Apple says DoJ lawsuit 'fundamentally flawed,' could harm consumers

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  • Reply 61 of 156
    pmoeserpmoeser Posts: 80member


    B&M book stores were disappearing long before the iBooks store thanks in no part to Amazon and other internet traders. Amazon selling ebooks below cost certainly played a part in that.


     


    The music industry only exists as it does now thanks to iTunes. Piracy levels have fallen dramatically (much to the chagrin of the RIAA) as new owners of digital music devices have a legitimate method of purchasing digital content.


     


    The record industry left to it's own devices and pricing and multiple DRM'd stores was not working.


     


    The publishing industry left to their own devices and guided by Amazon was facing the same abyss. Imagine how many independent authors would have received a chance to enter the market under that model.


     


    Apple have even supplied the tools for writers to create and publish works.


     


    What was Amazon's plan? Oh, that's right... pilfer existing authors from the existing publishing houses. Really innovative

  • Reply 62 of 156
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    pmoeser wrote: »
    B&M book stores were disappearing long before the iBooks store thanks in no part to Amazon and other internet traders. Amazon selling ebooks below cost certainly played a part in that.

    The music industry only exists as it does now thanks to iTunes. Piracy levels have fallen dramatically (much to the chagrin of the RIAA) as new owners of digital music devices have a legitimate method of purchasing digital content.

    The record industry left to it's own devices and pricing and multiple DRM'd stores was not working.

    The publishing industry left to their own devices and guided by Amazon was facing the same abyss. Imagine how many independent authors would have received a chance to enter the market under that model.

    Apple have even supplied the tools for writers to create and publish works.

    What was Amazon's plan? Oh, that's right... pilfer existing authors from the existing publishing houses. Really innovative

    So in short, there'd be no music at all if it weren't for iTunes and nobody knows what's good for them, they need Apple to tell them? You OD'd on kool-aid today.
  • Reply 63 of 156
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by dasanman69 View Post





    It sure as hell didn't help now did it? Nobody here was crying stop the monopoly when B&M music stores was closing down and the cheapest place to buy music was on iTunes. And there was no "well you can set the price and we'll take 30%" it was ""sell the songs for $.99 or we wont sell it"


    Walmart, you could buy cheap music at Walmart, matter of fact you still can.

  • Reply 64 of 156
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by BanExtremists View Post


    Collusion kept prices artificially high and that didn't hurt consumers?  But a lawsuit hurts consumers. 


     


    Yes, competition usually results in lower prices.  But, Amazon is always trying to be the low price leader.  So I don't see that with this type of competition, the consumer is better off.

     



     


    Artificially high would imply there is a 'correct' price for ebooks. That is a rather baseless assumption since you can't qualify a book like you can a pound of fruit or a gallon of gas. 


     


    And even if there is collusion it's between the publishers. the DOJ has provided zero evidence that Apple was part of anything of such nature and Apple should be removed from their investigation as, pointed out by others, a sales model is NOT the same as collusion. 


     


    Before 2010 Amazon was THE source for ebooks which allowed them to use predatory pricing tactics such as favored nation clauses and undercutting prices using the ebooks as a kind of loss leader so that they could get all the sales since no one else could price under them or even afford to since they didn't have all of Amazon's various stock to offset profit losses created by selling at or below cost. 


     


    The favored nation clauses (used by Apple and Amazon) keep the playing field level so that consumers really do have a choice. They aren't punished for choosing ibooks over Kindle by having to pay tons more. And despite the tin foil hat crew saying that the publishers are jacking up the prices, you'll actually find that a good number of the mid and back list are as low as $5.99 and that was set by the publishers. Yes they put up a lot of new titles still around $19.99 but that's still a good $5-10 less than the hardcover 'real' book and the prices come down. Most of us are used to waiting for the paperback so it shouldn't be that hard to wait a few months for the price to drop to 'paperback levels'

  • Reply 65 of 156
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by myapplelove View Post





    Switching to a different model doesn't entail memos to publishers to "withhold books from amazon" and throw in with apple" for 12.99 and 14.99 books "the customer pays a little more, but that's what you want anyway", and no one can have it cheaper on top of that

    That's the definition of collusion.


     


    No it isn't. It's the definition of Steve Jobs going to ONE publisher that was hesitant to sign up to personally try to change his mind. And one publisher isn't collusion. 

