Hours before Monday’s midnight deadline to submit public comments on the Department of Justice’s settlement with three publishers on ebook price fixing, a group of independent publishers, including Grove/Atlantic, Norton, Perseus, Abrams, Chronicle Books, Chicago Review Press, New Directions, and Workman Publishing, submitted a joint letter to the DOJ objecting to the settlement terms as they “lack an adequate factual basis, are contrary to the public interest and should be rejected” on the grounds that it will “adversely impact competition.” The letter was sent on behalf of the group, banding together as the Independent Book Publishers, by Cravath, Swaine & […]
DOJ
Judge Cote Sets eBook Lawsuit Trial Date for June 3, 2013
At a status conference Friday afternoon in federal court Judge Denise Cote set a trial date of June 3, 2013 for the DOJ’s ebook price fixing lawsuit against remaining plaintiffs Apple, Penguin, and Macmillan. And as widely noted already, June 3 also marks the beginning of next year’s Book Expo conference; it’s not clear as to whether Judge Cote chose the date by design. What is clear is that Judge Cote wants the case to move swiftly, since the date she chose is more than three months ahead of the September 30, 2013 date proposed by the DOJ. “Several parties, […]
People, Etc.
Derek Krissoff has been named the new editor in chief for the University of Nebraska Press, effective July 16. He has been a senior acquisitions editor at the University of Georgia Press since 2006. John W. Warren has joined Georgetown University Press as marketing and sales director. He has spent the past twelve years as marketing director of RAND Corporation’s publications department. KC Smythe will retire on June 15 from his position as national account manager at Hachette Book Group, after 10 years with the company. Prior to Hachette, he spent 17 years at Ingram, mostly in the buying department, and 6 years as […]
Print Publishing Is Expensive, DOJ Tells Judge Cote
The Department of Justice has already received over 150 comments, comprising over 200 pages, on the proposed ebook pricing settlement, and expects “a similar or greater volume of comments” to come in between now and the June 25 deadline. Recognizing that print publication is an expensive process, Justice has asked Judge Cote to excuse the department from publishing the comments and the department’s responses in the Federal Register, estimating that publication costs would exceed $100,000. Instead, they ask for permission to publish everything electronically on the antitrust division’s web site, promising that will allow Justice to keep to the court’s […]
Barnes & Noble Says Settlement Overreaches, And Punishes the Wrong Parties
Barnes & Noble, with assistance from counsel David Boies at Boies, Schiller & Flexner, has filed a formal objection to the proposed settlement in the agency pricing case. In an argument reminiscent of the Department of Justice’s objections that led to the rejection of the Google Books settlement, BN argues that the settlement imposes “overreaching regulatory provisions” that “will transform the [Antitrust] Division into a regulator” and that the penalties imposed are not remedies actually “sought or mentioned” in the lawsuit itself. They argue that DOJ actually seeks to engage in the settlement in the very behavior they prosecuted for: “The Division […]
Letters to Justice: Kohn’s 55-Page Brief, and Bookseller Peter Glassman’s Argument
CEO of RoyaltyShare, co-founder of eMusic, and former general counsel of companies including Borland Software Bob Kohn has dispatched a 55-page letter to the Department of Justice objecting to their price-fixing complaint in what probably qualifies as the most interesting legal brief to emerge in this case so far–even though it’s technically just a letter. Kohn essentially offers a more thorough and artful explanation of why he believes the agency model was pro-competitive rather than anti-competitive than what the defendants themselves have provided. Without the burden (or evidence) to deny the allegations themselves, he argues in broad form that “something […]