back to article Dead STEVE JOBS was a CROOK – judge

A US judge has found Apple guilty of conspiring with major publishers to fix the price of ebooks and has called for a trial on damages. District Judge Denise Cote stayed true to her initial impressions of the case, and ruled that Apple had colluded with Macmillan, Hachette, Penguin, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster on …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And will anyone go to jail over this??? Don't be silly! Only poor people go to jail!!!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      ... but aren't the penalties for price fixing a fine of upto something like 10% of worldwide revenues.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I'm sure Apple will be getting the bill in the post tomorrow!!!!

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "... but aren't the penalties for price fixing a fine of upto something like 10% of worldwide revenues."

        Only if it is tax deductable. And if you mean by World Wide revenues, World Wide except Ireland.

      3. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        re: worldwide revenues

        Fortunately "Apple Earth inc" makes a loss because of the royalty payments it has to make to "Apple Omicron Persei 8"

        1. Squander Two

          Re: re: worldwide revenues

          > Fortunately "Apple Earth inc" makes a loss because of the royalty payments it has to make to "Apple Omicron Persei 8"

          Taxes are based on profits. I believe fines are based on revenues even when there are no profits.

    2. JDX Gold badge

      People go to jail if they break the law, not companies. Also, people only go to jail in certain circumstances, fines are commonplace too.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The brave brave Judge

      I bet he wouldn't have said a word if Jobs had been alive.....

      1. Alan 6

        Re: The brave brave Judge

        "I bet he wouldn't have said a word if Jobs had been alive....."

        A very brave judge if he's male and goes by the name of Denise...

        "District Judge Denise Cote stayed true to her initial impressions of the case, and ruled that Apple had colluded with Macmillan, Hachette, Penguin, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster on digital …"

      2. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
        Paris Hilton

        Re: The brave brave Judge

        (She) probably would still have - District Judge Denise Cote.

        We need more like her and Neelie Kroes and less of Paris. Or should that be more, of Paris?

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The brave brave Judge

        "The brave brave Judge

        I bet he wouldn't have said a word if Jobs had been alive....."

        WHY?

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      >"Don't be silly! Only poor people go to jail!!!"

      And nerds - don't forget the nerds. The jails (and military detention centers) seem to be filling up with nerds these days...

    5. jai

      According to the headline of this article the person responsible is no longer alive and therefore free from prosecution.

      Unless, that is, El Reg is putting words into the mouth of the judge.

      1. Handle This

        @ Jai 16:32

        There is no "person" responsible in this type of case; the entities involved were corporations, and the entities which executed the agreements sued upon were corporations. Mitt Romney is still wrong - corporations are NOT people, my friend.

        Corporations also don't go to jail. There are fines, however, and other injunctive relief available to make sure it doesn't happen again.

        The system can work, if you want it to.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          FAIL

          What? This is such an absurd, illogical position to hold. Corporations aren't sentient beings that make their own decisions, the decisions are made by human beings within that corporation, are they going to see any time for fraud?

          Do you also think Trafigura should just be 'fined' for dumping toxic waste in Africa? Someone at that company made that decision, and as far as I know the intangible concept of the Trafigura corporation hasn't developed self awareness and is directing it's own affairs without human input, maybe you know something to the contrary?

          What kind of psychopath thinks that these evil bastards should be able to hide behind 'corporate fines'?

          1. Squander Two

            "the decisions are made by human beings ... are they going to see any time for fraud?"

            I agree, except that the crime in question wasn't fraud. People do go to prison for fraud, even when they commit it via a corporation. But the punishment for price-fixing is not imprisonment; it is a fine.

            One could argue that it would be correct in principle to fine the people within the corporation who were responsible for the price-fixing, but what would be the point? The corporation would just adjust their salaries and bonuses to cover it. The corporation's going to pay either way. Best remedy against the people is to hope that they lose their jobs if the company decides it doesn't like being associated with criminal behaviour. Don't think that's going to happen at Apple, somehow.

            1. Charles 9

              Re: "the decisions are made by human beings ... are they going to see any time for fraud?"

              There's another issue, too. Corporations are multiple people. What if the completely-innocent actions of multiple people result in a gestalt-like violation. In this case, the violation is worse than the sum of the individual actions that caused it, yet no one person is aware of the whole, probably not even the board or CEO (too micro). So who gets the blame in this instance if no one action was bad but taken unknowingly as a whole it is?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Apple and their lawyers,,,

    Lost the ebook case

    Dropped the app store name case

    Are being dragged back to court over bounce-back.

    Not the best week for them.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Apple and their lawyers,,,

      ...yet mine seems to get better and better.

    2. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

      Apple's lawyers best week ever

      It does not matter if they win or lose as long as they are getting paid. Perhaps one decade, Apple's investors will work out where the money is going.

