There is also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L..., so Apple hasn't exactly been free of antitrust legislation in the past...
It has, but it's not really relevant to the case, nor is the employee thing.
Nor I find the court decision particularly correct in that case anyway. Amazon had for over a decade (and still) applies 10000-pound coercion pressure upon the publishers from big monopoly position, yet Apple got the fines because the publishers decided to sell where they'd be allowed a higher selling price instead of the one forced upon them by Amazon's wieght.
If you are arguing that those decisions were wrong, good luck with that. They lost handily in both of the cited cases I picked.
Again, I'm only stating that antitrust is not completely defined by monopoly. That is just the one people think they understand the most.
I don't understand how this is any different than Sony or Nintendo deciding the terms to release games on their hardware. Is it because they charge for dev-kits and Apple doesn't.
Are we certain it's in the public's interest to make development for Apple platforms more restrictive?
This isn't a decided case, such that I don't know what you are asking? Do we have evidence that Sony/Nintendo won't let you be a paying developer? More, do we have evidence that they would let you, but then after possibly benefiting from your efforts, kick you off their platform with no recourse?
I confess I would not be too surprised if we do have some of that evidence, but I haven't seen it. We have seen plenty of shady crap from those companies, but there are material other differences that make them hard to compare.
Amazon was deciding the prices of ebooks and taking a loss selling them below what the publishers were selling them to Amazon. This was hurting the publishers physical books sells. The publishers wanted to control their own prices. But one punisher couldn’t pull their books from Amazon unless they all did.
Apple was working as a go between for all of the publishers and wanted to give the publishers the right to set their own prices and Apple would take a cut. This is where the case came in.
Further, though, you are literally arguing against the laws here. They were not found guilty of being a monopoly. They were found guilty of antitrust violations that included price manipulation in the one case, and wage manipulation in the other.
Apple was found guilty of price manipulation because they wanted to make a deal with the publishers to allow the publishers to set their own pricing instead of Amazon price dumping.
This is all a side discussion, which I confess is fun; but it seems you agree that Apple has been guilty of antitrust violations in the past, without necessarily having had a monopoly. And... that is the entirety of my point that started this branch. :D
More, your argument was that sales of physical books were impacted. But, to show that you would have to be able to actually show it. With book sales continuing to climb, that will be hard to say "but it could have been even bigger!" Indeed, most evidence is that the ebooks were additional sells.
That all said, and I quote your article, "In a major rebuke, a federal judge has ruled that Apple violated antitrust laws..." Again, the point I was raising is that antitrust is more than just monopoly laws.
You can try and argue that the case was ruled incorrectly, but Apple was unable to do that with probably some of the best lawyers that you can get. Appeal was struck down and they were guilty of antitrust. Pretty convincingly.
The publishers sold the right to sell the ebooks to Amazon for $x where $x was greater than $9.99. Amazon sold the ebook for $9.99. Was Amazon trying to make it up in volume?
> More, your argument was that sales of physical books were impacted
If the publisher sold the physical books for $16.99 and the right to sell the ebook for $14.99 to Amazon and then Amazon sold it for $9.99, how could it not be impacted?
> You can try and argue that the case was ruled incorrectly, but Apple was unable to do that
So in that case do you agree that the Epic vs Apple case was ruled correctly?
Again, I'm not really wanting to defend Amazon here. I suspect it wouldn't be hard to find practices of theirs that I disagree with. I am not convinced they are or were breaking antitrust laws, though; by evidence of them not being accused of that.
I don't really have an opinion on the Epic case. Such that that is just another non-sequitur. Apple has been guilty of antitrust violations in the past, despite not having a monopoly. Any other argument can be fun, but is a different argument.
Again did you read the link I posted, the publishers explicitly did not want Amazon selling ebooks below list cost.
> The "suggested retail price" was basically that, a "suggested"
Again you didn’t read the article. There are three prices involved
1. The wholesale price - this is the price that the publisher sells the right to Amazon to sell the book. For example $14.00
2. The suggested retail price could very well be $20.00
A “sale” that the bookstore would do would be somewhere between $14.00 and $19.99. They would not sell the book for $9.99 and lose $5.01
> Any other argument can be fun, but is a different argument.
