Apple freaks here are amazing when it comes to their unconditional love toward Apple. We're talking about Apple conspiring to charge more money to you and us. These people will ask Apple did you like it if Apple rapes their girl friend.
A newbie troll, but a troll none the less. Apple never set the price, the publishers did. Show me any proof that Apple set the prices even the publishers admit to setting set the prices. DOJ is way off base with this lawsuit.
Experts can help me here, but am I thinking this right way?
Lets take one example.
There are two real estate brokers X and Y selling lots of homes named 1,2,3,4,5
X charges commission of $100 and says price of home 1 is $1000+$100 = $1100 to buyer (Consumer)
Y guarantees seller that he will get his $1000 but on condition that Y takes 30% profit and he has to change price to $1300 to buyer (Consumer)
Now Seller of home 1(to5) forces agent X to raise price of 1 to be $1300 as well else he will not list his home with X.
Is this analogy correct?
Aren't the consumer at loss here?
I am sorry if I thought this wrong way, may be end consumer will think wrong way like me and needs to corrected similarly.
Since the seller is making $1000 whether he uses X or Y, why would he force X to raise his price to $1300?
But suppose the seller also has properties that he's trying to sell with other brokers, in the same area as the homes he has listed with X. By X selling at $1100, which is below market value, it will drive down the price of the other properties he's trying to sell. And his other brokers might stop listing his properties because they can't afford to make only $100 commission per sale. Soon only X will be listing properties in the area and he can raise his commission to $300. With the extra $200 coming out of the seller pocket as X will still be selling homes at $1100 and the seller won't have a choice but to use him.
Amazon's wholesale discounting was built on Amazon's web dominance and designed and intended to hurt any-and-all potential competitors. This is akin to abusing a monopoly to exert leverage over another market niche. Selling product at a loss can never be justified by the government.
And how about all the music stores gone now because of iTunes?
Actually I thought all the big discounters - Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and (earlier) Circuit City - killed the music stores. iTunes is actually late to the party.
Amazon for sure is the reason for fall of big stores like Circuity City, Best Buy, CompUSA and many many more and all jobs related to that. (By avoiding sales tax )
In my state, I still save tax on Amazon purchase but as far as I find price same, I prefer to buy from local store then giving all business to Amazon.
I hate Amazon in that regard. Maybe they would have done same thing to small book-sellers if Apple didn't joined the business.
So even if Apple did it right way or wrong way, I like it that way which avoids monopoly of one source.
They already had. They ran all but two major bookstores out of business and prevented any small ebook stores from forming until Apple got involved
Experts can help me here, but am I thinking this right way?
Lets take one example.
There are two real estate brokers X and Y selling lots of homes named 1,2,3,4,5
X charges commission of $100 and says price of home 1 is $1000+$100 = $1100 to buyer (Consumer)
Y guarantees seller that he will get his $1000 but on condition that Y takes 30% profit and he has to change price to $1300 to buyer (Consumer)
Now Seller of home 1(to5) forces agent X to raise price of 1 to be $1300 as well else he will not list his home with X.
Is this analogy correct?
Aren't the consumer at loss here?
I am sorry if I thought this wrong way, may be end consumer will think wrong way like me and needs to corrected similarly.
No, it's more like this:
Seller wants 1000 for his house. Broker X actually puts it on the market for 999 or less. Broker X waives all fees, and promises to pay the seller a dollar out of his own pocket when it sells. Turns out Broker X just wants to sell all the houses on the street as fast as possible, because his real game is to raise the value of his other properties in the neighbourhood, particularly commercial property, and those values are down because no-one lives there.
