Three of the five accused eBook publishers already settled with the U.S. Department of Justice, but Macmillan and Penguin chose to also fight the Department of Justice along with Apple. All five publishers are accused of meeting in a London hotel to discuss raising the price of eBooks—a meeting that Apple was absent from. This is why Apple said it did not do anything wrong. However, the real kicker that comes into play is that Apple’s move to let publishers set their own prices, and it is a requirement that publishers do not sell their digital books for cheaper elsewhere, forced consumers to pay millions more for eBooks than they should have. The Department of Justice said this created a monopoly for Apple. However, as previously stated, Apple firmly disagreed:
Today, Apple also said this sends the wrong message to the market: “For Apple to be subject to hindsight legal attack for a business strategy well-recognized as perfectly proper sends the wrong message to the market.”
It will be interesting to see where this case goes over the next few months. Even if Apple does not come out victorious, it will only have to pay a small speeding fine of $200 million, especially considering the company has a whopping $100 billion in cash. The next hearing is June 22.