  • Reply 66 of 156
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member

    Quote:


    Originally Posted by Dorotea9999 View Post


     


     I want a price which will help pay publishers taking a chance on unknown people.  I want the almost popular books published.  I want the esoteric book published.


     



     


    so the authors publish it themselves. You don't have to be signed up with a big 5 to submit to the iBooks store. And very likely not Kindle either. 


     


    And the best part is that the author gets to keep the whole 70% instead of ending up with more like 5% of the 70%

  • Reply 67 of 156
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by applecider View Post



    Lovely apple reposted from a previous discussion on this topic

    Your factual problem is that at the time apple set up iBooks there was amazon and ....amazon.


     


    ANd where was the DOJ during this. Where were they checking the questions of predatory pricing etc. 


     


    no where. As you say they are doing it cause Apple has big cash and investigating Apple makes it look like they are doing their jobs and gets that effort big press. 

  • Reply 68 of 156
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by dasanman69 View Post





    Funny how Apple is all of a sudden worried about a competitors price.

    Why? Because this is a rare instance in which Apple can charge a premium price for a premium product. Ebooks bought on the iBookstore can only be read on iDevices whereas a ebook bought from Amazon can be read across multiple platforms and devices.


     


    so what? that has zero to do with any of the issues in this case. 


     


    and actually no Apple can't, because the publishers set the price. Just like they decide if the title will be in the iBookstore in the first place. Anyone that doesn't like that 'apple devices only' can choose not to sign up. 

  • Reply 69 of 156
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by dasanman69 View Post





    Well lets see if the agency model does truly lower prices. Songs that used to cost $.99 on iTunes are now $1.29, nope that's a increase. Did Apple so graciously let the record labels set the price and merely act as the "agent" or did it strong arm them into agreeing to $.99 a song. The competition could not of offer this same predatory price so they're mostly now gone.


     


    And? What the record labels do is moot in regards to what the book publishers will do. 

  • Reply 70 of 156
    cash907cash907 Posts: 893member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by RFHJr View Post


    Apples' "Agency Model" encouraged a wider selection of e-books to be released coincident with the conventional hardback books.  Prior to Apple's entry into the field, publishers withheld new titles from the ebook market.



     


    Yeah, for a whopping 30 days. BFD. With so much of the business migrated away from paper and onto the ebook format, they'd only be hurting themselves if they tried to go back to that tactic anyway. Different times, different marker.

  • Reply 71 of 156
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by applecider View Post



    Lovely apple reposted from a previous discussion on this topic

    Your factual problem is that at the time apple set up iBooks there was amazon and ....amazon.

    Amazon was selling ebooks at below cost.

    I repeat amazon was selling ebooks at below cost.

    From original article at AI "Under Amazon's method, publishers would sell their books at wholesale and let the bookseller set its own prices. Amazon repeatedly upset publishers by selling titles at a loss."


    Apple broke that monopoly, thank you very much.

    DOJ is going after apple instead of amazon for one reason, they have the largest cash horde.

    No one else could use books as a loss leader so the model was not available to other vendors. If you can't wrap your thoughts around that, then what is there to talk about. Authors and publishers are entitled to consider their work as having value.


     


    What needs to be expanded in these statements is the fact that Amazon was selling at a loss to grow market share for digital purchases against it's retail competitors. Therefore, fewer and fewer sales of the same book were being sold at a profit from the other retailers and thus forcing the Publishing Industry to accept Amazon's loss leading terms which then Publishers would have to raise the prices on traditional print or get out of the print business.


     


    Apple's ecosystem being what it is offered their app model for the iBookstore and Publishers were thrilled, started making a profit again and broke Amazon's extortion.


     


    End of story.

  • Reply 72 of 156
    Lol, they have some nerve saying it could harm consumers when they are responsible for a close to 40% increase in ebook prices, why don't they just act like good boys and settle like 5/6 publishers have done already? The are more in the news these days about their lawyers than about their products. And the doj has a very good case indeed,maybe their smart ass lawyers should remember what happened to Microsoft, before they dragg apple into this. Apple hurt both the consumer and the competition here, and the evidence of collusion is pretty damning, they probably wouldn't want more publicity on this...
  • Reply 73 of 156
    Lol, they have some nerve saying it could harm consumers when they are responsible for a close to 40% increase in ebook prices, why don't they just act like good boys and settle like 5/6 publishers have done already? The are more in the news these days about their lawyers than about their products.
  • Reply 74 of 156
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member
    johnyuesir wrote: »
    Lol, they have some nerve saying it could harm consumers when they are responsible for a close to 40% increase in ebook prices, why don't they just act like good boys and settle like 5/6 publishers have done already? The are more in the news these days about their lawyers than about their products.

