He who pays the piper....
<an "external monitor" – whose salary would be paid by Apple>
What guarantee is there that the monitor would report on compliance issues if paid by Apple?
The US Department of Justice, fresh from its ebook price-fixing victory over Apple, has proposed a sweeping array of restrictions on Cupertino's content-peddling iTunes Store, along with the appointment of a watchdog to keep an eye on Apple's compliance. "Under the department's proposed order, Apple's illegal conduct will …
The monitor will be employed by the DoJ and Apple will pay the DoJ the costs of the monitor's salary plus any reasonable expenses. Even if Apple convince the DoJ that the monitor is the spawn of Satan and useless at monitoring, that person will still have a job with the DoJ and will be replaced by another DoJ appointed monitor.
"...that person will still have a job with the DoJ..."
How do you know that? I missed that in the article.
If position was filled for temporary, then after it ends, the person would have to wait for another (or post for another job all together). If the job was created specifically, then the position will go through "Reduction In Force" (RiF) and the person will have to post for another position, or take a walk. There are of course temporary assignments, so the best way to fill this job would be to take a temp. assignment to do it. If the person didn't take a temp. assignment to do it, but took it as their normal assignment, then there is no way to know if temporary workers will qualify for temporary assignments...so they would probably walk :-/
There is every reason to see how someone who knows their job is created and funded by Apple would become Apple's bitch. When you factor in the average government worker mentality, they become a sleeping bitch, and they won't wake until their tour is up.
It does say an 'external monitor', i.e. not an employee of Apple. As soon as I'd posted my comment, I thought about adding a line that said, "That's what I'd do if I were the DoJ and I'm assuming the DoJ will be sensible and think about this in the same way." Maybe I've overated the DoJ thinking and forward ability?
>It does say an 'external monitor', i.e. not an employee of Apple. As soon as I'd posted my comment, I thought about adding a line that said, "That's what I'd do if I were the DoJ and I'm assuming the DoJ will be sensible and think about this in the same way." Maybe I've overated the DoJ thinking and forward ability?
I suspect that the position would be filled by a third party lawyer, accountant, or similar professional who has the ability to do the job and the aptitude to not commit contempt of court which would be the authority to which it would report. Similarly, barring successful Apple appeals of such an order, it too would be bound to pay for said 'external monitor'.
And now, Apple is the company that's stopped innovating, and that's trying to maintain Wall Street share value through backroom deals and aggressive litigation.
Kind of a shame really. They were supposed to be different. I guess the biggest shame of it all is that it was Steve Jobs who eventually decided to follow in Bill Gates' footsteps.
Don't kid yourself, they were never the fluffy love hippie collective they portrayed themselves as. Jobs has always been a ruthless megalomaniac. Ask Woz who did the clever computer stuff yet who got the big money.
The punishment for monopolistic behaviour is quite symbolic, it's meant to embarrass as well as break the monopoly which Apple so craves. It's like being made to do PE in their underpants.
Apple's business practices are no worse than any other large firm in any industry. The difference is prior to the iStuff product line they never had a product that got much traction on its own. Its bread and butter money were desktops for academia and they only sold those because of insanely generous financing. Now that they've got major traction the shittiness of their practices is apparent.
But the point is that he tried, which is reasonable if that is what he wants to do, and Woz had the ability to and did refuse. As we know just one version, perhaps we should all shut up and mind our own business.
As to the report according to this Register article:
1. Sounds as if the whole trial is rotten. If a juror started spouting their biassed opinion, they would be dismissed. If a judge does the same, it sounds like the old, Wild West hanging courts and the judge should be dismissed from their job, as being unable to judge the evidence presented to the court dispassionately, honestly and according to current laws on the subject. But then, USA is not strong on justice, just like so many Register commenters.
2. This sounds like a grudge by people in a position to pursue their grudge, a bit like sentencing a mortal man to 300 years in prison without remission. So, when will Google and others get their turn?
3. How does one know that Apple (or anyone else) has run out of new ideas etc.. Perhaps, just possibly, it is difficult to come up better mouse traps every month just because an easily bored public, who can not themselves do it, want it. Perhaps they are developing a brilliant idea, in confidence because they would rather like to get a working, decent version out to earn some money before some shyster takes the ideas, as Google and the iPhone.