  3. Jediben

    Rotten Apple

    <eom>

  4. FartingHippo
    Devil

    Article title

    Outstanding. Easily the most linkbaitiest linkbait I've seen in a long time.

    Trebles all round!

    1. jai

      Re: Article title

      Is it not also libellous? Did the judge actually call out Steve Jobs personally as being a criminal?

      1. David Neil

        Re: Article title

        And how exactly do you libel the dead?

        Take your time

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Article title

          And how exactly do you libel the dead?

          If they refuse to stay dead?

          I've said this before, I like their products but this sort of crap has to stop - it makes them a risk in business terms. The prices in iTunes are too elevated as well - I've decamped to Amazon to buy records, and have started using Spotify more.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: decamped to Amazon to buy records

            Anonymous Grandad! Put those records on your gramaphone, do you?!!

        2. jai

          @ David Neil Re: Article title

          And how exactly do you libel the dead?

          Take your time

          I wasn't saying that Jobs was being libeled, I'm saying it is the Judge, whose words are being misquoted in the article headline, but still attributed to the Judge as having said them. Actually, perhaps libel isn't the correct legal term there?

          But essentially El Reg is declaring that the judge outright said that Steve Jobs is a criminal.

          Whereas, from what i've read elsewhere on this comments page, the judge accused Apple's management team, but did not specify Jobs by name. That's not what the article headline implies. So, wouldn't the judge have recourse to claim that El Reg is defaming her by implying she's the type of person to defame the deceased?

          1. jabuzz

            Re: @ David Neil Article title

            Actually it is already a well known fact that Steve Jobs is a crook, he committed perjury in court by swearing in court documents that it was impossible for him to be the father of Lisa Brennan-Jobs. To give you an idea of just how serious a crime perjury is, in England and Wales it carries a maximum sentence of seven years. In the U.K. Jobs would have almost certainly served time for what he did looking at the CPS website he could have expected three years for that stunt.

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Brennan-Jobs

            Then there is the phone phreaking where he was selling blue boxes. The short of it is that there is absolutely no liable in calling Steve Jobs a crook, because he most emphatically was one. Hardly surprising then that even with huge wealth he would continue to break the law to add to his wealth.

      2. Squander Two

        "Did the judge actually call out Steve Jobs personally as being a criminal?"

        Near enough, yes:

        "After carefully weighing the evidence, the court agreed with the Justice Department and 33 state attorneys general that executives at the highest levels of Apple orchestrated a conspiracy with five major publishers to raise e-book prices," the assistant attorney general in charge of the DoJ’s antitrust division, Bill Baer, said.

        Even if Jobs were alive, the only way he could fight the accusation would be for Apple to claim that they went ahead and formed major policy without consulting him. Even they would be hard pushed to do that with a straight face.

        1. jai

          @Squander Two Re: "Did the judge actually call out Steve Jobs personally as being a criminal?"

          But that's the assistant attorney general in charge, Bill Baer, that's saying that. the article headline specifically says it's the judge specifically.

          I'm not arguing whether or not Jobs is guilty of attempting price fixing, as the evidence suggests he was, I'm arguing the misreporting of the facts in the headline that suggests the Judge specifically called out a dead person and branded them a criminal.

  5. g e

    $20 Billion damages bond in escrow then

    Just cos.

  6. ukgnome
    Trollface

    Well Steve Jobs was to blame and he's dead now. I say treat him like Saville and dig him up, burn him then pee on his ashes.

    *yes I'm a trolling fandroid

    1. Green Nigel 42
      Devil

      Apple Crumble

      With such bad Karma, prehaps Steve is destined to be reincarnated as a Korean to work for Samsung?

    2. Bob Vistakin
      Big Brother

      "dig him up, burn him then pee on his ashes."

      Is there an app for that?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's called business and capitalism, Google and Apple aren't confused about this.

    Even going back to the 1980s, Commodore killed the competition with some classic Tramiel "Business is war" tactics. Cutting the Vic 20 price so low that Texas Instruments left the home computer business.

    1. Steve Todd

      To be fair Texas Instruments marketing department had managed to cripple the 99/4a to the point it was almost unusable so that it wouldn't compete with their minicomputers. THATs what killed their presence in the home computer market, not Comodore.

      1. simlb

        'Texas Instruments marketing department had managed to cripple the 99/4a to the point it was almost unusable'

        You mean putting faulty processor chips in them which would occasionally cause random reboots when you were trying to type in or run a program? Not really the marketing department was it?

        1. Steve Todd
          Stop

          No, I mean things like

          taking a true 16 bit CPU that effectively kept its registers in memory and giving it only 256 BYTES of fast 16 bit memory to work with. The rest of the 16K of RAM belonged to the graphics chip and had to be accessed via 8 bit IO ports.

