Penguin has found Tunney Act grounds of its own to object to the ebook settlement pending with three other publishers: “Here it is: The Emperor has no clothes.” They reason that the core of the government’s case–and the focus of their proposed remedies–is that the agency model caused ebook prices to rise. “Yet the Government has offered no empirical proof to clothe this claim. Rather it has represented to this Court and the public, pursuant to their Tunney Act obligations to disclose ‘determinative documents,’ that there are none, not even pricing studies.” If there are, and if the government has a […]
Legal
Apple Says The eBook Settlement Penalizes Them Prior to A Trial and “Is Fundamentally Unfair”
Apple argues to Judge Denise Cote within the mandated five-page limit that the proposed ebook pricing settlement denies them due process, since they are going to trial on the charges–but the settlement “seeks to terminate and rewrite Apple’s bargained for contracts, before a single document has been introduced into evidence, before any witness has testified, and before the Court has resolved the disputed facts.” They add that: “The Court’s decision would be irreversible. Nullifying a non-settling defendant’s negotiated contract rights by another’s settlement is fundamentally unfair, unlawful, and unprecedented. The Government does not cite a single case in which such […]
Court Finds Georgia State University the “Prevailing Party” In Fair Use Case and Awards Them Legal Fees
Last Friday, US Northern District Judge Orinda Evans clarified the ambiguous May ruling in the closely-watched copyright infringement case originally brought in 2008 against Georgia State University. Ruling on the relief for the five cases of copyright infringement in May’s 350-page ruling, Judge Evans essentially declared GSU the real winner in the case, ordering the plaintiffs to pay their legal fees. Which raises an interesting question that no one has been able to answer for us yet: Though the case was brought by Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and SAGE Publications, the legal costs of trying the case have […]
Kohn Argues That DOJ Showed Amazon Engaged In Predatory Pricing, And Publisher Response Has to be Legal
Attorney and entrepreneur Bob Kohn continues to aggressively challenge the Department of Justice’s ebook price-fixing case, asking Judge Denise Cote in a series of filings Monday for permission to file an amicus curiae brief of 25 pages (plus an appendix of 12 additional pages), in specific reply to the DOJ’s responses to the public comments. Kohn adds to the calls from other parties for the Judge to hold a hearing before ruling, arguing that to determine if the settlement “is in the public interest, it would be perverse if this decision were made without a public hearing.” He also asks […]
Judge Cote Limits Apple’s Settlement Comment to Five Pages, Will Rule On Settlement After Motions Are “Fully Submitted”
The trickle of insights into Judge Denise Cote’s impatience with all parties in the ebook pricing settlement continues, with a brief order from Tuesday. She was answering Apple’s request to file 10 pages of additional “views” by August 15 instead of staying within the clear 5-page limit Judge Cote already specified (denied), as well as their request for a hearing on the settlement. As we suggested yesterday, anyone aspiring to file additional remarks should take the seriousness of the Judge’s 5-page limit to heart. As also noted previously, it is at the Judge’s discretion whether or not to hold a […]
Judge Cote Approves Booksellers’ Request–But Won’t Let Them Say Anything Else
On Monday, Judge Denise Cote agreed to the joint request by the ABA and Barnes & Noble to file a friend of the court brief regarding the ebook pricing settlement. But, since the motion from the booksellers itself already “contains five pages of substantive arguments,” and Judge Cote has already set a strict five-page limit on the parties to the ligitation for any responses to the government’s filings, she will not accept any additional material from the ABA and BN. In other words, the arguments they made in asking to file a new brief have been accepted–as the brief itself. […]