Justice Department wags finger at Apple and publishers over alleged E-book pricing cartel
0. phoneArena posted on 08 Mar 2012, 06:33
DoJ has threatened to sue Apple and five major US publishers for what it claims is an agreement among them to jack up the e-books pricing range...
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3. roscuthiii posted on 08 Mar 2012, 07:03 4 0
Sleazier and sleazier. According to Steve Jobs' quote, that would be an admittance to price fixing with a little extortion thrown in at the end.
4. roscuthiii posted on 08 Mar 2012, 07:13 3 1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P
rice_fixing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extortion
(Tried to give different links but when I clicked on them to check them they didn't want to seem to work... so Wikipedia it is since it actually seems to work.)
5. love_android_o posted on 08 Mar 2012, 08:30 3 0
I really hope DOJ will kick apple ass for doing bad business practice.
As for me, is another reason to hate apple, and another reason to NOT using apple product at all.
I really hope that's SJ book could really bring down apple.
6. AbsentbebniM posted on 08 Mar 2012, 09:14 0 2
So, what you're all saying is that Apple is the bad guy for agreeing to the agency model that the publishers really wanted. Makes sense to me. I mean, if I had an eBook store and those publishers came to me saying that they weren't exactly happy with the agreement they had with Amazon and that if I agreed to the agency model, they'd work with me... boy oh boy, I would so say no. I mean, why would I want to accept their multi-million/billion dollar business under their terms? I'd rather let my store disappear.
I'd like to point out that the quote in no way implies that Apple was in cahoots with the publishers. Apple wanted their business, asked them what it would take to get it, then agreed to their terms. It's the publishers that then went to Amazon and said, "Here... look at the agreement that Apple signed with us. If you want to continue working with us, these are the terms you'd have to agree to." Of course, leveraging one big business against another is bad business. I mean, where would this country be if corporations wanted to make money?
Get real people. I can't see why Apple was even dragged into this. It's the individual publishers that appear to be in cahoots with each other and are pushing the "agency model or nothing" on retailers.
8. roscuthiii posted on 09 Mar 2012, 09:19 0 0
Yeah... because you forgot something: the Consumer.
Businesses may try different models to achieve profits, that's all well and good. But the consumers are supposed to determine what's viable and what's not. Steve Jobs' was trying to remove the consumer from the equation by pushing all businesses to offer the same model or they wouldn't have the product to sell.
Well, not the consumer's money - just the consumer's choice.
That is price fixing by collusion and extortion.
7. ZayZay posted on 08 Mar 2012, 11:24 0 0
Apple will just pay off DOJ and raise prices higher. Profit baby!
