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 […]
Legal
Apple Concedes to New Terms with Publishers, Resists eBook App Changes
The Federal Court docket now includes two separate filings from Apple’s attorney on Friday, presenting the company’s revised approach to the proposed injunction. Apple is walking a line between Judge Denise Cote’s guilty verdict and the company’s belief that they are innocent and their hopes to prevail on appeal. Nonetheless, Apple attorney Orin Snyder insisted in his letter to Judge Cote on Friday that the company “has attempted in good faith to listen carefully to the court’s concerns and address those concerns in a forthright manner, even while it pursues what it believes to be strong arguments on appeal.” Our […]
People, Etc.
Based on two anonymous sources, Shane Salerno’s forthcoming movie about the late J.D. Salinger and the tie-in book SALINGER co-written by Salerno and David Shields asserts that the late author instructed his estate to publish at least five posthumous books, “authorizing a specific timetable” for publication running from 2015 through 2020. The NYT says the books are described as including “a novel set during World War II and based on his first marriage to Sylvia Welter, and a novella modeled on his own war experiences.” A story collection called THE FAMILY GLASS would expand previously published stories about the Glass […]
DOJ’s Revised Proposed Injunction Against Apple Incorporates Some (But Not All) of Judge Cote’s Suggestions
On Friday morning the Department of Justice filed its revised proposed injunction against Apple with the Federal Court. The modest modifications made to government’s proposal largely incorporate Judge Cote’s suggestions at a hearing earlier this month, tapering the impact on the sale of regular apps, staggering the renegotiation process with book publishers — starting after two years, and finishing four years from the final judgment, and reducing the mandatory period of the injunction to five years (from ten), with the possibility of extensions. The change that concerns publishers the most — their negotiated and court-approved settlements are voided with respect […]
Digital: May 2014 Apple Trial; Late-August Kobo Event; Chegg Files for An IPO
Judge Denise Cote formally set the damages trial against Apple in the ebook pricing case for May 2014. Also, the full transcript from the August 9 conference on the proposed injunction has been posted. “What I’m trying to do here is to fashion as narrow a remedy as possible to create, restore, promote, price competition in ebooks,” Judge Cote. “We do need an injunction here. There was blatant price fixing. There was structural collusion by the publisher defendants.” She acknowledges again that agency by itself is a legal selling arrangement — but she also clearly prefers a world in which […]
Apple, DOJ Will Meet Again in Court on August 27
As ordered, Apple and the Department of Justice submitted a joint letter to Judge Cote at the end of the day Monday that schedules a court hearing on August 27 at 2 PM to discuss their progress on a proposed injunction. Both sides also said they will submit letters concerning their respective positions on the scope of the injunction — which, for now, are as far apart as they can possibly get — by August 23. Separately, also on Monday, Judge Cote officially approved the government’s motion for entry of its proposed settlement with Macmillan, a week after granting preliminary […]