Seller is not happy because Broker X bought already bought the commercial property from the seller for a song, well under value, because Broker X convinced the Seller that the commercial property would never attract buyers and was not worth much. Broker X pulled this convincing presentation by taking over all marketing and PR for the property and keeping it out of the nicer magazines and listings -- "see, no interest in your property"
Now, Broker Y comes along and says, "hey Mr Seller, we also think your property is worth 1000, but we won't attempt to devalue it in order to pursue an agenda of our own. We aren't using you to manipulate the value of our other properties and transactions. We will showcase your property and build it up for what it is. It gets front page treatment. We have a glossy property magazine and great photographers, and will put your home in front of 500 million parties who get our magazine. We will take care of everything. What we ask is that you give us a 30% fee when your property actually sells. The selling price is up to you. If you really must receive 1000, then you must sell for a little higher because we cannot waive our fee; however, if you list the property with more than one broker, please work it so the asking price is the same or less at our agency, not more.
"The advantage of listing with us, is that you have these other houses (2- 5) that have variable values, each on its own merits, due to its architect, building materials, newness, grounds, placement on the street, etc. You will be able to price house 2 at 1200, house 3 at 1500 and so on, as a fair valuation would indicate. Broker X baulks at making any differentiation between your properties and he would be trying to get you to come down to standard pricing agreements, even if it means reducing his fee in the process. He can afford to do this, because he owns all the other property-related businesses in town (lawn maintenance, contractors, etc.), and he wants to become the only game in town; he wants to control the expectations around property transactions."
That's what I get for using Wikipedia as a source.
"In June 2010, Amazon released a "Kindle for Android" version. With the Google Android application release, versions for the Apple iPhone, the iPad, Windows and Mac computers, and BlackBerry cellphones are also available"
no sheet sherlock. of course it was. But it doesn't equal Apple having anything to do with the publishers deciding they had a better deal and could lose Amazon without a fuss
Except you had that pesky Steve Jobs popping up telling the publishers what the price needed to be set at.
Apple will be found guilty and than the states will sue them.
A newbie troll, but a troll none the less. Apple never set the price, the publishers did. Show me any proof that Apple set the prices even the publishers admit to setting set the prices. DOJ is way off base with this lawsuit.
I guess you refuse to acknowledge those emails from that pesky Steve Jobs telling the publishers what priced needed to be.
Apple has dirty hands in this no doubt about it. Once they are found guilty the state will be suing then next.
Given the total inability of the DoJ to go after blatant and overt financial crime, they spend their time finding people to deport and now going after Apple to justify their paychecks.
I have been disappointed at the high price of ebooks. To me, a hard back book should cost more than a digital book. Because you don't have to pay to print it, you don't have to pay to ship it, and you don't have to pay for it to sit in air conditioned prime real estate for x months. After its been written and edited, you pretty much hit the publish button. As a consumer, shouldn't I expect to get some of the passed on savings? Not even all the savings. I really like Apple, but I don't like it if they told the publishers to bump up the cost. I know they've gone to app makers and told them to up the prices of their games, so I could see them doing this.
[QUOTE]Reidy testified that Grandinetti said, "If you're going to do this, we have to look at the whole business."[/QUOTE]That's a hell of a "threat", CEO Reidy, actually frightening.
I guess you refuse to acknowledge those emails from that pesky Steve Jobs telling the publishers what priced needed to be.
Apple has dirty hands in this no doubt about it. Once they are found guilty the state will be suing then next.
Amazon was selling DISCOUNTED eBooks so what was the "normal" price before the discount was applied?
Could it possibly have been $12.99, $15.99, something based on the rrp of equivalent paperbacks?
Too bad for the DoJ that this hearsay evidence cannot be clarified.
Apple has done nothing wrong and will be exonerated, the DoJ smell funny because they can't tell shit from shinola, as can be seen by this farce of a lawsuit.
I have been disappointed at the high price of ebooks. To me, a hard back book should cost more than a digital book. Because you don't have to pay to print it, you don't have to pay to ship it, and you don't have to pay for it to sit in air conditioned prime real estate for x months. After its been written and edited, you pretty much hit the publish button. As a consumer, shouldn't I expect to get some of the passed on savings? Not even all the savings. I really like Apple, but I don't like it if they told the publishers to bump up the cost. I know they've gone to app makers and told them to up the prices of their games, so I could see them doing this.
