The Department of Justice has filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Apple, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster. The Attorney General said:
As a result of this alleged conspiracy, we believe that consumers paid millions of dollars more for some of the most popular titles. We allege that executives at the highest levels of these companies–concerned that e-book sellers had reduced prices–worked together to eliminate competition among stores selling e-books, ultimately increasing prices for consumers.
The DOJ has also approved a settlement with Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster, “and would require the companies to grant retailers–such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble–the freedom to reduce the prices of their e-book titles.”
The New York Times has an interesting article on the what was going on behind the scenes in the seedy underworld of publishing. Yeah, I don’t know if it’s seedy, but it sounds better.
Publishers, looking for leverage against Amazon, saw Apple as their white knight. The Justice Department complaint, using language that could have been inspired by a best-selling white-collar crime novel, describes how executives from the publishing companies met to discuss business matters “in private rooms for dinner in upscale Manhattan restaurants,” tried to hide their communications by issuing instructions to “double-delete” e-mails, all the time complaining of Amazon’s increasing influence over the e-book market.
Amazon immediately lowered prices on many of its popular titles.