    2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Cutting the price to kill Texas Instruments is perfectly fair

      Agreeing with Texas Instruments that you will both add $10 to the price of all your games isn't

  8. Frankee Llonnygog

    In the eBook market

    consumers are still the losers - they're still being shafted

    1. LinkOfHyrule
      Joke

      Re: In the eBook market

      Some people enjoy being shafted by Apple though don't they!

      It must have something to do with the rainbow coloured Unicorn horn they use to do said shafting!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: In the eBook market

      Complain to your MP then. Ask why a paper book is tax free and a ebook attracts 20% VAT.

      1. Green Nigel
        Meh

        Re: In the eBook market

        So they will then, in the interest of fairness, add 20% to paper books!

    3. Squander Two

      Re: In the eBook market

      Really? A Jack Reacher book on Kindle is roughly half the price it is on paper in a bookshop. I don't feel shafted by Amazon.

      1. Frankee Llonnygog

        Re: In the eBook market

        Sorry, to clarify: a paper book is something you pay to own. An eBook is something you license to read, usually only once.

        Should a one-off rental fee be of the same magnitude as a lifetime purchase price?

  9. Tachikoma
    Trollface

    She must obviously be one of those Commie Samsung users, I fully expect Apple to go to the US Supreme Court and have the judge sent to guantanamo bay for being anti-American.

    1. Charles 9

      Um, you know Amazon's an American company, too.

  10. Mage Silver badge

    Wet place in Eqypt

    Apple are up to the neck ...

    They have lots of money to waste on lawyers for appeals.

    1. SantaClaws
      Happy

      Re: Wet place in Eqypt

      "... lots of money to waste on lawyers"

      Funniest of all, they'll have to bring it back into the US and pay taxes on it first.

      (Probably. Can't see lawyers settling for funny, dodgy money).

  11. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Loudmouth Judge

      It was surely just a statement of fact. You assume a Judge has the ability to base a decision upon the facts presented and at that stage - assuming you quote correctly -felt that Apple looked guilty. Therefore there was a case to answer and the trial should go ahead.

      If, based on the evidence seen at that stage (presented by the DoJ) Apple seemed innocent there might not have been a trial at all as the Judge could've halted it.

    2. Tom 35

      Re: Loudmouth Judge

      It's not a jury trial so the judge can talk about where things stand.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

        1. Greg D
          FAIL

          Re: Loudmouth Judge

          Thats the point Don. The judge was tasked with establishing if there is guilt and therefore reason to go to trial for damages. There was, and it will.

    3. SantaClaws
      Trollface

      Re: Loudmouth Judge

      "Regardless of guilt, Apple have a solid grounds for appeal"

      The unfailing advice of a lawyer, most of the time, even though half of them lose, most of the time.

      Heads they win, tails you lose. Never thought I'd support lawyers' money-grabbing ways, but for Apple, I wish them ever last penny they can screw out of the wormy fruit.

      1. Fibbles
        Thumb Up

        "half of them lose, most of the time."

        60% of the time it works, every time.

  12. Steve Knox
    FAIL

    Did Apple Hire 6-Year-Olds for Lawyers!?

    ...the remedy for [Amazon's alleged] illegal conduct is a complaint lodged with the proper law enforcement offices or a civil suit or both.

    Translation: Don't take the law into your own hands/two wrongs don't make a right.

    "Another company’s alleged violation of antitrust laws is not an excuse for engaging in your own violations of law. Nor is suspicion that that may be occurring a defence to the claims litigated at this trial."

    Translation: Just because the other kids are doing it doesn't mean you should do it too.

    Seriously, Apple's lawyers should be disbarred for attempting a defense that was thoroughly refuted in elementary school.

    1. Squander Two

      Re: Did Apple Hire 6-Year-Olds for Lawyers!?

      Quite. And they were also clearly hoping no-one would notice the ellision: "But Amazon engaged in anticompetitive practice in order to force prices down, so why shouldn't we engage in anticompetitive practice in order to force prices up?"

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Once Samsung have crushed Apple then I'm sure we'll have the Samsung Galaxy Cider edition just for fun. They'll ensure it has the most roundiest corners on any smartphone.

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Happy

      "They'll ensure it has the most roundiest corners on any smartphone."

      Hmm. It's wild, it's stupidly expensive and it's form factor would be completely bonkers and yet maybe...

      Yes folks I'm talking a circular mobile phone. with circular UI to go with it. Say about 31/2" in diameter.

      I have seen the future and it's round!*

      *One of an infinity of possible futures that might possibly arrive. No promises are made or implied. Standard T&Cs apply.