So how much should the author and an editor to clean up the work be paid?
Should they get less because there is no physical book.
What about marketing and promotion?
Seen any self published works on the best sellers list lately.
I'll bet it costs a lot to be noticed by the New York Times or show up on TV shows.
The physical cost of printed pieces of paper is a small part of the cost of publishing a book.
There is nothing to stop you from self publishing eBooks, in any store.
Good luck with getting noticed without a publisher.
So how much should the author and an editor to clean up the work be paid?
Should they get less because there is no physical book.
What about marketing and promotion?
Seen any self published works on the best sellers list lately.
I'll bet it costs a lot to be noticed by the New York Times or show up on TV shows.
The physical cost of printed pieces of paper is a small part of the cost of publishing a book.
There is nothing to stop you from self publishing eBooks, in any store.
Good luck with getting noticed without a publisher.
The publishers have already decided that authors shouldn't be paid as well for an eBook, so yeah I guess they get paid less because there's no physical book. The authors are the ones being taken advantage of. By the way, poor MacMillan may be the worst of the big publishers in that regard. Yet you feel sorry for the publishers rather than the authors? http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/macmillan-lowers-e-book-payments-for-authors/
Amazon wasn't taking a commission on certain books, they were actually taking a loss but you pretty much got the gist of it.
What I'd like to know is what if there was no Amazon and Apple was first to market what prices would have Apple forced on the publishers? They didn't give the music industry the benefit of setting their own price and now we're supposed to believe Apple is concerned about the publishers and has their best interest in mind?
Your last part is kind of the funny thing and the true genius and deviousness of Apple. If you listen to some of the comments here you'd think people believe Apple was on a mission to save publishers...
Amazon sells book at $9.99 with 2% margin.... effective price to publisher..... $9.99
Apple sells book at $12.99. Takes extortionary 30% cut... effective price to publisher $9.99
So Apple was not helping the publishers at all... The genius of it is that in order to make the same money on iBooks that they did on the other platforms they would be force to raise their prices or take a huge loss. The MFN clause ensured that that higher price would also have to be applied to other vendors... So Amazon would now have to jack prices to $12.99- but they weren't guaranteed the 30% cut. So Apples whole plan was to give the publishers nothing, but force all their competitors to subsidize the lack of profits publishers would make on iBooks. Profits from iBooks would all go to Apple, profits from all the other stores would go to the publishers not the sellers.
Thats just friggin evil genius at work.
Should be an interesting trial. I love Apples lawyers opening remarks/evidence. 'I was carefully involved in crafting these documents and you can clearly see they state that Apple has no interest in Amazons prices' Meanwhile most of the conversation between publishers and Eddy cue revolve around the Amazon problem and how 'if it is going to work, they all need to be in this together' Articles 20 and 29 are pretty damning IMO, because they show all the publisher relying on Eddy to get everyone on board. 'Eddy, marching orders from London, we won't sign on unless you get 3 other publishers to sign on' Another publisher had a similar comment. It shows they were all relying on Apple to orchestrate it so they could all jack prices at the same time without actually directly talking to one another.
Its devious, sleazy and unethical for sure. Apple may just have good enough lawyers to argue that it wasn't illegal.
Either way it worked out well for consumers. If Apple and the publishers had gotten away with it we'd all be paying higher prices. Because the DOJ stepped in and the fact that ebooks are actually profitable more entrants have come to market and prices have actually come down. The hillarity is added to because Apple is now trying to take credit for that.
Experts can help me here, but am I thinking this right way?
Lets take one example.
There are two real estate brokers X and Y selling lots of homes named 1,2,3,4,5
X charges commission of $100 and says price of home 1 is $1000+$100 = $1100 to buyer (Consumer)
Y guarantees seller that he will get his $1000 but on condition that Y takes 30% profit and he has to change price to $1300 to buyer (Consumer)
Now Seller of home 1(to5) forces agent X to raise price of 1 to be $1300 as well else he will not list his home with X.
