Apple, the Mastermind, Guilty

News is hitting the wires today that Federal judge Denise Cote has found Apple guilty of colllusion to fix e-book prices. That's surprisingly fast, to me. Less than a month ago we saw Apple trying to paint Amazon as the bad guy but apparently Cote was having none of that.

According to the WIRED piece (I haven't read the opinion yet) she found that not only did Apple collude with the publishers, it was the brains behind this scheme:

“Without Apple’s orchestration of this conspiracy, it would not have succeeded.”

Ouch. Macmillan, which held out the longest of the publishers before settling, also apparently comes in for special criticism. Cote appears to believe that Macmillan gave Amazon an "our way or the highway" ultimatum and that when Amazon saw the other publishers would stand with Macmillan, Amazon gave in.

This verdict is far from the end of the story, though. Apple will undoubtedly appeal and there will be a separate trial for damages. I don't suppose that anyone's going to notice Amazon got a big sloppy wet love-kiss from the DOJ settlement.