The last holdout, Penguin has now agreed to settle with the European Commission by making “commitments” on changes in ebook pricing and contracts. The proposed terms are “substantially the same” as those already agreed to by the other four agency publishers as well as Apple. (They will terminate existing agency agreements and move to agency lite for two years, and avoid any MFN clauses for 5 years.) As with the previous agreements, there is a a one-month comment period, after which the “commitments” can be made legally binding. In the EC’s view: “Penguin chose not to offer commitments to the […]
Legal
Booksellers Plead with Court Not to Dismiss DRM Case
The three booksellers who sued Amazon and the six largest publishing houses for what they characterized as restrictive DRM practices filed a response to those parties’ motions to dismiss the case. In the memo, filed yesterday, Posman Books, Fiction Addiction, and Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza say Amazon are “misreading” the complaint and relying on an “unsupported assertion of what they claim is contained in non-public contracts that they have purposefully decided not to produce to the court.” The original suit–already revised and amended once–“more than adequately alleged harm to competition in the market for ebooks” in the booksellers’ view. […]
Penguin Settlement Draws 3 Comments
The Department of Justice filed its required report to the court on Tunney Act comments on the proposed ebook pricing settlement with Penguin–which generated a total of 3 comments. Not unexpectedly, they disagree with Bob Kohn’s latest objections: “Mr. Kohn is not correct that firms may, as a matter of law, conspire to undo what they regard to be anticompetitive conduct. As the United States stated its Original Response to Comments, even if there were evidence to substantiate claims of monopolization or predatory pricing by Amazon, it would not have been acceptable for the Publisher Defendants to conspire with Apple […]
Harper and Open Road, Cont.
HarperCollins and Open Road have both followed their respective motions from mid-March asking for summary judgment in the lawsuit over ebook rights to the late Jean Craighead George’s Julie of the Wolves with reply filings. “Did, too,” Harper asserts in their latest brief; “Did, not,” Open Road responds with vigor. Each side reasserts its case with even finer detail. Since it rests with the judge–there is a reason older ebook rights are termed by many as simply “in dispute”–we’re not sure it’s worth examining the latest arguments in depth, but both filings are attached for those who wish to read […]
Agency Lite Comes to Macmillan, and Begins in the UK As Well
Agency Lite has formally come to Macmillan titles now, after a longer-than-expected delay. Discounts on ebooks beyond what was previously allowed by the publisher can be seen on some of the company’s bestselling titles, such as Silver Linings Playbook (agency price, $9.99; discounted price $7.99); the Shred diet (agency price, $11.99; discounted price $9.99); and Killing Kennedy (agency price, $12.99; selling price $9.99). Price matching on discounts was observed across the three top ebookstores, Amazon, Nook and the iBookstore, though Google Play–often an early and aggressive discounter–seems to still be selling Macmillan ebooks at full agency prices for now. As […]
Court Clears Michael Lewis and Norton on Defamation Charges
Last week New York District Court Judge George B. Daniels ruled in favor of author Michael Lewis and his publisher Norton (as well as hedge fund manager Steve Eisman) in a defamation case brought by Wing Chau over passages in a chapter of THE BIG SHORT. As Judge Daniels notes at the end of the ruling–which reads like a blurb for the book–about Chau, who “was one of the largest CDO managers of sub-prime mortgage-backed securities,” that: “Many now view investments in subprime mortgage bonds, and their subsequent disastrous default, as significantly responsible for the greatest economic crisis since the […]