  14. Charles 9

    I think the judge made a salient point about Apple's "argument" of breaking Amazon's monopoly. If Amazon was leveraging its monopoly power, why didn't they charge Amazon with dumping (which IS considered an unfair trade practice--using loss leading to undercut new competition)?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      There was no evidence they were using loss leading to undercut competition. The term loss leading is also common and legal business practice. You use a loss on one product to get buyers in your store with the hope that they will also buy other items. This allows you to make up on the loss from the loss leader by selling other items.

      The suggestion is that Amazon was taking a loss on their ebook sales to promote their ereaders. This is only anti competitive if you consider them a monopoly. In which case you would consider that they were leveraging their monopoly in the eBook market, not just to promote their tablets, but to generate a monopoly in the tablet marker. This is explicitly what anti trust laws are supposed to prevent. But there is no suggestion that this is the case, since no one can sensibly suggest that it was aimed at developing a monopoly in the tablet market.

      1. Cliff

        I'd imagine it's also hard work to lose money on an ebook.

        1. fandom

          It's actually quite easy, you pay 10 dollars a copy to the publisher and you sell it for 8.50 and, congratulations, you made your loss

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Loss leaders - @Anon 17:22

        Amazon had a 90% share of the e-book market before pricing was changed to agency model. Most would argue 90% is well over the threshold for a monopoly.

        Amazon priced that way to keep competitors out of the e-reader market, and they were succeeding quite well in doing so. If the iPad had flopped, there still might not be a tablet market and they'd have successfully maintained their monopoly in e-books.

        The tragedy in this is that while what Apple induced the book publishers to do was illegal, so was what Amazon was doing. It is fortunate that now that there's a tablet market Amazon doesn't have as large a share of the digital book market, though if Amazon goes back to selling e-books at a loss as they were doing before they may regain and enhance their former monopoly. After all, there's a Kindle App available for iOS and Android, so anyone with a tablet who wants to use it to read books (which they suck for, IMHO, but YMMV) would probably buy from Amazon if they're going to buy very many, to save money.

        If Apple's book sales become so low isn't worth doing, and they shut it down, and other competitors do the same, Amazon will be free to raise prices back up and make up for the losses they took and then some. No one would spring up to take them on, because they would know after they spent a bunch of money to start up an e-book store, Amazon would start selling a loss until they went under.

        1. Squander Two

          "Amazon will be free to raise prices back up"

          But this is the fascinating thing about Amazon: they don't do that. They locate inefficiencies in a market, use their muscle to get rid of those inefficiencies (which necessarily causes problems for competitors who can't or won't become as efficient as Amazon), and that's it. The traditional final stage of monopolistic behaviour -- pushing prices back up again once you've got a monopoly -- appears not to interest them. Find us an example of a product whose price Amazon has increased after driving out the competition. I bet you can't.

          The corporate ethos appears to be that everyone benefits from a more efficient market, so make it more efficient and leave it that way. Look at Netflix: they're in direct competition with Amazon's LoveFilm, yet they use Amazon's AWS. Amazon are in a perfect position to cause serious problems for Netflix, yet they don't.

          The very reason we have anti-monopoly laws is to protect consumers from monopolies forcing prices up. Since Amazon don't do that, what exactly is that you think the law should be protecting us poor Amazon customers from?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "Amazon will be free to raise prices back up"

            So you expect that Amazon will always be selling e-books for less than it costs them wholesale, in addition for selling the Kindle Fire for less than it costs to make? Not exactly a long term strategy for profitability, but then Amazon's ridiculous stock price has always been about hope that they'd raise their prices someday in the future and not keep making almost nothing. If you believe what you wrote you should be shorting AMZN heavily, because they'll never justify their high triple digit P/E if they never raise prices and thus never increase their profit margin.

        2. Intractable Potsherd

          Re: Loss leaders - @DougS

          I'm not sure that it can be established that Amazon is doing anything illegal,* otherwise Apple and/or others would have started there, rather than do something that any sensible lawyer would have told them sailed very close to the wind. Amazon are, unfortunately,** sailing far enough from the wind to be unassailable from any legal point of view.

          Had Apple and the book companies not had the "most favoured nation" clause, than this would not have come to court. That decision is what showed intent to distort the market unfairly, and this seems to be an inevitable decision on the part of the court.

          * I assume by "illegal" you are suggesting that Amazon has been "dumping"? There is no evidence of that available, at least at the moment.

          ** I say "unfortunately" because it is never good in the long term for one company to have a massive share of the market in anything.*** Amazon has, so far, not used its weight to act contrary to the interests of the consumer, or, really, the producers (at least, no more than any other outlet would). Nonetheless, I'd prefer to see an effective competitor from somewhere, even though I do use Amazon for about half of my media (all types) purchases.

          *** The logic of capitalism requires that monopolies are the end product in any market. It amuses me when people who claim to be "free-market" advocates talk about invoking anti-trust law, thus requiring state intervention!

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Loss leaders - @DougS

            Common misunderstanding.

