Price fixing - the Feds throw the e-book at Apple

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Price fixing - the Feds throw the e-book at Apple

Post by klr » Sat Aug 03, 2013 7:48 pm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23545157
US regulators demand clamp down on Apple e-book contracts

US regulators have called for Apple to be forced to cancel certain e-book contracts with major publishers.

They added Apple should be hit with a five-year ban on entering distribution contracts deemed anti-competitive.

The move follows a court ruling in July that Apple conspired with five firms to fix the price of e-books.

The court found Apple had encouraged publishers to set the price of their e-books, rather than allowing retailers to decide the price.

Prosecutors said this was aimed at Amazon - a rival e-book retailer that charged lower prices than Apple was able to offer.

As a result, Amazon's typical price of $9.99 for a best-seller rose to $12.99 or $14.99 after the launch of the iPad, they said.

Following the court ruling Apple said it would appeal against and fight "false allegations".

The Department of Justice and 33 State Attorneys General submitted their 'remedy' to the court ahead of a hearing on 9 August.

"The court found that Apple's illegal conduct deprived consumers of the benefits of e-book price competition and forced them to pay substantially higher prices," said Bill Baer, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division.

"Under the department's proposed order, Apple's illegal conduct will cease and Apple and its senior executives will be prevented from conspiring to thwart competition in the future."

The regulators also called for Apple to offer links to other e-book retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble for two years, so consumers who bought e-books on their iPads and iPhones could compare Apple's prices with those of its competitors.

They said this would "reset competition to the conditions that existed before the conspiracy".

The publishers who had such contracts with Apple were Hachette Book Group (USA), HarperCollins Publishers L.L.C., Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC, which does business as Macmillan, Penguin Group (USA) Inc. and Simon & Schuster.

Penguin settled its case for $75m (£49m). Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster created a $69m fund for refunds to consumers, while Macmillan settled for $26m.
And as that wasn't enough:
The hammer falls: Feds propose drastic controls on Apple's iTunes Store

Not just ebooks, but also 'music, movies, television shows or other content'

Updated The US Department of Justice, fresh from its ebook price-fixing victory over Apple, has proposed a sweeping array of restrictions on Cupertino's content-peddling iTunes Store, along with the appointment of a watchdog to keep an eye on Apple's compliance.

"Under the department's proposed order, Apple's illegal conduct will cease and Apple and its senior executives will be prevented from conspiring to thwart competition in the future," Bill Baer of the DoJ's Antitrust Division said in a statement announcing the proposed remedy on Friday.

...
continued: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/02 ... nes_store/

Ouch ...
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Re: Price fixing - the Feds throw the e-book at Apple

Post by mistermack » Sun Aug 04, 2013 6:50 am

I sense an imminent gigantic fine for apple from the EU.

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Re: Price fixing - the Feds throw the e-book at Apple

Post by Hermit » Sun Aug 04, 2013 7:08 am

Apple Corp. has always been a relentlessly eye-gouging profit-seeker whose modus operandi is to establish and enforce a monopolistic sales environment for its products. That is why I have never availed myself of the use of any of them, and won't as long as the company's behaviour remains unchanged.
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Re: Price fixing - the Feds throw the e-book at Apple

Post by Seth » Sun Aug 04, 2013 7:12 am

klr wrote:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23545157
US regulators demand clamp down on Apple e-book contracts

US regulators have called for Apple to be forced to cancel certain e-book contracts with major publishers.
Fucking Obama Marxists fucks.

Apple out-competed it's competition. So what? Who cares? Consumers aren't entitled to low prices and the government shouldn't be fucking with the markets to give them low prices.

Free markets and competition would work it all out in short order, and as consumers want.

Meddling fools.
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Re: Price fixing - the Feds throw the e-book at Apple

Post by Seth » Sun Aug 04, 2013 7:15 am

Hermit wrote:Apple Corp. has always been a relentlessly eye-gouging profit-seeker whose modus operandi is to establish and enforce a monopolistic sales environment for its products. That is why I have never availed myself of the use of any of them, and won't as long as the company's behaviour remains unchanged.
In other words, they create outstanding products that are highly popular with consumers because they invest a lot in figuring out what people want and need and then they build it and consumers buy them in droves.

And all the poor pussies who can't compete whine and bitch to the government and get it to sanction one of the most innovative, forward-looking and popular companies on the planet.

