e-books

Media moguls partner to form new e-book publisher

Two powerful entertainment media figures have joined forces on a new entrant in the e-book publishing sector.

IAC Chairman Barry Diller and movie producer Scott Rudin have partnered on a new venture called Brightline, according to The New York Times. The pair, which have been rumored to be discussing a partnership since July, will publish e-books in conjunction with Atavist, a publisher specializing in e-books and electronic articles.

Diller, the former Fox executive credited with turning Fox Broadcasting into a major network, said he sees opportunity in the turbulent sector, which had $282 million in e-book revenue in the first … Read more

Judge delays Google e-book trial

Google won a delay in its copyright fight with the Authors Guild, which sued the company over its efforts to scan millions of books and make passages available online.

Judge Raymond Lohier of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan granted Google's request to stay a lower-court trial while the company appeals a decision that will allow the plaintiffs to sue as a class, Bloomberg reports.

In June, U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin, who is sitting in as a trial judge in the case, granted it class-action status. But Google is appealing, saying many authors covered by … Read more

Publishers' worst nightmare: Amazon again on discount warpath

Last week, HarperCollins, Hachette, and Simon & Schuster cut a deal with the government to settle allegations that the book publishers had colluded with Apple to fix the price of e-books. If you believe the government's charges, the book publishers were trying to prevent Amazon from discounting them to death.

Now it's back to the future. Earlier today came word that Amazon had returned to form, discounting HarperCollins e-books titles.

"We are happy to again be lowering prices on a broad assortment of HarperCollins titles," Amazon spokeswoman Sarah Gelman said in an e-mailed comment to CNET.… Read more

Kindle for Mac App Store gets performance boost

Amazon has updated its OS X app with some new features readers should find useful.

First up, Amazon's new 1.10.3 version of Kindle comes with support for more OS X gestures, including panning and swiping. The app now supports Amazon's Kindle Format 8 books, which deliver some improved formatting options. Heavy readers will be happy to discover that the app also supports larger libraries and will work much better with books that have bunches of notes and highlights.

Amazon's Kindle app is the company's Trojan horse into the world of iOS and OS X. … Read more

DOJ, please don't let up on Apple, book publishers

It's not wrong for retailers to discount books, and losing market share to a competitor is no excuse to fix prices or cheat consumers.

That's the message U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote sent yesterday to Apple and the country's top book publishers, as well as e-book retailers.

In April, the Department of Justice filed suit and accused five of the country's largest book publishers of conspiring with Apple to raise e-book prices. Soon after, the DOJ reached a settlement agreement with three of the accused publishers. For months, the book industry attacked the settlement, … Read more

Court OKs feds' e-book settlement with publishers

A federal court has approved a settlement agreement reached between the U.S. Department of Justice and three book publishers accused of conspiring with Apple to fix e-book prices.

The DOJ filed suit against Apple and five of the country's largest book publishers in April and accused the group of antitrust violations. Immediately after filing the complaint, the government announced that it had reached a settlement with three of the five accused publishers: Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, and Simon & Schuster (owned by CBS, parent company of CNET).

As part of that settlement, the three e-book publishers agreed … Read more

Barnes & Noble fixes Nook Simple Touch sync issue

Barnes & Noble has fixed a library syncing issue with new Nook Simple Touch devices after customers took to support forums to complain for at least two weeks.

Barnes & Nobles spokeswoman Mary Ellen Keating said the issue, which according to the company affected less than 0.3 percent of Nook customers, was resolved overnight.

"We had a temporary and minor glitch as a result of recent internal maintenance," she wrote in an e-mail to CNET today. "All customers should be able to register and sync their devices. We apologize to those few customers affected by this … Read more

Apple offers up e-book discount to avoid antitrust fines, report says

Apple has come up with a deal that may get the company out of an European antitrust investigation and avoid possible fines by letting its competitors sell e-books at a discount, Reuters reported today.

The agreement, proposed by Apple and four major publishers, would let e-book retailers like Amazon sell books at a lower price for two years, an unnamed source told Reuters.

In fear of Apple squashing competition in Europe, the European Union's commission overseeing antitrust violations began investigating Apple's e-book prices in December.

The four publishers -- Simon & Schuster (which is owned by CBS, the … Read more

Publishers to pay $69 million over e-book price-fixing allegations

Three major U.S. e-book publishers have agreed to a deal that will see them pay a significant sum for alleged e-book price-fixing.

Connecticut State Attorney General George Jepsen yesterday announced that he, "along with 54 attorneys general in other states, districts, and U.S. territories," have signed a $69 million deal with Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, and Simon & Schuster (which is owned by CBS, the same company that publishes CNET) to settle antitrust claims over an alleged conspiracy to artificially inflate e-book prices.

"While publishers are entitled to their profits, consumers are equally entitled … Read more