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Jul 23 2012
Despite 92% of the 868 received comments opposing the settlement, and most of those against appearing to be very similar to an online form letter, the Department of Justice are not budging on their decision regarding the proposed settlement with Simon & Schuster, Hachette and HarperCollins in its e-book price fixing lawsuit.
Jun 26 2012
Nine independent publishers have combined to file joint comments objecting to the pending settlements of the Department of Justice's lawsuit with Hachette, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster related to e-book pricing. The publishers noted that while they continue to sell e-books under the wholesale model, they have "benefitted significantly"--along with authors, booksellers and consumers,-- from the ability of the Big Six publishers to adopt the agency pricing model with Amazon, since those arrangements, "contributed dramatically to increased competition and diversification in the distribution of e-books."
Jun 26 2012
News Corp is considering a division into two companies, splitting its publishing assets - including HarperCollins, the London Times and The Wall Street Journal - from its entertainment businesses, according to a report in the News Corp-owned Wall Street Journal.
Jun 22 2012
Books-A-Million has joined the growing number of parties objecting to the Department of Justice’s agreement with Simon & Schuster, Hachette and HarperCollins to settle the department’s e-book price fixing lawsuit. BAM’s letter, signed by president and CEO Terry Finley, strikes especially hard at the provisions in the settlement that would impose restrictions on how the publishers can do business with all third parties (including BAM) that were not involved in the lawsuit. If the restrictions on the agency model are upheld, it will “provide Amazon the opportunity to revert to its anti-competitive e-book pricing strategy which will place additional pressure on brick-and-mortar stores," Finley argued.
Apr 11 2012
Three publishers—Hachette, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster—have agreed to a proposed settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice to settle federal claims of price fixing regarding e-books. Publishers Weekly reported today on the broad strokes of the deal, and what it means for the settling publishers (click link at bottom for full story).
Macmillan CEO John Sargent has acknowledged that his company has declined to settle and will fight the litigation. Penguin Group has also confirmed they will fight; and it is expected that Apple will do too.
Penguin Group CEO John Makinson issued a statement saying:
"A responsible company does not choose a path of litigation with US Government agencies without carefully weighing the implications of that course of action [but] we have done nothing wrong. The decisions that we took, many them of them costly and difficult, were taken by Penguin alone."
Speaking about the Justice's filing today he says, "the document contains a number of material misstatements and omissions, which we look forward to having the opportunity to correct in court".
Makinson went on to say that "the agency model is the one that offers consumers the prospect of an open and competitive market for e-books. We understood that the shift to agency would be very costly to Penguin and its shareholders in the short-term, but we reasoned that the prevention of a monopoly in the supply of e-books had to be in the best interests, not just of Penguin, but of consumers, authors and booksellers as well.... The decision we took in January 2010 to move Penguin’s e-book business to agency pricing has been vindicated by the very rapid subsequent growth in the volume of e-books sold by agency publishers, and by the benefit to consumers of the steep decline in the price of e-book readers that that has resulted from this open competition."
Mar 08 2012
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Justice Department has warned Apple and Penguin, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster that it plans to sue them for allegedly colluding to raise the price of electronic books by adopting the agency pricing model. The DoJ has been investigating the issue for months.
3/12 Update: An excellent article summarizing the agency model was published in The Guardian today.
Nov 22 2011
Overdrive, which distributes ebooks to libraries, announced yesterday that Penguin Group USA has instructed them to "disable 'Get for Kindle' functionality for all Penguin ebooks". Penguin also told them that "it is reviewing terms for library lending of their ebooks" and has suspended availability to libraries of new ebook releases.
Publishers have been expressing quiet concern since OverDrive added the ability to download books that could be read on a Kindle in September. One of the sticking points appears to be that it was assumed that Overdrive would serve Kindle compatible files directly to patrons, thus protecting patrons' confidential information (as promised by Overdrive in April). Instead, Overdrive sends patrons to Amazon to complete their transaction.
PaidContent.org comments that that while Penguin "is unusual among the 'big six' publishers in that it allows e-books to be borrowed through libraries at all. Macmillan and Simon & Schuster do not distribute any e-books (new or old) to libraries. Hachette Book Group does not allow new titles to be lent as e-books, and HarperCollins allows new e-books to be borrowed only 26 times before the library has to buy a new copy. This leaves Random House as the only big six publisher currently allowing unfettered access to its e-books through libraries."
Nov 23 Update: OverDrive have announced that Kindle availability for Penguin eBooks has been restored in library catalogs, but new releases remain unavailable.
May 31 2011
The unsecured creditors' committee in the Borders Group bankruptcy has asked the judge in the case not to accept Borders's request for a four-month extension of the mid-June deadline for filing a plan to get out of bankruptcy. The unsecured creditors' committee includes representatives from HarperCollins, Random House and Perseus.
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