Apple and five publishers sued over e-book price fixing

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 13 Aug 2011 11:25 User comments (2)

Apple, along with HarperCollins, Hachette, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster, have all been sued today over alleged e-book price fixing.

The suit claims the publishers and Apple colluded to break Amazon's discount pricing strategy with the sole intent of helping the iPad compete against the popular Kindle e-reader.

Furthermore, the suit claims that publishers, after discounting e-books for years to push adoption, feared Amazon's discounted prices would set a new (and permanent) low expectation for pricing of the books.

Says an attorney for the class-action suit:

Fortunately for the publishers, they had a co-conspirator as terrified as they were over Amazon's popularity and pricing structure, and that was Apple. We intend to prove that Apple needed a way to neutralize Amazon's Kindle before its popularity could challenge the upcoming introduction of the iPad, a device Apple intended to compete as an e-reader.

The five publishers in question control 85 percent of the most popular e-books and until the iPad's release, new releases were priced at $9.99. They now are priced in a range from $9.99 to $14.99.

Tags: Kindle e-book iPad Price Fixing

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2 user comments

114.8.2011 00:26

slackdast

Inactive

They think I'm going to pay $10-$15 for an ebook?

I don't even pay that much for a paperback.

Greed is greed i guess.

217.8.2011 16:16

Mez

Send private message to this user

AfterDawn Addict

I like how the head line read Apple an other companies. Of course there is price fixing! They could sell them for what ever the market will bear. They are nearly cost less to the book stores.

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Apple and five publishers sued over e-book price fixing

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