            Anti trust laws do not exist to prevent monopolies. They are there to prevent a monopoly from leveraging his monopoly in one market to generate monopolies in another. This is not contrary to a belief in free markets, since free market, really means free of unfair practices.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Thumb Up

          Re: Loss leaders - @Anon 17:22

          Again, regardless of a perceived monopoly or otherwise, selling products as a loss leader is not illegal.

          Conspiring with suppliers to fix prices (up or down) IS.

        4. tom dial Silver badge
          Stop

          Re: Loss leaders - @Anon 17:22

          And then if Amazon raises the price enough it will be worthwhile for a competitor to (re)enter the market and provide competition. The price of data processing capacity is low enough that it would not be a significant barrier, and as long as Amazon was not colluding with the publishers to restrict competition, as Apple was found to do, that (or even the implicit threat of it) would act to constrain ebook prices.

          Monopolies are not illegal as such. It is certain activities intended to create and maintain them that are.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Because,

      The next stop on the anti-trust bandwagon could be Amazon? Lawyers have to earn a living too. And it is nice when the consumer benefits for a change.

    3. Handle This

      The argument is one based on the rule of law. As mentioned above, this is a lesson that is repeatedly attempted to be taught, on both sides of the large pond, in grade school. It is a reflection on our societies' failures that such menial lessons so often don't seem to have been integrated into the student's worldview. As with most lessons of this type, the penalties for failing to learn (and consistently flaunting that failure in front of others) can be severe. It would be far more economical to concentrate on the proper teaching, rather than the correcting. If only there weren't so many spectacular successes arising from just such asocial behavior . . .

  15. Daniel B.
    Happy

    Common sense prevails

    So the judge accurately told off Apple that "but they did it first!" is not a valid defense to engage in illegal activities. Vigilantism is frowned upon by the law, and even if Apple's argument were to be correct, it would amount to corporate vigilantism.

    As the judge noted, if Apple or the publishers thought that Amazon was engaging in anticompetitive practices, they should've sued through the proper channels. Indeed, "Dumping" is frowned upon and there are usually laws against this practice. But that's why you sue, not commit a worse offense by price-fixing, which has an immediate anti-consumer effect, as opposed to the medium to long-term effect that dumping has on consumers.

    1. dalekette

      Re: Common sense prevails

      Netscape tried that route and where are they now? At the time Apple supposedly fixed ebook pricing, Amazon only had 90% of the ebook market. The point Apple was trying to get across but failed was that the government was not doing its job. But no worries, it's a victory for consumers, as reported by The New York Times this weekend, now that there are basically no competitions for non-ebooks, Amazon is cutting back the discount they offer, victory indeed.

      1. Malcolm Weir Silver badge

        Re: Common sense prevails

        While there is a kernel of truth to the market dominance argument, several factors each independently criminalize Apple's actions and/or disprove their assertions.

        1. If it is the government's sole responsibility to police the market (which it isn't, but no matter), then Apple could have lodged a complaint with the FTC about Amazon's practice. They did not.

        2. As it isn't the government's sole responsibility, Apple could have sued Amazon for the practice. They did not.

        (Both those points the judge made).

        3. Apple could also have used the power of the marketplace to compete head-to-head with Amazon, e.g. by promoting more loss leaders in an effort to turn iTunes-for-books into the, err, iTunes-for-music. So Apple has demonstrated (through iTunes-for-music) that they understand very well the concept of creating a de facto monopoly for certain types of product.

        4. Had Apple truly been worried about Amazon's dominance, they could have produced subsidized iPads or iPad Nano's to compete head-to-head with Kindle. But obviously Apple doesn't mind dominance as long as it doesn't interfere with their goal of making obscene amounts of money (e.g. iTunes).

        5. The reason Apple hated Amazon's supposed monopoly on eBooks (as opposed to Apple's near-equivalent lever of dominance in music) was that -- particularly in 2010 -- the iPad was being sold as a one-size-fits-all solution with "amazing" battery life, "goes 10 hours without a charge", blah blah blah. The Kindle, on the other hand, goes weeks without a charge, has a better screen for reading books, etc. etc. etc. So the real issue was never who made money on eBooks as to how to steer the public to buy iPads for all their needs as opposed to iPad having to compete with Kindle for one segment of the potential-tablet-customer market.

        6. The other reason for this attack is that Apple doesn't want any kind of traditional market forces working on the online media market. The agency model is therefore Apple's perfect business model: set whatever price the publisher likes like, no-one will undercut iTunes, and Apple gets 30% of whatever price you chose. They want a walled garden, and they want the fewest possible reason for people to even think about venturing out of the garden.

        Executive summary: Apple is a scummy company, and pretty much always has been, and this isn't news.

        Final note: the reason the judge's comments were so non-controversial was that Apple was the only defendant left standing: every other defendant had plead guilty, admitted fault and paid up.

