Explainer: “Bracing for Another E-book Price-Fixing Case”
From an Article by Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly:
For industry observers, there was a feeling of déjà vu on January 14 when a prominent class-action law firm announced it had filed suit over alleged price-fixing in the e-book market—the second e-book price-fixing suit in a decade. What to make of this new lawsuit? PW has prepared an explainer.
The suit is being brought against Amazon on behalf of three named plaintiffs and a potential class of consumers who bought e-books published by the Big Five “through a retail platform that competes with Amazon at a price inflated by Amazon and its Co-conspirator Publishers’ price restraint.” The suit was filed by Seattle-based firm Hagens Berman, which filed the first e-book price-fixing lawsuit against Apple and five of the then–Big Six publishers in August 2011. And we remember how that turned out: with a federal antirust suit and claims from 33 states. The publishers ended up settling all claims for a total of $166 million in consumer credits. Apple lost at trial a year later and paid out a $450 million settlement.
Read the Complete Article (approx. 1250 words)
Filed under: Companies (Publishers/Vendors), News
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.