Linked List: April 11, 2012

Wednesday, 11 April 2012

Macmillan to Fight Price-Fixing Suit ★

Macmillan CEO John Sargent:

It is also hard to settle a lawsuit when you know you have done no wrong. The government’s charge is that Macmillan’s CEO colluded with other CEO’s in changing to the agency model. I am Macmillan’s CEO and I made the decision to move Macmillan to the agency model. After days of thought and worry, I made the decision on January 22nd, 2010 a little after 4:00 AM, on an exercise bike in my basement. It remains the loneliest decision I have ever made, and I see no reason to go back on it now. […]

I hope you will agree with our stance, and with Scott Turow, the president of the Author’s Guild, who stated, “The irony of this bites hard: our government may be on the verge of killing real competition in order to save the appearance of competition. This would be tragic for all of us who value books and the culture they support”.

That’s Our Apple ★

Love this bit from the WSJ’s report on the e-book price-fixing case:

Amazon hailed the settlement as a victory for consumers and users of its Kindle e-reading device. “We look forward to being allowed to lower prices on more Kindle books,” Amazon said.

Apple declined to comment.

Inside the DOJ’s E-Book Price-Fixing Case Against Apple ★

Nilay Patel:

We just got our hands on the DOJ’s antitrust complaint against Apple and seven major publishers, including HarperCollins, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan, and it’s rather something: the government alleges that the publishing industry openly colluded to raise ebook prices and end Amazon’s dominance, and that Apple was a willing participant in the scheme. What’s more, the alleged conspiracy sounds like it was actually quite a conspiracy, with secret CEO meetings in private New York dining rooms and promises made to bosses up and down the chain.

I’m not sure what to think about this. Seems like the DOJ has a solid case on its hands, but before the iBookstore opened, Amazon had a stranglehold on the e-book market. Prices are higher today, but that’s because Amazon was selling those $9.99 Kindle titles at a loss.

TextWrangler 4.0 ★

Nice update to BBEdit’s free sibling. See the release notes for all that’s new.