E-book price fixing settlement approved by judge

Here’s an update on the on-going case of e-book price fixing that is alleged to have been carried out by several major publishers as well as Apple. The argument from the US Department of Justice has been that the publishers were actively working to stop Amazon discounting e-book prices, effectively attempting to push up the prices of e-books.

A settlement was approved by a US federal judge on 6th September 2012 with regards to three of the publishers involved in the lawsuit: Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins and Hatchette. They had already agreed back in April that they would refrain from stopping retailers from setting e-book prices as well as ending their deals with Apple, and now a $69m settlement with the US DofJ has been reached.

The money from the settlement is set to be used to compensate people who purchased e-books between the start of April 2010 and May 21st of this year.

Meanwhile, Apple still denies the charges that have been bought against the company and, along with two other publishers – Macmillan and Penguin – is still fighting the case. They argue that the agency model of pricing books, which allows publishers to set prices and distributors to take a cut of sales, is the best option. However, the US Department of Justice argues that the wholesale model that allows retailers to set prices is better in terms of competition.

This is a debate that is set to run for some time, as it looks as though appeals could well be lodged against the approval of the settlement (including perhaps by Apple), so I’m sure we’ll return to the topic again. In the meantime, you can read more about the case and the settlement here, and do feel free to share your thoughts on the subject in the comment box.