4. Perhaps people have got very sad, limited lives if treating firms as if they are your favourite association football team is thought to be either reasonable or productive.
PJI» But then, USA is not strong on justice, just like so many Register commenters.
There is no justice, just us?
I do hope that you not confusing justice with fairness. The former deals with adherence to the law while the latter deals with the distribution of resources and the making of decisons thereof.
"Perhaps people have got very sad, limited lives if treating firms as if they are your favourite association football team is thought to be either reasonable or productive."
Hmmm.
What if you've never had a favourite association football team because you thought it to be indicative of a very sad, limited life and neither reasonable nor productive
Just pondering.
Woz was the brains, Jobs was the front man. It really is that simple.
As far as the trial goes, looking at the proposed penalty I conclude I was right about the trial. This is a hatchet job from folks who are just pissed that Apple has all that money. I never really cared for their computers. I cared even less for Jobs' fascist way of running his company. But it was HIS company and I didn't have to work there or buy his stuff. But for all I dislike his equipment and his methodology, he made his money honestly. Nobody should be able to take money away from a man if he has made it honestly.
@cheveron - >"compare and contrast that with how Gates tried to dilute Paul Allen's stock when he got cancer"
Yup. Tried to knock him down from mega-billionaire status to slightly-less-mega-billionaire status. The cold-hearted bastard! Left Allen with only $15 billion to spend on yachts and helicopters and professional sports teams.
Well, Wozniak's net worth is about $100 million, and he's not done anything noteworthy after his time at Apple. Jobs made many, many smart decisions outside of Apple, and gambled his share up to some billions.
<Shrug> Can't say I really feel Woz got shafted in any real sense of the word.
GJC
This post has been deleted by its author
... the Microsoft they envied...
As for being forced to do PE in their underpants, it's in the sense that (were their crime to forget their PE kit) the immediate problem is worked around, but in the most embarrassing way. Apple would prefer a fine 10x higher but being forced to let other children play with its toys in public will be causing meltdowns. They have institutionally always been about the walled garden so this must really hurt.
Only a moron would compare what Apple did with the level of crimes being done by Wall Street and the banks.
I wonder how many Reg readers have ever bought a SINGLE e-book? I know I haven't, I prefer real books and fail to see the reason why I'd want an electronic book, since I tend to read them one or two at a time and when traveling I don't have to give any concern to whether my paperback is lost/stolen or gets wet or smeared with sunblock at the beach.
The people cheering this ruling on aren't doing so because they're enjoying that huge savings of a dollar or two per e-book (until Amazon successfully monopolizes the industry and raises prices back up) They're doing it because they hate Apple. Its funny how for a certain segment Apple has replaced Microsoft as the most loathed company on Earth. Nevermind what Goldman Sachs or BP does, Apple is worse in their eyes!
"I wonder how many Reg readers have ever bought a SINGLE e-book? I know I haven't"
But no one cares about your opinion of ebooks. Millions of people have bought them, are continuing to buy them, and will buy many more of them in the future.
You may well be right about the rest. Although I don't expect Amazon's neo-monopoly to last either.
Why do you not expect Amazon's monopoly to last? They were selling e-books below the price they paid the publisher, losing money on each one, owning 90%+ of the market, until Apple came in and spoiled their party. Even despite that their market share never dropped below 60%. Presumably now that the FTC has stepped in, Amazon is once again selling books at a loss to try to monopolize the market. Given that they sell e-readers essentially at cost as well, it is impossible for anyone to compete effectively with them unless they are also willing to lose money selling e-books.
Apple has a ton of cash, if they wanted to own the e-book market, they could have sold e-books for $1/each, massively undercutting Amazon and everyone else, as well as all the physical books. This might cost them a few billion a year, but against the tens of billions in profit they make per year, it would hardly be noticeable. This would be far more damaging to the market in the long run but would be entirely legal. Then in a decade once everyone who reads e-books owns an iPad whether they like it or not, Apple could bring the price back to $10/book and it would be too late for competitors to try to move in, since avid readers would already have thousands of books bought through Apple that would not work on competing devices.
This is basically what Amazon's plan is, except they can't afford to price very much below cost since they barely break even, and aren't as widely hated as Apple is.
"This is basically what Amazon's plan is, except they can't afford to price very much below cost since they barely break even, and aren't as widely hated as Apple is."
