Oh, Yeah, DOJ is Still Suing Apple over E-Books

Back in February, Macmillan threw in the towel and settled with the DOJ over accusations of collusion in e-book pricing. Macmillan was the last publisher trying to defend its practices but it wasn't the last defendant. That honor goes to Apple, which was accused in the suit of being in collusion with the publishers. Apple has not settled and is now defending itself in court.

Of course, Apple claims that it was not in collusion and is calling various publishers' representatives to testify about that. Unfortunately for DOJ it sounds like their own witnesses - also from the publishing houses - are making Apple's case by agreeing that there was contention between Apple and the publishers over how e-books would be priced. It seems clear that everyone was out to destroy Amazon's 9.99 price barrier, but I'm not enough of a lawyer to know if that agreement alone will be sufficient to sustain the government's contention.

Anyone who is surprised that Amazon "acted like a bully" toward publishers please raise your hand. You're new here, aren't you?

As Shara Tibken noted, the publishers are going to argue that they went to Apple more or less out of necessity. Amazon, in its turn, is going to claim that it was forced to do this or that by the big bad publishers and you know what? The whole lot of them remind me entirely too much of misbehaving kindergartners. I have absolutely no sympathy for any of the parties in this mess.