Is this analogy correct?
Aren't the consumer at loss here?
I am sorry if I thought this wrong way, may be end consumer will think wrong way like me and needs to corrected similarly.
No you are not thinking of it the right way. Look at the movie industry. To maximize profits movie companies will engage in a windowing strategy. First a movie will be released to theaters where prices are highest to see the movie. When demand withers the movie will be released to DVD through places like Blockbuster and pay on demand services, which pay a premium for its users to see the content. Thirty days later the movie makes its way to regular cable channels and places like Red Box. Eventually it goes to places like Netflix and Amazon streaming. The government has no problem with this.
The publishing industry tries to do the same thing. A book first is released on more pricey and profitable hardcover. Then after demand falls it gets released on softcover. Amazon was screwing up this model to the detriment of publishers, consumers who want hardcovers, and brick and morter retailors like Barnes and Noble (and now defunct Borders). Amazon required publishers to release E Books at the same time as the hardcovers. Amazon was allowed to set the price on the books, including the hardcovers it carried. It would encourage the sale of the ebooks over the hardcover books by sometimes selling the e books at a loss all while keeping the price of the hardcovers higher. Since Amazon is the biggest book publisher, this resulted in hard cover book sales falling. It killed the publisher's tiered profit model and e books are less profitable.
To redress this, publishers wanted to set the price every where, but especially for new releases. They wanted to make the same profit on both e books and hardcovers especially when books were first released.
But it's illegal for Amazon to slow down the competition? What hypocrisy
No one ever said that. NIce straw man.
It's not illegal to slow down the competition and no one said that it was. I was objecting to the argument that Apple was guilty because they tried to slow Amazon down. It's a specious argument - no matter how it is presented.
Apple is to blame there. I am not taking any sides, just saying the facts here. (Did We really had music stores:) Maybe too long ago, don't recall many big B&M music stores!!!)
Wrong. iTunes didn't put B&M music stores out of business. There were two factors involved:
1. Enormous rise of massive stores (Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Amazon) selling music in quantities that the B&M stores couldn't match. It's hard for a small retailer to compete with Walmart for ANY goods - which is why Walmart has decimated small retailers of virtually all products.
2. Piracy. At the time iTunes came into being, piracy was so common that it had an enormous impact on music revenues. With iTunes offering a way for people to buy single tracks for a reasonable price ($0.99 instead of having to pay $14.99 for an album where you only want one song), it took a big chunk out of piracy. So, to a large extent, iTunes helped to save the industry rather than killing it.
Except you had that pesky Steve Jobs popping up telling the publishers what the price needed to be set at.
Apple will be found guilty and than the states will sue them.
Only problem with that is that Apple didn't tell the publishers what the price needed to be set at. You apparently don't understand the agency model at all.
Sure, Jobs expressed the obvious statement that the publishers would like to get more money than they were getting, but that's so obvious that it's silly to even consider it in the context of price fixing.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
"We wanted to avoid losing most or all of their titles from our store," Gartinetti said of MacMillan.
Yeah, right.
Quote:
Originally Posted by yousuck
Apple freaks here are amazing when it comes to their unconditional love toward Apple. We're talking about Apple conspiring to charge more money to you and us. These people will ask Apple did you like it if Apple rapes their girl friend.
A newbie troll, but a troll none the less. Apple never set the price, the publishers did. Show me any proof that Apple set the prices even the publishers admit to setting set the prices. DOJ is way off base with this lawsuit.
And Amazon's deals are designed to destroy all its competitors. News at 11.
Quote:
Originally Posted by shahhet2
Experts can help me here, but am I thinking this right way?
Lets take one example.