        1. Handle This

          Re: Common sense prevails

          @ Malcolm Weir

          I think these are excellent points for discussion, particularly point 4 and 6, which rather go hand in hand. It appears, from Apple's conduct (as opposed to the arguments of Apple's subjective intentions), that Apple was more interested in ensuring a basic profit model, from which the consumer would derive no benefit and from which Apple (and its alleged co-conspirators) could obtain relief from prevailing market forces. Apple was not interested in true combat with those market forces, or their correction (to the extent Apple could argue that they those forces were manipulated and not truly purely free market), but rather with simply avoiding their effect by establishing a different market with the unpermitted help of others. This does not necessarily lead one to the conclusions of the "executive summary," but does explain why its arguments to the judge based on how it was really looking to do "good," and how a finding against it would harm the market were not accepted.

        2. sabroni Silver badge

          Re: every other defendant had plead guilty, admitted fault and paid up.

          Really? I thought they'd settled out of court, which means they did not plead guilty or admit fault. Is that wrong?

        3. Squander Two
          Thumb Up

          Re: Common sense prevails

          Malcolm Weir,

          Very well said.

          I'd love to say it amazes me that Apple thought that their forcing prices up might be perceived as essentially the same as Amazon's forcing prices down, but that argument does seem to have persuaded a lot of people, including a number of commenters here.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Common sense prevails

        "Apple supposedly fixed ebook pricing"

        There is no supposedly about it, your beloved is a common crook!

        1. jabuzz

          Re: Common sense prevails

          Not only is he a common crook, he as been that way since the early 1970's when he was selling blue box phone phreaking devices.

    2. Dave Stevens

      Re: Common sense prevails

      As for vigilantism it's more like setting up a protection racket and making sure everybody has high prices so you can collect more.

      Now Amazon might just use free apps to sell its Kindle and leave it at that.

    3. Handle This

      Re: Common sense prevails

      Indeed. By attempting what could most charitably on Apple's part be labeled as "helpful correction" of the market, Apple was acting not, in fact, to benefit the market, or to remove the allegedly heavy thumb of Amazon on e-book transactions, but rather was simply looking to change the market enough to allow Apple to take a turn at skimming the cream from the consumer. Ideally, anti-trust laws exist and are enforced to protect the consumer; that they are not utilized this was often enough, or to seldom wholly ignore the repercussion to consumers entirely, is a different (but equally interesting) issue. Here, Apple had no right to declare their own image of how things should be done more righteous (as it were) than another, and has been found simply engaging in the same type of improper conduct they tried to use as an affirmatively defensive argument.

      It will be interesting to read the arguments put forth in Apple's inevitable appeal. Even if the appeal is taken less for actual legal vindication than for leverage to settle without confession of liability (the usual impetus for appeals by businesses), I would think Apple would have to focus very sharply on the details of the actual deals entered into, and the details of the allegations against them, rather than broader arguments of markets as a whole or any submitted benefit to any consumers.

      Just my two cents (and you get what you pay for).

  16. Joey

    "The fruity firm"

    ...Used twice in the one article. Where do they get these journalists?

  17. marly

    for the second time this week....

    old news?!

  18. dorsetknob
    Angel

    ""wonder if the Court decision is available to buy from the Apple Book Store""

    Amazon are giving away copies for free

  19. Dan Paul

    Use the fines to prop up physical book publishers/sellers

    Since ALL of the ebook people are deliberately trying to kill paper publishing; I believe that ALL of the potential fines should be used to keep PAPER publishing alive as they are the REAL VICTIMS of the price fixing.

    In fact, lets add a tax on all of the bastards to help keep paper alive.

    Really,folks...life is truly going to suck when there are no bookstores or books to fill them. Fuck ebooks/electronic publishing forever. It won't just be the books, gone will be the cover art & artists, graphics, type, typesetters, paper manufacturers, bookbinders, stores, knowledgable salespeople, the feel of a great book and smell of a real bookstore, etc.

    Do you want to lose all of that for some souless collection of ascii characters in a file? That's no longer "Literature".

    Do we REALLY want to be slaves to this "convenience" that can be recalled or 'revised" at will? Do we let the idiots rewrite history on a whim? Or Amazon recall 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 because our "Kings" say they are treasonous or "too upsetting" to the proles?

    1. Malcolm Weir Silver badge

      Re: Use the fines to prop up physical book publishers/sellers

      Yeah! Simon&Schuster, Harper Collins, Penguin etc. were all conspiring to kill themselves!

      Nobody in the book publishing business likes books, because you have to print the suckers, transport them, remember not to leave them out in the rain, accept returns when the stinkers don't sell, pulp the returned stinkers, etc.

