- New York Post, June 18, 2013
Apple threatened to keep the books from one publisher off its iPad because the company wouldn’t agree to all of its demands, a federal court judge was told yesterday.
Random House, the last holdout among major publishers in 2010, had its app killed as part of the tech titan’s hardball tactics while negotiating e-book prices, government lawyers argued.
The publisher only agreed to Apple’s terms once its app was killed, emails from high-ranking Apple executive Eddy Cue, displayed in court, showed.
Cue, the highest-ranking Apple executive to testify, finished up his second day on the stand during the government’s e-book price-fixing trial.
Government lawyers tried to show that Apple was manipulative and conspired with five large publishers to move them away from Amazon’s wholesale model to the Cupertino, Calif., company’s agency model as a way to increase the price of e-books.
The Department of Justice claims the conspiracy between Apple and the publishers robbed hundreds of million of dollars from book buyers by pushing up the price of recent-release books from Amazon’s $9.99 price to $12.99-to-$14.99.
Apple denies the charges. The five publishers have settled charges against them.
Apple is fighting the government in Manhattan federal court. If it loses, it could face lawsuits from state attorneys general.
Apple began its defense yesterday.
Apple argues it never forced deals on publishers, and claims it actually helped consumers by offering premium books — newer and best-selling — that publishers weren’t selling electronically because prices on Amazon, which controlled 90 percent of the e-book market at the time, were too low.
On those books, Apple couldn’t have forced a price hike if they weren’t available in e-book form to begin with, Cue testified.
Eventually, Amazon changed to Apple’s agency model — where publishers and not retailers, set the price of books.
“Wow, we have really lit the fuse on a powder keg,” Apple founder Steve Jobs wrote in one email, after Amazon changed to the agency model.
gsloane@nypost.com
Random House, the last holdout among major publishers in 2010, had its app killed as part of the tech titan’s hardball tactics while negotiating e-book prices, government lawyers argued.
The publisher only agreed to Apple’s terms once its app was killed, emails from high-ranking Apple executive Eddy Cue, displayed in court, showed.
Cue, the highest-ranking Apple executive to testify, finished up his second day on the stand during the government’s e-book price-fixing trial.
The Department of Justice claims the conspiracy between Apple and the publishers robbed hundreds of million of dollars from book buyers by pushing up the price of recent-release books from Amazon’s $9.99 price to $12.99-to-$14.99.
Apple denies the charges. The five publishers have settled charges against them.
Apple is fighting the government in Manhattan federal court. If it loses, it could face lawsuits from state attorneys general.
Apple began its defense yesterday.
Apple argues it never forced deals on publishers, and claims it actually helped consumers by offering premium books — newer and best-selling — that publishers weren’t selling electronically because prices on Amazon, which controlled 90 percent of the e-book market at the time, were too low.
On those books, Apple couldn’t have forced a price hike if they weren’t available in e-book form to begin with, Cue testified.
Eventually, Amazon changed to Apple’s agency model — where publishers and not retailers, set the price of books.
“Wow, we have really lit the fuse on a powder keg,” Apple founder Steve Jobs wrote in one email, after Amazon changed to the agency model.
gsloane@nypost.com
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