Apple’s exposure in a closely-watched price-fixing case over ebooks looks more serious as the CEOs of major publishers — which have already settled with the government — will testify about Apple’s role in the case. Read more at paidContent »
About two months after Macmillan agreed to settle with the Department of Justice, retailers have begun discounting its ebooks. In general, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and the iBookstore appear to be matching each other’s prices, while Google and Kobo aren’t yet discounting in most cases. Read more at paidContent »
Macmillan is paying $20 million to settle the class action and states’ lawsuits remaining against it. Read more at paidContent »
The long-delayed Bookish, a website backed by Hachette, Penguin and Simon & Schuster and designed to promote book discovery and sell books, launched Monday night and is designed to be a one-stop shop for readers looking for their next book. Read more at paidContent »
There’s a brewing conflict over consumers’ rights to use platforms like ReDigi to resell their books, music and other digital property. Now libraries and companies like eBay and Redbox are leading a campaign to pass “You bought it, you own it” laws. Read more at paidContent »
With the ebook pricing settlement recently approved, and the Department of Justice’s trial against Apple, Macmillan and Penguin set to begin next June, Apple has subpoenaed Amazon in a Washington State court. Read more at paidContent »
Last December, the European Commission began investigating Apple and five book publishers for allegedly conspiring to set ebook prices. Now the EC, Apple and four of the publishers have reached a preliminary agreement that largely mirrors the terms of the ebook settlement in the U.S. Read more at paidContent »
Starting in October, libraries will pay an average of 220 percent more for Hachette’s ebooks. Hachette still does not make new ebooks available to most libraries; all the books affected were published before April 2010. Random House increased prices for librairies earlier this year. Read more at paidContent »
States want to give consumers $69 million worth of refunds to compensate them for overpriced ebooks. How much will you get? And how will this affect the publishing industry? Here’s a simple guide to what’s really going on. Read more at paidContent »
Ebook buyers in 54 states and territories are set to receive $69 million in a settlement between the states and HarperCollins, Hachette and Simon & Schuster. Those who bought agency-priced ebooks between April 2010 and May 2012 are eligible for payment if the settlement goes through. Read more at paidContent »
The Department of Justice wants the court to accept its proposed ebook pricing settlement with Apple and book publishers, but presiding Judge Denise Cote is allowing more parties who oppose the settlement — the Authors Guild and attorney Bob Kohn — to weigh in as amici curiae. Read more at paidContent »
In a filing late Wednesday in response to Apple and book publishers, the Department of Justice reiterates its claim that agency pricing and the alleged conspiracy have resulted in “unmistakable consumer harm,” but refuses to release its ebook pricing analysis. Read more at paidContent »
Along with Apple, publishers Penguin and Macmillan and the Authors Guild submitted filings criticizing the DOJ’s proposed ebook settlement on Wednesday. They argue that the DOJ has not provided analysis of Amazon’s ebook pricing and say the settlement goes too far. Read more at paidContent »
New court filings related to an alleged conspiracy between Apple and publishers over e-book prices show the matter may not be resolved until 2014. The filings underscore how the legal system moves at a much slower pace than the fast-evolving e-book market. Read more at paidContent »
The Department of Justice’s trial against Apple, Penguin and Macmillan, who are accused of colluding to fix prices on e-books, will take place in a little under a year, on June 3, 2013, presiding U.S. District Judge Denise Cote ruled Friday. Read more at paidContent »
Penguin, which removed ebooks from libraries and ended its relationship with distributor OverDrive in February, is tiptoeing back into the digital lending waters again. In a 1-year pilot program with OverDrive competitor 3M, Penguin will make ebooks available to the New York and Brooklyn Public Libraries. Read more at paidContent »
This week, the book industry gathered at the ugly, cavernous Javits Center in Manhattan for the largest book trade event in the United States. (“I feel like I’m in Costco,” actress-author Molly Ringwald told the AP.) Here are five digital lessons from the week. Read more at paidContent »
IPG, the Chicago-based distributor that recently made news due to its battle over terms with Amazon, has announced that it will offer its roughly 400 client publishers the option to publish their books DRM-free. Three months ago, Amazon yanked over 5,000 IPG titles from the Kindle […] Read more at paidContent »
Macmillan’s science-fiction/fantasy imprint, Tor/Forge, will launch a DRM-free digital bookstore this summer, Macmillan announced at Publishers Launch BEA today. Sci-fi authors Cory Doctorow, John Scalzi and Charlie Stross also spoke out on DRM. Read more at paidContent »
BookExpo America, the U.S. book industry’s largest trade event, hits NYC next week. Look out for discoverability questions, startups and “Hunger Games” wannabes — and don’t miss the two elephants in the room. Read more at paidContent »
As the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Apple and five big publishers for allegedly colluding to fix e-book prices moves forward, the public has the chance to respond. Here are some of the most interesting letters sent to the DOJ so far. Read more at paidContent »
Penguin and Macmillan, the two publishers fighting the Department of Justice’s e-book price fixing lawsuit in court, have both filed responses to the DOJ suit. Macmillan’s response is shorter and more fiery; Penguin’s is longer, with more colorful details and explainers. Read more at paidContent »