But yet an argument about Apple being accused of “collusion” about books is somehow relevant to a discussion about a “monopoly” on the app store.
But a lawsuit about App Store where Apple was found not to be a monopoly isn’t relevant about selling an app?
I did read the link. It did not, specifically, call out price dumping. What it called out was that publishers wanted people to value books at more than $9.99. Something that the Best Seller list of Amazon's was undermining. As someone that remembers this as it was happening, I also remember that other ebooks that Amazon was selling were at the suggested price.
Again, you are misrepresenting things. Wholesale price is the price the store paid to get the item. When they are not in the "agency" agreement, they are free to sell the item for whatever they value it at. Higher or lower. After all, the cost they paid is a sunk cost at that point and it may be worth it to move the item at a loss than to continue to store it. You are correct that price dumping resembles that idea, but it is a technically different thing. (I'll note that referring to ebooks as some sort of fixed inventory is silly for many other reasons...)
I don't know how to make it clearer, sadly, and feel you are purposely ignoring all points. An argument about Apple being guilty of antitrust violations despite not having a monopoly is solely an argument about monopoly not being a required factor of antitrust claims.
You have tried to argue that Amazon was actually the monopolist. There are some factual problems with that claim, but it is completely a non-sequitur on whether or not Apple needs to be a monopoly to run afoul of antitrust law. Same with whatever point you are trying to bring in about Epic. It is literally not relevant to the point that Apple may again be running afoul of antitrust rules.
From the article:
> Amazon was actually losing money on e-book sales, but it didn’t care. The long-term goal was to get people to buy its Kindle e-readers.
—-
> After all, the cost they paid is a sunk cost at that point and it may be worth it to move the item at a loss than to continue to store it
You realize the discussion is about ebooks that Amazon was selling at a loss?
My main claim with regards to Amazon is mainly if they were guilty of price fixing, than it would have been pursued. Can you find any legal proceedings that take that charge against them? Heck, if they were guilty of price discrimination, that would likely have been pursued. It has been brought against them, but it has not gone anywhere that I can remember.
The discussion, per the top post of mine in this thread, is over whether or not Apple could be afoul of antitrust. I entered this branch by pointing out that antitrust != monopoly. It is a type of antitrust concern, but it is not the only one. You keep trying to pull up non-sequitur points that don't change that. Apple has been guilty of antitrust law in the past despite not having a monopoly.
If you are worried that Amazon has a monopoly on ebooks, note that their current ebook share is evidently close to what Apple's phone share is in Japan. Which... doesn't look good for your monopoly argument there, to be honest. That all said, I don't think that should change much of the legal issues here.
So exactly how was Amazon making money by selling ebooks at a loss and Kindles at a loss?
And you keep moving the goal posts. At first you claimed that Amazon was and bookstores were selling below suggested retail.
> My main claim with regards to Amazon is mainly if they were guilty of price fixing
No one claimed that Amazon was price fixing. The contention was that Amazon was price dumping to drive competitors out of the market.
What goal post have I moved? It is incoherent to try and argue whether or not Amazon is a monopolist in a thread about whether or not Apple can be held to antitrust concerns. I continue responding as it is a little fun, though I confess I'm growing weary.
The claim of wholesale versus suggested retail is precisely what Apple helped publishers push. Apple conspired with the publishers to force an "agency" model where Amazon could not set the sale price. Contrasted with the outstanding "wholesale" model that they were in before.
You are arguing that Amazon was price dumping and that is specifically not something Amazon has been accused of. They have been accused of loss-leader pricing on the best sellers to get people to buy other books. But that is a different thing, entirely. You seem to think any loss-leader sales are illegal, and that isn't the case. It can look and feel very like predatory pricing, but it is a different thing.
Even worse in a conversation about ebooks you brought up “holding costs” like we were talking about physical books.
i didn’t bring up the Amazon case.
The "holding costs" is precisely why the publishers stuck to the wholesale contract, and is why I brought it up. They kept the same terms and added ebooks to the deal. Then got upset when Amazon took advantage of that. (And... I noted that that is a silly model here.)
And you did bring up the idea that Amazon was a monopolists here. Which I pointed out was incoherent to the topic. Apologies for letting you continue it. :(