There are two real estate brokers X and Y selling lots of homes named 1,2,3,4,5
X charges commission of $100 and says price of home 1 is $1000+$100 = $1100 to buyer (Consumer)
Y guarantees seller that he will get his $1000 but on condition that Y takes 30% profit and he has to change price to $1300 to buyer (Consumer)
Now Seller of home 1(to5) forces agent X to raise price of 1 to be $1300 as well else he will not list his home with X.
Is this analogy correct?
Aren't the consumer at loss here?
I am sorry if I thought this wrong way, may be end consumer will think wrong way like me and needs to corrected similarly.
Since the seller is making $1000 whether he uses X or Y, why would he force X to raise his price to $1300?
But suppose the seller also has properties that he's trying to sell with other brokers, in the same area as the homes he has listed with X. By X selling at $1100, which is below market value, it will drive down the price of the other properties he's trying to sell. And his other brokers might stop listing his properties because they can't afford to make only $100 commission per sale. Soon only X will be listing properties in the area and he can raise his commission to $300. With the extra $200 coming out of the seller pocket as X will still be selling homes at $1100 and the seller won't have a choice but to use him.
Amazon's wholesale discounting was built on Amazon's web dominance and designed and intended to hurt any-and-all potential competitors. This is akin to abusing a monopoly to exert leverage over another market niche. Selling product at a loss can never be justified by the government.
Quote:
Originally Posted by shahhet2
Experts can help me here, but am I thinking this right way?
Lets take one example.
There are two real estate brokers X and Y selling lots of homes named 1,2,3,4,5
X charges commission of $100 and says price of home 1 is $1000+$100 = $1100 to buyer (Consumer)
Y guarantees seller that he will get his $1000 but on condition that Y takes 30% profit and he has to change price to $1300 to buyer (Consumer)
Now Seller of home 1(to5) forces agent X to raise price of 1 to be $1300 as well else he will not list his home with X.
Is this analogy correct?
Aren't the consumer at loss here?
I am sorry if I thought this wrong way, may be end consumer will think wrong way like me and needs to corrected similarly.
No, it's more like this:
Seller wants 1000 for his house. Broker X actually puts it on the market for 999 or less. Broker X waives all fees, and promises to pay the seller a dollar out of his own pocket when it sells. Turns out Broker X just wants to sell all the houses on the street as fast as possible, because his real game is to raise the value of his other properties in the neighbourhood, particularly commercial property, and those values are down because no-one lives there.
Seller is not happy because Broker X bought already bought the commercial property from the seller for a song, well under value, because Broker X convinced the Seller that the commercial property would never attract buyers and was not worth much. Broker X pulled this convincing presentation by taking over all marketing and PR for the property and keeping it out of the nicer magazines and listings -- "see, no interest in your property"
Now, Broker Y comes along and says, "hey Mr Seller, we also think your property is worth 1000, but we won't attempt to devalue it in order to pursue an agenda of our own. We aren't using you to manipulate the value of our other properties and transactions. We will showcase your property and build it up for what it is. It gets front page treatment. We have a glossy property magazine and great photographers, and will put your home in front of 500 million parties who get our magazine. We will take care of everything. What we ask is that you give us a 30% fee when your property actually sells. The selling price is up to you. If you really must receive 1000, then you must sell for a little higher because we cannot waive our fee; however, if you list the property with more than one broker, please work it so the asking price is the same or less at our agency, not more.
"The advantage of listing with us, is that you have these other houses (2- 5) that have variable values, each on its own merits, due to its architect, building materials, newness, grounds, placement on the street, etc. You will be able to price house 2 at 1200, house 3 at 1500 and so on, as a fair valuation would indicate. Broker X baulks at making any differentiation between your properties and he would be trying to get you to come down to standard pricing agreements, even if it means reducing his fee in the process. He can afford to do this, because he owns all the other property-related businesses in town (lawn maintenance, contractors, etc.), and he wants to become the only game in town; he wants to control the expectations around property transactions."
