DOJ

Last Thursday Apple filed the long-expected notice of appeal with the court, intending to challenge the verdict against them in the ebook pricing trial as well as the order entering permanent injunction. But that brief notice is all that they have filed for now. Additionally, however, Simon & Schuster has filed their own notice of appeal, as has Macmillan, specifically limited to the injunction. Presumably they both want to continue the challenge raised by publishers earlier that the penalties the court wants to impose on Apple unfairly imposes a kind of double jeopardy on the settling publishers, going above and […]

On Wednesday, Judge Denise Cote signed on the final judgment and permanent injunction over Apple in the ebook pricing case. The modified agreement is in line with the previous conference and draft, and was jointly submitted to the court by the DOJ, the state attorneys general and Apple. The most important provision regarding the publishing industry stands: “Apple shall not enter into or maintain any agreement with a publisher defendant that restricts, limits, or impedes Apple’s ability to set, alter or reduce the retail price of any e-book.” As was discussed at the conference last week, the language has been […]

Judge Denise Cote handed Apple some modest victories in the Tuesday afternoon hearing about her forthcoming injunction, which she expects to formalize next week. The judge said it was “unnecessary” to force Apple to let ebook competitors restore in-app purchasing without giving Apple a commission — probably the most significant outstanding item for the ebook landscape. Apple seems to have won permission in principle to ask publishers to “modify” their current contracts rather than start over again with new agreements (but that does not mean that publishers will agree to do so, or have any obligation to go along with […]