    So where is proof of this "40% increase" in the average cost of eBooks?

    Once again we are faced with a rubbish claim based on cherry picked examples with no actual basis in reality.

    Feel free to post a link to back your post up.
  • Reply 75 of 156
    drdoppiodrdoppio Posts: 1,132member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by hill60 View Post





    So where is proof of this "40% increase" in the average cost of eBooks?

    Once again we are faced with a rubbish claim based on cherry picked examples with no actual basis in reality.

    Feel free to post a link to back your post up.


    It is often repeated that not average prices but only best sellers went up. You can call this cherry-picking if you like, but those are the books people actually buy; feel free to include in the average all classics below $1 if you think that's a point worth making.


     


    Here's one link to an article form December 2011 talking about the price hike: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2074946/An-eBook-reader-Christmas-tree-Bad-news--publishers-band-hike-prices-higher-real-books.html


    I don't see anyone challenging the data in the comments and I wasn't able to find any rebuttals, so I take it that the few examples given in the article were representative of the market as a whole. You could perhaps provide your own proof of best sellers dropping in price for that time period... In the end, the DoJ will have to support its case with evidence and I suppose it is better positioned to find the relevant data, as suggested by the three companies that chose to settle.

  • Reply 76 of 156
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    What needs to be expanded in these statements is the fact that Amazon was selling at a loss to grow market share for digital purchases against it's retail competitors. Therefore, fewer and fewer sales of the same book were being sold at a profit from the other retailers and thus forcing the Publishing Industry to accept Amazon's loss leading terms which then Publishers would have to raise the prices on traditional print or get out of the print business.

    Apple's ecosystem being what it is offered their app model for the iBookstore and Publishers were thrilled, started making a profit again and broke Amazon's extortion.

    End of story.


    Where were you when Apple priced songs lower than their competition could match?
  • Reply 77 of 156
    sleepy3sleepy3 Posts: 244member


    WE WANT HIGHER PRICES!!!!!!


    WE WANT HIGHER PRICES!!!!!!


    WE WANT HIGHER PRICES!!!!!!


    WE WANT HIGHER PRICES!!!!!!


    WE WANT HIGHER PRICES!!!!!!


    WE WANT HIGHER PRICES!!!!!!


    WE WANT HIGHER PRICES!!!!!!


     


    GOOOOOO APPLE!!


     


    Hopefully they raise the price of mp3's and movies soon too. I'm so sick and tired of paying less than 5 dollars for a song. What i really want is a model that makes me pay a little bit more, because that is what the labels want anyway.

     

  • Reply 78 of 156
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    dasanman69 wrote: »
    Where were you when Apple priced songs lower than their competition could match?

    I don't think that happened, unless you mean the cell phone music services, where you paid $2.99 a track for the convenience of downloading to your phone, but I don't really think that counts as mobile was out of whack at that time. Amazon came along and sold the same tracks for $0.10 less each each than the price Apple had from the beginning. ($0.89 vs. $0.99)

    I've never seen an analysis that showed Apple was losing money on iTunes.
  • Reply 79 of 156
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    jeffdm wrote: »
    I don't think that happened, unless you mean the cell phone music services, where you paid $2.99 a track for the convenience of downloading to your phone, but I don't really think that counts as mobile was out of whack at that time. Amazon came along and sold the same tracks for $0.10 less each each than the price Apple had from the beginning. ($0.89 vs. $0.99)
    I've never seen an analysis that showed Apple was losing money on iTunes.

    Sure it did. Where's all the B&M music stores? Was $.99 the price the music industry set or the price Apple set?
  • Reply 80 of 156
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post


     


    What needs to be expanded in these statements is the fact that Amazon was selling at a loss to grow market share for digital purchases against it's retail competitors.



    I haven't ever seen proof that Amazon was losing money on it's eBook segment. They reportedly sold some best-sellers for under cost, but eBooks as a whole? Never seen it, so if you have some citation for the claim it would be helpful support for the argument.

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