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheMacadvocate
That's what I get for using Wikipedia as a source.
"In June 2010, Amazon released a "Kindle for Android" version. With the Google Android application release, versions for the Apple iPhone, the iPad, Windows and Mac computers, and BlackBerry cellphones are also available"
Guess you're retracting your previous statements?
Quote:
Originally Posted by charlituna
no sheet sherlock. of course it was. But it doesn't equal Apple having anything to do with the publishers deciding they had a better deal and could lose Amazon without a fuss
Except you had that pesky Steve Jobs popping up telling the publishers what the price needed to be set at.
Apple will be found guilty and than the states will sue them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Realistic
A newbie troll, but a troll none the less. Apple never set the price, the publishers did. Show me any proof that Apple set the prices even the publishers admit to setting set the prices. DOJ is way off base with this lawsuit.
I guess you refuse to acknowledge those emails from that pesky Steve Jobs telling the publishers what priced needed to be.
Apple has dirty hands in this no doubt about it. Once they are found guilty the state will be suing then next.
Given the total inability of the DoJ to go after blatant and overt financial crime, they spend their time finding people to deport and now going after Apple to justify their paychecks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Victory2013
I guess you refuse to acknowledge those emails from that pesky Steve Jobs telling the publishers what priced needed to be.
Apple has dirty hands in this no doubt about it. Once they are found guilty the state will be suing then next.
Amazon was selling DISCOUNTED eBooks so what was the "normal" price before the discount was applied?
Could it possibly have been $12.99, $15.99, something based on the rrp of equivalent paperbacks?
Too bad for the DoJ that this hearsay evidence cannot be clarified.
Apple has done nothing wrong and will be exonerated, the DoJ smell funny because they can't tell shit from shinola, as can be seen by this farce of a lawsuit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by daveinpublic
I have been disappointed at the high price of ebooks. To me, a hard back book should cost more than a digital book. Because you don't have to pay to print it, you don't have to pay to ship it, and you don't have to pay for it to sit in air conditioned prime real estate for x months. After its been written and edited, you pretty much hit the publish button. As a consumer, shouldn't I expect to get some of the passed on savings? Not even all the savings. I really like Apple, but I don't like it if they told the publishers to bump up the cost. I know they've gone to app makers and told them to up the prices of their games, so I could see them doing this.
So how much should the author and an editor to clean up the work be paid?
Should they get less because there is no physical book.
What about marketing and promotion?
Seen any self published works on the best sellers list lately.
I'll bet it costs a lot to be noticed by the New York Times or show up on TV shows.
The physical cost of printed pieces of paper is a small part of the cost of publishing a book.
There is nothing to stop you from self publishing eBooks, in any store.
Good luck with getting noticed without a publisher.
The publishers have already decided that authors shouldn't be paid as well for an eBook, so yeah I guess they get paid less because there's no physical book. The authors are the ones being taken advantage of. By the way, poor MacMillan may be the worst of the big publishers in that regard. Yet you feel sorry for the publishers rather than the authors?
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/macmillan-lowers-e-book-payments-for-authors/
And good luck with getting a publisher to pay attention to you as a new author anyway.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703369704575461542987870022.html
Quote:
Originally Posted by dasanman69
Amazon wasn't taking a commission on certain books, they were actually taking a loss but you pretty much got the gist of it.
What I'd like to know is what if there was no Amazon and Apple was first to market what prices would have Apple forced on the publishers? They didn't give the music industry the benefit of setting their own price and now we're supposed to believe Apple is concerned about the publishers and has their best interest in mind?
Your last part is kind of the funny thing and the true genius and deviousness of Apple. If you listen to some of the comments here you'd think people believe Apple was on a mission to save publishers...
