Attorneys for all of the settling
publishers (Harper, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House and
Macmillan) jointly filed objections to the DOJ's proposed injunction against
Apple on Wednesday: "Under the guise of punishing Apple, they effectively
punish the settling defendants by prohibiting agreements with Apple using an
agency model." (For the record, they filed together "solely for the
convenience of the Court and in the interests of judicial economy.")
The fundamental arguments -- and even some
of the quotes cited -- will be familiar to readers who remember our Monday
post, About
Last Week. The filing notes that Justice's proposal "would effectively
eliminate the use of the agency model" for ebooks for five years rather
than two. As a result, it "unreasonably and unnecessarily restrains the
settling defendants' independent business decisions beyond the scope and time
provided for in their respective consent decrees."
The objection argues, as we observed
before, that Justice is looking to get now what they sought in their
negotiations with publishers but relinquished in order to make a deal: "In
the year that the original Settlers spent negotiating their settlements with
Justice, the department wanted a five-year ban on agency. But in the binding
settlements they agreed to two years, with certain limitations."
For more on what publishers are objecting
to, visit PublishersMarketplace.com.
Amulet has revealed details
on Jeff Kinney's forthcoming eighth Wimpy Kid book, HARD
LUCK, sporting a lime green cover for its November 5 release. Kinney
says, "As a writer, there's something wickedly satisfying about
putting Greg Heffley under duress, and in the eighth book, Greg suffers a
multitude of indignities. But this time around he has a secret weapon
against the slings and arrows of middle school."
Meryl Streep
will narrate
the audio version of Colm Toibin's THE
TESTAMENT OF MARY, for September release.
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