      The rest of Dan's "argument" is identical to what people said about digital cameras killing photography, video/DVDs killing movie making, and probably about "gramophones" killing live performances. Everything about cover art, typesetting, graphics will survive, and thrive (in no small part because the added cost of extra bits for multi-color printing is trivial compared to the difference in cost of putting photos and graphics on paper).

      And, yeah, sorry Dan, but "Hamlet" on a Kindle is still friggin' Hamlet. It doesn't cease to be literature because you don't like the format, just as Beethoven's 9th doesn't morph into pop music when you encode it as some soulless collection of bits in a (MP3) file.

      I would much rather control a digital version which *I* can back up, duplicate, and have than a cheap paperback sitting on a shelf demonstrating that the bookbinders that Dan loves so much can do a really crappy cheap job, too. Books I love I'll always pay more for a hardcover, but why should I subsidize an inefficient "throwaway" technology?

      The real problem is that no-one has, yet, come up with a better solution than the "shelf" for marketing the things.

    2. Handle This

      Re: Use the fines to prop up physical book publishers/sellers

      I don't agree with this post, but I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment. In point of fact, I personally would like (which no one cares about, quite rightfully, but which I will share anyway) both directions to flourish. I say without any consideration of the realities that either support or hinder the possibility. The point is, I want the convenience of e-books and electronic publishing when it is convenient to ME - at work, during some travel (when in trains, plains, and automobiles and access to luggage and their contents is restricted), and paper product when I am at leisure to truly appreciate it. I truly doubt I am alone in this. I fell in love early in life with the sensibility of the local bookstore and library, and the feel, smell and overall psychology of holding (and even OWNING) a physical, bound work of recorded thought. They both have their place, and I am loathe to be forced to choose between them. Progress is supposed to, under at least one definition, meet the desires of a society, whether those desires lead one forward or back. (Yes, progress can be made by returning to a desired prior state.) I therefore support both ends, and hope I can continue to enjoy the middle.

    3. Squander Two

      Re: Use the fines to prop up physical book publishers/sellers

      > I believe that ALL of the potential fines should be used to keep PAPER publishing alive as they are the REAL VICTIMS of the price fixing.

      The victims of price-fixing are the consumers who pay the higher fixed prices, not the vendors who collect the money.

      Apple colluded with publishers to push prices up. Not down. Do you really not see the difference there?

    4. Intractable Potsherd

      Re: Use the fines to prop up physical book publishers/sellers @Dan Paul

      Whilst I have some sympathy with your post (I love book shops, and I miss "real" libraries), I cannot entirely agree with you. Literature is literature is literature, regardless of the medium. No doubt there were people that claimed the only "real" way to read a book was on parchment that umpteen monks had slaved away on for years, and that this printing lark was devaluing the experience. However, it doesn't matter whether it is produced with ink-particles or electrons. The ideas are what matter.

      Yes, there are issues surrounding the resilience of ebooks compared to dead-tree books. If there is an apocalypse, hopefully some of the dead-tree books will still be around to help the survivors at some point - it is interesting how many post-apocalypse stories have the wise man guarding the old library - whereas we cannot sensibly expect anyone two generations after whatever disaster to have any clue what the strange devices that do nothing were for. However, I'm not sure that is any reason to shore up the modern equivalent of buggy-whip manufacturers (also more likely to be useful, post-apocalypse, than cars).

      Your argument that ebooks can be recalled by the publisher flies in the face of reality. Any book you think might be banned is available through less-offical channels somewhere, and if it isn't, it would be five minutes after news of a recall was published. I keep several local copies of every single ebook I have, and I an far from the only one. The other advantage of ebooks is that there are a lot of potential sources of samizdat print copies in the event that they are required.

      TL:DR - you are over-reacting, I think.

      1. Dan Paul
        Devil

        Re: Use the fines to prop up physical book publishers/sellers @Dan Paul

        Sorry to all, As far as I am concerned "literature" requires printed media. REAL Books are the ultimate open source media. Once printed, they have no other compatibility issues, no batteries, no digital translation problems (not language), they are art on multiple levels and NO AMOUNT OF ARGUMENT WILL CONVINCE ME THAT EBOOKS HAVE ANY WORTH OR VALUE.

        E Books are more disposable than toilet paper and that demeans what they contain.

        1. Charles 9

          Re: Use the fines to prop up physical book publishers/sellers @Dan Paul

          Actually, there still IS a compatibility issue with the printed word: LANGUAGE. I imagine the literacy boom of the 12th century wouldn't have turned out so well if there weren't people around able to translate all the Spanish books from Arabic to Latin. One nasty thing about the printed work: they're more difficult in that sense to convert.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          WTF?

          Re: Use the fines to prop up physical book publishers/sellers @Dan Paul

          You value having a physical book OVER the content in the book?

          Erm.

