There was abundant coverage of the Department of Justice’s proposed penalties against Apple following the finding of guilt in the ebook pricing trial but as far as we can tell no other outlet — even within trade publishing — has focused on the astounding elements of those proposals with respect to book publishing. In practical terms, Justice is asking Judge Cote to throw out the essential conditions of the signed settlements already agreed to with book publishers, to be replaced with far harsher and longer lasting conditions. The two important limitations on the original publisher settlements were a two-year limit […]
