Archives for August 2012

Though the Authors Guild did file their opposition to the settlement with the court during the public comment period, they have now asked permission to file another 5 pages with Judge Cote as a friend of the court. Their argument is that the DOJ’s response to the public comments “ignores the far-reaching effects of the proposed judgment” and the Guild address the “true impact” in their brief. Similar to one of the arguments made separately by attorney Bob Kohn, the Authors Guild asserts that Justice defined “the relevant market or markets” far too narrowly. “it deems the impact of the […]

Penguin has found Tunney Act grounds of its own to object to the ebook settlement pending with three other publishers: “Here it is: The Emperor has no clothes.” They reason that the core of the government’s case–and the focus of their proposed remedies–is that the agency model caused ebook prices to rise. “Yet the Government has offered no empirical proof to clothe this claim. Rather it has represented to this Court and the public, pursuant to their Tunney Act obligations to disclose ‘determinative documents,’ that there are none, not even pricing studies.” If there are, and if the government has a […]

Apple argues to Judge Denise Cote within the mandated five-page limit that the proposed ebook pricing settlement denies them due process, since they are going to trial on the charges–but the settlement “seeks to terminate and rewrite Apple’s bargained for contracts, before a single document has been introduced into evidence, before any witness has testified, and before the Court has resolved the disputed facts.” They add that: “The Court’s decision would be irreversible. Nullifying a non-settling defendant’s negotiated contract rights by another’s settlement is fundamentally unfair, unlawful, and unprecedented. The Government does not cite a single case in which such […]