          1. Charles 9

            Re: Use the fines to prop up physical book publishers/sellers @Dan Paul

            Well, provided it's in a language you understand, dead tree books are remarkably simple and require no external power or artificial illumination if used in daylight, so they're pretty good when you're away from civilization. They also handle getting wet better, so they're better for beach and poolside reading.

            That said, in the balance of things, I prefer the compact e-reader to paper books, especially in traveling where weight and volume must be considered. I deal with the ownership issues by obtaining books from legal suppliers that don't lock their books too tightly.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      Re: Use the fines to prop up physical book publishers/sellers

      Try a kindle. It's a revalation.

      I love books. LOVE reading. Significant portion of every day spent doing so.

      To say i'm 30, work in tech and have a love for gadgets I came very late to e-readers.

      I fought the concept, love owning books, the feel, the smell everything.

      Got a kindle paperwhite about 3 months ago and won't look back. It's brilliant. We must have somewhere in the order of 1000 books scattered around the place. More real estate given over in our bedroom to books than clothing.

      Please explain to me how the IDENTICALLY COPIED AND PRESENTED text and images of all my favourite novels suddenly become tripe because i'm viewing them on the (absolutely PERFECT and totally fit-for-purpose) display of my kindle?

      Even the "font" is the same. As is the layout,the pictures, diagrams and, most importantly, the content.

      I still get lost in middle-earth, drawn in to the lives of Rand Al Thor and friends, absorbed totally in the universe of Shannara.

      I still own all my paper books. Have I touched one since owning a kindle? Yes - To look something up in one of the many reference/text books we have for one of our hobbies (we keep exotic mammals/reptiles)

      I'll continue to buy paper books, but at a much reduced rate. Any book that's destined to be taken about and read - kindle. I have thousands of books on my laptop, they could just as easily be on a 32gb pen drive and in my bag with me at all times.

      More specialist things (ie the reference/text books) will probably always be in dead tree format only or first. (Beleive it or not the market for "Captive care of African Crested Porcupines" isn't huge!)

      I could go on, the battery lasts for weeks and months without a charge even after heavy use, it's easier to hold on the bog and in the bath than any of the 1000 page chunk-of-wood that I was previously having to hold in the bath. It's easier to hold than the thinnest paperback. Comfortable, light, grippy surface. It's PERFECT for the one thing it was designed to do - display test.

      I can only surmise that you commute to work on horseback, refuse to buy anything not hand made and have similarly spurned every advance made by mankind since the creation of widespread rail networks doomed the stagecoach industry, and that your daily excretions are carried away by a whippersnapper in rags every morning in a bucket to be sold to tanners.

      You also do realize that the same publisher(s) responsible for the dead tree books also publish the ebooks? I'm pretty sure if they saw it as the death of their industry this wouldn't be happening.

      Try a kindle,I promise you won't be excommunicated or tried as a witch.

  20. albaleo

    We know who Apple are...

    ....but 'Macmillan, Hachette, Penguin, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster'

    Have you ever tried tracking the ownership of these publishing companies? Not today, but at the time of the 'incident' in question in 2010. Example: About Macmillan from Wikipedia:

    "Pearson acquired the Macmillan name in America in 1998, following its purchase of the Simon & Schuster educational and professional group (which included various Macmillan properties).[6] Holtzbrinck purchased it from them in 2001.[7] McGraw-Hill continues to market its pre-kindergarten through elementary school titles under its Macmillan/McGraw-Hill brand. U.S. operations of Georg von Holtzbrinck are now known as Macmillan."

  21. sleepy

    There's a lot to be said for a world where you look at the song or the book or the sandwich itself and decide if you want it or not, rather than attempt to seek out a better deal, or decide if you should get a completely different book because it's cheaper. For me, the iTunes Store, Lidl and TKMax are temples of serenity in an abusive world where both the product and the buying experience are polluted by "offers", "deals", bloat ware, bundling.

    Many people share this need to focus on the object. Why else would they willingly enter Apple's "expensive " "walled garden", causing it to grow so immense?

    Apple needed to launch iPad. At least this deal lasted long enough for that.

  22. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Thumb Up

    Bottom line. Corporations don't *mind* unfair markets, when they are unfair to *their* benefit

    But squeal like a little b**ch if they don't get the cream.

    I think the judge called it right too.

    I do hope the damages will be substantial.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It is all part of the game

    Last year HTC and Apple come to a compromise on a patent infringement.. and the result is the NEW iOS 7 skin ( iOS 7 skin looks like HTC Sense well at least for me)

    Now the APP Store settlement with Amazon... i think cheaper eBooks ;-)

    Well at least the consumer is benefiting from it. hopefully!

  24. chiller

    An ounce of sympathy for apple in the house? ...............

    ............ tumbleweed.....................

    Anyone? ..........hello

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