In a brief five-page ruling, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals vacated Judge Denny Chin’s June 2012 certification of the Authors Guild as a class in the long-running Google Books lawsuit, which itself was a repeat of the original 2005 class certification. The appeals court concluded that class certification “was premature in the absence of a determination by the District Court of the merits of Google’s ‘fair use’ defense.” They also opined that “Google’s claim that plaintiffs are not representative of the certified class” is “an argument which, in our view, may carry some force.” So the actual issues of […]
Legal
Penguin Asks Judge Cote to Dismiss Class Action-Seeking Lawsuit Against Author Solutions
Just one day after wrapping up the Apple ebook price fixing trial, Judge Cote is in the midst of a different publishing industry-related lawsuit. Last Friday Penguin filed a motion to dismiss a class action-seeking lawsuit filed on April 26 by three authors against Author Solutions, which Penguin acquired in July 2012. In the motion, Penguin alleges the lawsuit from three ASI customers — Jodi Foster, Kelvin James, and Terry Hardy — was a “misguided attempt to make a federal class action out of a series of gripes by two of them about alleged typographical and formatting errors and supposed […]
The Finale: Does Judge Cote’s Belief the Publishers Are Guilty Exonerate or Implicate Apple?
The DOJ’s ebook price fixing trial against Apple came to an end Thursday with closing arguments from both sides. Apple lead lawyer Orin Snyder began his summation in the clearest possible terms: “Apple did not conspire to fix prices with any publisher. Let me repeat that. Apple did not conspire with a single publisher to fix prices in the eBook industry.” Rather, Snyder said near the end of his presentation, “Apple’s entry simply crystallized market forces and structural changes that were well underway before Apple met with a single publisher.” He argued, “We know of no other case where a defendant has […]
The Defense Rests, As Judge Cote Says “The Issues Have Shifted”
Just after 2:30 PM on Wednesday afternoon Apple rested its case in the ebook price-fixing trial. Expert witnesses Michelle Burtils and Kevin Murphy, as well as head of the iBookstore Robert McDonald, completed their testimony and closing arguments will take place Thursday. As previously reported, the government and Apple are each allotted two and a half hours each to make concluding remarks (and answer any final questions Judge Cote has.) Different accounts over Apple’s ebook market share continued as McDonald disagreed with Eddy Cue. His written testimony, which he stood by, indicates, “While it is difficult to obtain definitive information on […]
In Court: BN’s Theresa Horner Testifies
Sandwiched between the concluding testimony of one of the defense’s expert witnesses and the initial testimony of a second expert for Apple was Barnes & Noble’s vp, digital content Theresa Horner. As a witness for Apple, she was called to show that the bookseller had already been contemplating alternatives to the wholesale model as early as April 2009, before they launched their ebookselling business. (Horner’s earlier deposition was introduced into court as direct testimony; what transpired Tuesday was cross-examination and redirect.) The company understood, per an internal ebook pricing document brought to attention by Apple’s Orin Snyder, that “in the […]
In Court: Cue Revises Apple’s eBook Market Share Upward; Steve Jobs Nostalgia; and More
Apple executive Eddy Cue spent the bulk of the Monday’s court session on the witness stand again, with the government then resting its case in the late afternoon. (Apple called its first expert witness, Ben Klein, who only testified briefly before court adjourned for the day.) As was the case on Thursday, Cue did not offer much new information that would affect the price-fixing case on either side. Instead his questioning provided more Steve Jobs nostalgia, with additional tidbits on the late Apple chief’s active involvement in the creation of the iBookstore and the agency model, and further parsing of […]