriously anymore.



    Maybe the $52 million can be invested into the domestic army seeking to invade citizens' homes looking for marijuana. It would probably buy two paramilitary tanks or a set of flack jackets and rocket launchers for the ATF to pursue its policy of prohibition via domestic terrorism.



    Next up: investigate the Facebook conspiracy to sell virtual farmland for nonsense points. Then take down the tech cabal offering free email accounts in an effort to bankrupt the US Postal Service.



    Maybe rig the election for Romney and send the US from quasi-fascist republic to a full on military theocracy where you get thrown in prison unless you tithe the mormons.



    Maybe they can that the $52 million and add it to Wall St. bonuses! You just have to look hard enough to see the good instead of only seeing the bad!



    Yeah, it's a joke. Trillions down the tubes on invasions and Wall St. bailouts, huge piles of undeclared cash bankrolling crooked politicians, politicians who will actively distance themselves from scientific understanding while advocating theocracy, all communications snooped on globally, every bank transaction monitored, and ebook pricing and mobile device address books are the top priority. I feel much safer already.
  • Reply 40 of 95
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post


    Yes, but not by as much as you might imagine. A local high school put up at $20 M stadium about 5 years ago. A competing district asked the voters to approve a $75 M (!!!!) bond issue for a competing stadium. Fortunately, it was shot down.







    Who says that price is the only way to compete? Amazon has Kindle Books which gives them a great advantage - their books are cross-platform and can be played on any device that the customer wishes to buy. They also have the advantage of being the #1 online bookseller in the world. Jumping immediately to "price is the only way we can compete" is a logical fallacy.



    What the publisher's and Apple did was take away an avenue for competition by fixing the price of e-books. Which again, is illegal. This has nothing to do with "price is the only way we can compete". This has everything to do with 7 companies getting together to FIX the price of e-books, which is illegal according to U.S. and E.U. laws.
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