Amazon sells book at $9.99 with 2% margin.... effective price to publisher..... $9.99
Apple sells book at $12.99. Takes extortionary 30% cut... effective price to publisher $9.99
So Apple was not helping the publishers at all... The genius of it is that in order to make the same money on iBooks that they did on the other platforms they would be force to raise their prices or take a huge loss. The MFN clause ensured that that higher price would also have to be applied to other vendors... So Amazon would now have to jack prices to $12.99- but they weren't guaranteed the 30% cut. So Apples whole plan was to give the publishers nothing, but force all their competitors to subsidize the lack of profits publishers would make on iBooks. Profits from iBooks would all go to Apple, profits from all the other stores would go to the publishers not the sellers.
Thats just friggin evil genius at work.
Should be an interesting trial. I love Apples lawyers opening remarks/evidence. 'I was carefully involved in crafting these documents and you can clearly see they state that Apple has no interest in Amazons prices' Meanwhile most of the conversation between publishers and Eddy cue revolve around the Amazon problem and how 'if it is going to work, they all need to be in this together' Articles 20 and 29 are pretty damning IMO, because they show all the publisher relying on Eddy to get everyone on board. 'Eddy, marching orders from London, we won't sign on unless you get 3 other publishers to sign on' Another publisher had a similar comment. It shows they were all relying on Apple to orchestrate it so they could all jack prices at the same time without actually directly talking to one another.
Its devious, sleazy and unethical for sure. Apple may just have good enough lawyers to argue that it wasn't illegal.
Either way it worked out well for consumers. If Apple and the publishers had gotten away with it we'd all be paying higher prices. Because the DOJ stepped in and the fact that ebooks are actually profitable more entrants have come to market and prices have actually come down. The hillarity is added to because Apple is now trying to take credit for that.
No you are not thinking of it the right way. Look at the movie industry. To maximize profits movie companies will engage in a windowing strategy. First a movie will be released to theaters where prices are highest to see the movie. When demand withers the movie will be released to DVD through places like Blockbuster and pay on demand services, which pay a premium for its users to see the content. Thirty days later the movie makes its way to regular cable channels and places like Red Box. Eventually it goes to places like Netflix and Amazon streaming. The government has no problem with this.
The publishing industry tries to do the same thing. A book first is released on more pricey and profitable hardcover. Then after demand falls it gets released on softcover. Amazon was screwing up this model to the detriment of publishers, consumers who want hardcovers, and brick and morter retailors like Barnes and Noble (and now defunct Borders). Amazon required publishers to release E Books at the same time as the hardcovers. Amazon was allowed to set the price on the books, including the hardcovers it carried. It would encourage the sale of the ebooks over the hardcover books by sometimes selling the e books at a loss all while keeping the price of the hardcovers higher. Since Amazon is the biggest book publisher, this resulted in hard cover book sales falling. It killed the publisher's tiered profit model and e books are less profitable.
To redress this, publishers wanted to set the price every where, but especially for new releases. They wanted to make the same profit on both e books and hardcovers especially when books were first released.
No one ever said that. NIce straw man.
It's not illegal to slow down the competition and no one said that it was. I was objecting to the argument that Apple was guilty because they tried to slow Amazon down. It's a specious argument - no matter how it is presented.
Wrong. iTunes didn't put B&M music stores out of business. There were two factors involved:
1. Enormous rise of massive stores (Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Amazon) selling music in quantities that the B&M stores couldn't match. It's hard for a small retailer to compete with Walmart for ANY goods - which is why Walmart has decimated small retailers of virtually all products.
2. Piracy. At the time iTunes came into being, piracy was so common that it had an enormous impact on music revenues. With iTunes offering a way for people to buy single tracks for a reasonable price ($0.99 instead of having to pay $14.99 for an album where you only want one song), it took a big chunk out of piracy. So, to a large extent, iTunes helped to save the industry rather than killing it.
Only problem with that is that Apple didn't tell the publishers what the price needed to be set at. You apparently don't understand the agency model at all.
Sure, Jobs expressed the obvious statement that the publishers would like to get more money than they were getting, but that's so obvious that it's silly to even consider it in the context of price fixing.