New York, the District of Columbia and fifteen other states have joined the e-book pricing class action suit against Apple, Macmillan and Penguin, for a total of 31. The amended complaint reveals details that were previously redacted, including an e-mail from Steve Jobs. Read more at paidContent »
Macmillan science fiction/fantasy imprint Tor/Forge will sell its e-books DRM-free as of “early July 2012,” the company announced today. Read more at paidContent »
Canadian law firms are filing class-action suits against Apple and book publishers for allegedly colluding on e-book prices. Read more at paidContent »
Nearly two days after the DOJ filed suit against Apple and publishers for allegedly colluding to fix e-book prices, Apple has released a short statement denying the accusations and criticizing Amazon’s “monopolistic grip.” Read more at paidContent »
Our primer to today’s DOJ lawsuit against five publishers and Apple — how we got here and what comes next. Read more at paidContent »
Apple and book publishers already have their hands full after the Justice Department sued them in New York today for allegedly fixing the price of e-books. Now, state governments are seeking their own pound of flesh. Read more at paidContent »
Macmillan is ready to fight the Department of Justice lawsuit against Apple and five big publishers, CEO John Sargent writes in an open letter to the publishing community today. Read more at paidContent »
The Justice Department has at last filed an anti-trust complaint in New York against Apple and five publishers over an alleged price fixing conspiracy. Read more at paidContent »
Updated: IPG’s full memo to publishers on page 2.
Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) has turned off the buy button on nearly 5,000 Kindle titles from dist… Read more at paidContent »
Random House is now the only big six publisher to allow unrestricted access to all of its e-books in libraries — and it said yesterday it w… Read more at paidContent »
$9.99 is often treated as a magic price–the cost of a New York Times bestseller on Kindle back in the good old days, before big-six publish… Read more at paidContent »
The newfound popularity of the e-book is now raising questions over what exactly it will look like in the future, since digital formats allow authors and artists to offer much more than what was possible with the printed page. Social and interactive experiences within the e-book can include not only text but also audio, video or even a combination of all three, and these factors have a direct effect on the evolution of the overall e-book market. In this analysis, we identify six competitive areas of that market that will see large-scale shifts in the near future. Such rapid change will mean that in just four to five years, what a book is and what publishing is will — to many — mean something radically different than it does today. Companies mentioned in this report include Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google and Open Road. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Connectivity changes everything. That’s the credo driving just about every corner of our day-to-day lives. As human beings, we are now connected to one another through not just our social networks but also our cars, the books we read, the albums we download and even our own health and wellness habits (to name just a few areas). With that in mind, GigaOM Pro has singled out certain areas in the technology industry where we see this shift to constant connectivity taking place most drastically. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) is moving from periodic e-book sales (like Sunshine Deals and Big Deals) into regular month-long Kindle promotions (alon… Read more at paidContent »
John Sargent, CEO of book publisher Macmillan, has written a blog post defending his company’s new “agency model” approach to e-book sales through retailers such as Amazon and Apple, but all the post really shows is how desperate Macmillan is to protect its existing business model. Read more »
Amazon is coming under fire for sanctioning Macmillan, after the book publisher said it wanted to raise prices for its e-books. But in reality, Amazon is just doing to the book industry what Apple did to the record labels in the early days of the iPod. Read more »
The emergence of a commercially significant electronic book (e-book) market in the past three years has been the result of two quite-recent technological developments. The first, and most critical, has been a breakthrough in the technology for manufacturing reflective electronic paper displays (EPDs), allowing for the introduction of affordable, lightweight and portable e-book readers such as Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader.
The second has been the rollout of reliable “3G” wireless broadband networks, which have made it possible to deliver digital books directly to reading devices without the intermediate steps of downloading files to a PC and then transferring them to a reader. Direct-to-device sampling and delivery, particularly with Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iPhone, have enabled impulse-driven e-commerce, which has been critical to early consumer adoption of e-books.
The technology for e-books, however, remains nascent. The Kindle and its ilk are very much first-generation devices that deliver the minimally acceptable experience. Further development of the business will be closely tied to future technological developments, including flexible and color displays, format standardization and rich-media applications. As the market grows, there are numerous opportunities for other technology players, from social networks to cloud service providers and more. This report examines the trends and opportunities ahead. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
