doj

It's time to drop dime, says the U.S. government.

The U.S. Department of Justice want three of the five book-publishing houses accused of participating in a price-fixing scheme with Apple to start turning over evidence against their alleged co-conspirators, court documents show.

In April, the U.S. Department of Justice accused five of the country's six largest book publishers of conspiring with Apple to raise prices on e-books. The government alleges that the co-conspirators forced e-book retailers, such as Amazon, to adopt a new business model, one that would enable the publishers to snatch control of … Read more

Apple this week once again took aim at the antitrust lawsuit filed against it by the Department of Justice, arguing that its entry into the e-book market improved competition.

That argument -- which the company included in a statement last month -- was outlined further in a court document filed yesterday.

In it, Apple claims its e-book business strategy, which employs the agency model, is "well-recognized as perfectly proper," and that it had not conspired with other companies to set prices or limit competition.

"The Government's Complaint against Apple is fundamentally flawed as a matter of … Read more

commentary Amazon.com has outmaneuvered Apple in the e-books sector. Nowhere was this made more apparent than in court documents released last week.

In antitrust lawsuits filed by the U.S. Department of Justice and others, Apple stands accused of conspiring with five of the six largest U.S. book publishers to raise the price consumers paid for e-books and stifle competition in an attempt to snatch control of the e-book market away from Amazon, the sector's dominant player.

Soon after the Justice Department filed its complaint last month, Apple and two of the five publishers filed motions with … Read more

Simon & Schuster, one of the five major book publishers accused in multiple lawsuits of conspiring with Apple to fix e-book prices, has settled the complaint filed by numerous states' attorney generals, CNET has learned.

Denise Cote, the federal judge overseeing the three different antitrust complaints pending against Apple and the defendant publishers, granted a motion Tuesday to dismiss Simon & Schuster (owned by CNET's parent company, CBS) from the complaint. This suit was originally filed by the attorney generals from Texas as well as 15 other state AGs. More states have joined that suit as plaintiffs; 29 are … Read more

New details have surfaced in the class-action e-book price-fixing lawsuit against Apple, according to tech news site paidContent. The most notable revelation is an e-mail from Steve Jobs to one of the bookseller's executives that was previously redacted and is now public.

The gist of the case, which was filed in April and now has 29 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico involved, is an allegation that Apple and a group of book publishers illegally fixed e-book prices to "boost profits and force e-book rival Amazon to abandon its pro-consumer discount pricing."

The Department of Justice … Read more

According to the Montreal Gazette, a local lawyer has seized an opportunity to sue Apple on behalf of any Canadian citizen who has purchased an e-book over the last two years, piggybacking on the U.S. Department of Justice's recent lawsuit (video), claiming Apple and its publishing partners colluded to fix the prices of e-books and drive down competition.

The Canadian class action suit was filed in February in Quebec Superior Court by Montreal lawyer Norman Painchaud, asserting that Apple (in tandem with its publishing partners) had conspired to raise prices of e-books from the $9.99 previously commonly … Read more

Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice took on Apple and publishers over charges of e-book price fixing. Depending on what you read, those parties are either guilty as charged or are the only thing holding back the greater evil of Amazon.com. I don't know who's right. I do know, however, that the e-book model itself feels pretty broken.

Over the past few years, I've gone from paying $7 for paperback novels that I could read anywhere, lend to others, or even resell, to paying $10 for the novels in e-book format with none of … Read more

A growing number of independent book publishers say that by tying the hands of Apple and the major publishers, the United States will enable Amazon to mow down competition in a price war.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit last week accusing Apple and the country's five major book publishers of colluding to raise prices that consumers pay for electronic books (e-books). Three of the five publishers have already settled, largely by agreeing not to prevent retailers from discounting titles. But the DOJ got it wrong, say the indies. According to them, Amazon, not Apple is … Read more

In case you missed it, the U.S. government recently filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple and five of this country's largest publishers, alleging they conspired to limit competition for the pricing of e-books. Three of the five -- HarperCollins, Hachette and Simon & Schuster -- opted to settle the case, while Penguin, Macmillan, and Apple didn't.

So where does that leave us?

Well, if you've spent any time reading through the terms of the settlement, you quickly realize not everything's all that black and white and is in fact quite muddled. For starters, a judge … Read more