Publishers in E-Book Antitrust Case File Objection to DOJ's Proposed Punishment for Apple
The five book publishers who settled with the U.S. Government in the e-book antitrust case have filed an objection with the court arguing that the Department of Justice's proposed punishments for Apple would violate their settlement agreements from before the trial began, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The DOJ has recommended that the "agency model" deals with publishers be nullified and that Apple require competitors such as Amazon to put direct purchase links to their own e-book stores inside their iOS apps. Some experts have said that Apple could owe as much as $500 million in penalties.
In a court filing Wednesday afternoon, the publishers said that the U.S. Department of Justice's demands on Apple would eliminate the use of the "agency model" for the sale and distribution of e-books for a period of five years, by prohibiting Apple from entering such agreements.
Under the agency model, publishers, rather than Apple, set the retail price for e-books.
"The provisions do not impose any limitation on Apple's pricing behavior at all; rather, under the guise of punishing Apple, they effectively punish the settling defendants by prohibiting agreements with Apple using an agency model," lawyers for the publishers said in papers filed in federal court in Manhattan.
Apple has consistently defended its behavior and called the DOJ's proposal a "draconian and punitive intrusion into Apple's business".
Popular Stories
Apple will adopt the same rear chassis manufacturing process for the iPhone SE 4 that it is using for the upcoming standard iPhone 16, claims a new rumor coming out of China. According to the Weibo-based leaker "Fixed Focus Digital," the backplate manufacturing process for the iPhone SE 4 is "exactly the same" as the standard model in Apple's upcoming iPhone 16 lineup, which is expected to...
Key details about the overall specifications of the iPhone 17 lineup have been shared by the leaker known as "Ice Universe," clarifying several important aspects of next year's devices. Reports in recent months have converged in agreement that Apple will discontinue the "Plus" iPhone model in 2025 while introducing an all-new iPhone 17 "Slim" model as an even more high-end option sitting...
Apple typically releases its new iPhone series around mid-September, which means we are about two months out from the launch of the iPhone 16. Like the iPhone 15 series, this year's lineup is expected to stick with four models – iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max – although there are plenty of design differences and new features to take into account. To bring ...
Apple is scaling back its Hollywood spending after investing over $20 billion in original programming with limited success, Bloomberg reports. This shift comes after the streaming service, which launched in 2019, struggled to capture a significant share of the market, accounting for only 0.2% of TV viewership in the U.S., compared to Netflix's 8%. Despite heavy investment, critical acclaim,...
Last Friday, a major CrowdStrike outage impacted PCs running Microsoft Windows, causing worldwide issues affecting airlines, retailers, banks, hospitals, rail networks, and more. Computers were stuck in continuous recovery loops, rendering them unusable. The failure was caused by an update to the CrowdStrike Falcon antivirus software that auto-installed on Windows 10 PCs, but Mac and Linux...