Fucking socialist swine.
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Re: Price fixing - the Feds throw the e-book at Apple

Post by Hermit » Sun Aug 04, 2013 7:29 am

Seth wrote:
Hermit wrote:Apple Corp. has always been a relentlessly eye-gouging profit-seeker whose modus operandi is to establish and enforce a monopolistic sales environment for its products. That is why I have never availed myself of the use of any of them, and won't as long as the company's behaviour remains unchanged.
In other words, they create price fixing cartels that short-circuit free and fair competition in the capitalist system.
:fix:

Quite so.
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Re: Price fixing - the Feds throw the e-book at Apple

Post by Seth » Sun Aug 04, 2013 7:53 am

Hermit wrote:
Seth wrote:
Hermit wrote:Apple Corp. has always been a relentlessly eye-gouging profit-seeker whose modus operandi is to establish and enforce a monopolistic sales environment for its products. That is why I have never availed myself of the use of any of them, and won't as long as the company's behaviour remains unchanged.
In other words, they create price fixing cartels that short-circuit free and fair competition in the capitalist system.
:fix:

Quite so.
Cartels and monopolies only exist where GOVERNMENT supports and authorizes them. In a free market, either someone comes along with a better mousetrap or they don't, and that's driven completely by the demands of consumers. If a monopolist drives the price up too high, consumers will find something else to spend their money on.

Dominating the market is a normal function of the free market, and if it gets out of control, consumers fix it.

Government just fucks it up much worse.
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Re: Price fixing - the Feds throw the e-book at Apple

Post by Cormac » Sun Aug 04, 2013 8:05 am

Seth wrote:
Hermit wrote:
Seth wrote:
Hermit wrote:Apple Corp. has always been a relentlessly eye-gouging profit-seeker whose modus operandi is to establish and enforce a monopolistic sales environment for its products. That is why I have never availed myself of the use of any of them, and won't as long as the company's behaviour remains unchanged.
In other words, they create price fixing cartels that short-circuit free and fair competition in the capitalist system.
:fix:

Quite so.
Cartels and monopolies only exist where GOVERNMENT supports and authorizes them. In a free market, either someone comes along with a better mousetrap or they don't, and that's driven completely by the demands of consumers. If a monopolist drives the price up too high, consumers will find something else to spend their money on.

Dominating the market is a normal function of the free market, and if it gets out of control, consumers fix it.

Government just fucks it up much worse.

Unfortunately, that model, like many an economic model, doesn't really work in reality. The concept of an "efficient market" is a theoretical construct, which ignores many factors.

Mind you, the flip side, taken by Marxists, that you can centrally plan and control an economy, is every bit as fallacious.
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Re: Price fixing - the Feds throw the e-book at Apple

Post by Hermit » Sun Aug 04, 2013 8:25 am

Seth wrote:
Hermit wrote:
Seth wrote:
Hermit wrote:Apple Corp. has always been a relentlessly eye-gouging profit-seeker whose modus operandi is to establish and enforce a monopolistic sales environment for its products. That is why I have never availed myself of the use of any of them, and won't as long as the company's behaviour remains unchanged.
In other words, they create price fixing cartels that short-circuit free and fair competition in the capitalist system.
:fix:

Quite so.
Cartels and monopolies only exist where GOVERNMENT supports and authorizes them. In a free market, either someone comes along with a better mousetrap or they don't, and that's driven completely by the demands of consumers. If a monopolist drives the price up too high, consumers will find something else to spend their money on.

Dominating the market is a normal function of the free market, and if it gets out of control, consumers fix it.

Government just fucks it up much worse.
You got that one arse about face. In the real world of free market nothing stops major companies from conspiring to artificially inflate prices and keep competitors out of offering the products they do. In this case we're looking at copyrighted publications and involves several book publishers who own the copyrighted products and a mega-sized seller of them. It takes government action to break such cartels up. A free market, if it is truly free, simply does not - and cannot - prevent the development of monopolistic, anti-competitive business practice without breaching principles involving private property in general and copyright in particular.

Thus, if you want to buy an e-book the copyright of which is owned by Penguin, Macmillan or one of the other three publishers that have agreed to sell only through Apple Corp at a price they determine to their mutual benefit, and exclude, say Amazon from selling the same product at a more reasonable but still profitable rate, the consumer has no choice, except to either buy the product at an unreasonably inflated price that is not subject to supply and demand, or not to buy it at all. In that case the "free market" is as dead as a dodo until a government busts the cartel up.

Thus endeth the first lesson in Monopoly Capitalism 101.
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Re: Price fixing - the Feds throw the e-book at Apple

Post by klr » Sun Aug 04, 2013 11:30 am

Hermit wrote: ...
A free market, if it is truly free, simply does not - and cannot - prevent the development of monopolistic, anti-competitive business practice without breaching principles involving private property in general and copyright in particular.

