On Friday, Judge Denise Cote granted entry of final judgment, approving the federal government’s settlement with Penguin in their ebook pricing case. That increases the likelihood that Penguin will move to “agency lite” pricing of their ebooks sometime soon. But we don’t know that for sure. It took about two months after Macmillan settled and warned authors new prices could “take effect quickly” before there was any change in the marketplace. In fact, retailers could have moved to new arrangements with Penguin earlier in the year, and have not done so yet. The original settlement required Penguin to notify retailers of […]
Legal
Apple Presses to Make Public Documents “Potentially Embarrassing to Amazon”
Legally Apple is being sued by the government, but procedurally the company continues to act as if the real battle is with Amazon. As we reported last Friday, Apple’s proposed findings of fact filing indicates that Amazon sent a “White Paper” about agency ebook pricing to the Department of Justice of February 1, 2010 — days after the iBookstore was announced, and well before it actually opened for business. A letter from one of Apple’s attorneys posted to the court docket over the weekend reinforces their belief that “Amazon is no disinterested third party. Amazon was instrumental in launching this […]
Amazon Sent DOJ “White Paper” On Agency Days After iBookstore Launched
The documents keep coming in the lead up to the June 3 trial in the ebook pricing case. The latest include Apple’s “proposed findings of fact,” which lays out through Apple’s eyes the timetable of discussions and negotiations with publishers in December 2009 and January 2010 that led to the creation of the iBookstore — and the implementation of the agency model for ebooks. Many people have long suspected Amazon as a prime agitator in the cases brought against publishers and Apple, and the latest filing includes at least a smoking ember: Buried in paragraph 182 is an indication that Amazon […]
Preparing for Trial: New Documents and Details from the DOJ
The Department of Justice has organized and called attention to a raft of recently filed documents in connection with the pending June 3 trial in the ebook price fixing case, and the official court docket has still more documents — hundreds of pages worth — from Apple, Penguin, the States and more. As one preparatory document indicates, “the parties expect that the trial will last 3 to 4 weeks” (or 12 to 16 trial days). In the government’s new pretrial memorandum of law, their allegations and narrative has become more focused, and enriched with citations from the copious depositions of […]
Apple Wins One From Judge Cote
The ebook pricing case against Apple does not go before US District Court Judge Denise Cote until June 3, but the computer giant has just won another case presented to the same judge. Cote granted summary judgment in Apple’s favor in a trademark case brought by Brick Tower Press over the use of iBooks. The publisher had purchased the assets of Byron Preiss Visual Publications and Preiss’s iPicturebooks, which had published in the early days of commercial ebooks under the iBooks brand. But Judge Cote said Brick Tower’s only rights were in the original logo design, which pair the word […]
Briefs: Court Hears Google Authors Guild Appeal, and More
For avid court watchers, this morning the Federal Court of Appeals was scheduled to hear oral arguments in the fight over whether to certify the author class in the long-running suit brought by the Authors Guild over Google‘s book scanning. Last year Judge Denny Chin approved certification of the class, and Google appealed that decision. We’re going to spare you further details until the court rules. Sony, which has sold its Reader devices in Australia for some time, has finally opened a Reader ebookstore there to go along with those devices. Price cuts on a variety of Nook devices — […]