Thus, if you want to buy an e-book the copyright of which is owned by Penguin, Macmillan or one of the other three publishers that have agreed to sell only through Apple Corp at a price they determine to their mutual benefit, and exclude, say Amazon from selling the same product at a more reasonable but still profitable rate, the consumer has no choice, except to either buy the product at an unreasonably inflated price that is not subject to supply and demand, or not to buy it at all. In that case the "free market" is as dead as a dodo until a government busts the cartel up.

Thus endeth the first lesson in Monopoly Capitalism 101.
Exactly. Left unchecked, many markets will naturally tend towards price fixing, cartels or outright monopoly situations. That's why strong regulatory oversight is required.
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Re: Price fixing - the Feds throw the e-book at Apple

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Sun Aug 04, 2013 11:34 am

klr wrote:Exactly. Left unchecked, many markets will naturally tend towards price fixing, cartels or outright monopoly situations. That's why strong Communistic domination of the free market is required.

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Re: Price fixing - the Feds throw the e-book at Apple

Post by Cormac » Sun Aug 04, 2013 11:45 am

klr wrote:
Hermit wrote: ...
A free market, if it is truly free, simply does not - and cannot - prevent the development of monopolistic, anti-competitive business practice without breaching principles involving private property in general and copyright in particular.

Thus, if you want to buy an e-book the copyright of which is owned by Penguin, Macmillan or one of the other three publishers that have agreed to sell only through Apple Corp at a price they determine to their mutual benefit, and exclude, say Amazon from selling the same product at a more reasonable but still profitable rate, the consumer has no choice, except to either buy the product at an unreasonably inflated price that is not subject to supply and demand, or not to buy it at all. In that case the "free market" is as dead as a dodo until a government busts the cartel up.

Thus endeth the first lesson in Monopoly Capitalism 101.
Exactly. Left unchecked, many markets will naturally tend towards price fixing, cartels or outright monopoly situations. That's why strong regulatory oversight is required.

Correctamundo.

Except, more often than not, regulations are as wrongheaded as the "efficient market".
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Re: Price fixing - the Feds throw the e-book at Apple

Post by mistermack » Sun Aug 04, 2013 2:02 pm

A true market is one where the man in the street can set up a stall, without trillions of capital.
Once the entry to the market gets any bigger than that, then it's wide open to corruption.

Actually, even small local markets get corrupted, as the stall-owners get together, or just observe and adjust to the competitors' prices. Anybody trying to undercut gets squeezed. So price-fixing of markets is as old as the hills.

It seems odd that the US govt haven't fined Apple. They seem to have got off very lightly, compared to the treatment of European companies by the US. The EU should get in there with a huge fine on Apple. You have to have parity.
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Re: Price fixing - the Feds throw the e-book at Apple

Post by klr » Sun Aug 04, 2013 2:08 pm

mistermack wrote:A true market is one where the man in the street can set up a stall, without trillions of capital.
Once the entry to the market gets any bigger than that, then it's wide open to corruption.

Actually, even small local markets get corrupted, as the stall-owners get together, or just observe and adjust to the competitors' prices. Anybody trying to undercut gets squeezed. So price-fixing of markets is as old as the hills.

It seems odd that the US govt haven't fined Apple. They seem to have got off very lightly, compared to the treatment of European companies by the US. The EU should get in there with a huge fine on Apple. You have to have parity.
Barrier to Entry is indeed one of the key forces in competition, and entrenched operators will do all they key to make the barriers to new entrants as difficult as possible, if not impossible.
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Re: Price fixing - the Feds throw the e-book at Apple

Post by Collector1337 » Sun Aug 04, 2013 7:01 pm

Fuck Apple and there fucking shitty garbage products.

I'm proud to say I've never owned an Apple computer and it makes me even happier saying it out loud.

Their products are just plain shitty. It goes to show what stupid sheep people are that they are actually stupid enough to buy overpriced and largely proprietary shit. I could never do on a Mac what I can do on my PC. But, don't consider this an endorsement of Windows or Microsoft either.

I can forgive someone for owning an ipod, but a Mac computer or an ipad is unforgivable.

Apple will never see a fucking dime of my money. Their products are for idiot amateurs who don't know what their doing, except for audio/video editing, maybe. But my buddy, who's a professional video editor, who used to use a Mac, now uses a PC because he said the new software is too amateurish and not professional. He said lots of people are switching. So Apple sucks so bad, they are even losing out on the professional editing market which they used to have a solid hold on.
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