Which means what Apple SHOULD have done was go direct to the authorities and accuse Amazon of dumping. Why didn't Apple accuse Amazon of dumping to keep out competition?
"Why do you not expect Amazon's monopoly to last? They were selling e-books below the price they paid the publisher, losing money on each one, owning 90%+ of the market, until Apple came in and spoiled their party. Even despite that their market share never dropped below 60%. Presumably now that the FTC has stepped in, Amazon is once again selling books at a loss to try to monopolize the market. Given that they sell e-readers essentially at cost as well, it is impossible for anyone to compete effectively with them unless they are also willing to lose money selling e-books."
Have to say that I'd rather Amazon won by driving prices down than Apple did by driving them up.
After all, e-books are quite cheap to print, store and dispatch so I kind of feel that the saving should result in lower prices rather than increased offshore Apple coffer-filling.
"Yes but where is the incentive for authors if there's just a race to the bottom on price?"
The best (*) authors do very well out of it, just like they did in the paper days.
There isn't a huge incentive for significantly sub-best, just like there wasn't in the paper days.
Some sub-best mistakenly thought that e-books guaranteed winnings, just like lottery tickets.
The problem is that they do. Just like. Which is how lottery companies make their profits.
'"Have to say that I'd rather Amazon won by driving prices down than Apple did by driving them up."
Amazon's price war results in the death of bookshops. That's not a good thing."
Yes. I think I agree. Sort of.
I used to shop at a big out-of-town Tecso. Now I shop at a small, high street Waitrose. Mostly because Tesco p***ed me off, but I've sort of felt better, slightly, for supporting a smaller, local shop.
I've got loads of paper books and a few e-ones. I sort of feel better for supporting either side, but for different reasons. I think I'll be buying more e-books in the future and partly feeling a bit bad about it.
Tricky.
No reason at all ... except for the fact that you can store an entire library-worth of books in your shirt pocket, then carry it around with you wherever you go, and add to your book collection instantly, without even standing up, much less travelling miles to the non-existent book shop (or waiting days for delivery).
Try doing that with my former book collection, ten tonne of dead trees, which took me over a week to pack last time I moved house (and probably contributed over a grand in removal costs).
Did I mention that tens of thousands of these books are out of copyright and thus obtainable legally for free, at Guttenberg and elsewhere, including Amazon? So when was the last time Amazon sent you a free dead-tree book?
But apart from that there's almost no reason to waste your time on these newfangled e-book thingies. You just stick to your parchment and stone tablets and you'll be fine.
Ah yes, I remember book shops. Vaguely. Actually I vaguely remember shops. And high streets - I think we had one of those too.
Try dropping your ebook in a puddle and see if just drying it out will make it readable and repair the broken glass. Try taking it away from a reliable electricity supply for more than a few days, when you forgot to charge it up fully before putting it in your rucsac. Try passing it on to your friend to read or putting it in the charity book sale. Try to imagine that being new, clever, a gadget does not guarantee that it is better in all respects for all people on all occasions.
Why would I be running around in the pissing rain holding a book, of the electronic variety or otherwise? Call me old fashioned, but I generally prefer to sit down when I read, preferably somewhere dry.
Oh, and clearly you've never actually used an e-book reader, because if you had you'd know the battery lasts weeks, not days. That's because they use little or no energy merely displaying pages, only draining power when the display changes.
As for passing it on to a friend, well that's easy, it's called email (or a URL), it's typically instantaneous, and best of all it doesn't deprive you of the book while somebody else is reading it.
Face it grandad, the Victorian era is over.
No, see, give us a story about Sachs or BP or Monsanto or GlaxoSmithKline or Pfizer or Halliburton or Chevron, ad nauseam, and we'll rip the shit out of those evil bastards too.
Today it's Apple's turn, and very well deserved it is too.
See how it works?
Do evil, get burned. No exceptions, not even to keep iCultists happy.
> The people cheering this ruling on ... They're doing it because they hate Apple.
Yep. But this is a tech site, and Apple is (sort of) a tech company. If we want to bash JP Morgue or Goldman Sack, or the rest of the Wall Street banksters, we'll go to somewhere like zerohedge.com or maxkeiser.com.
@Michael Habel - >"I [sic] for One would welcome an order that forced them to make an iTunes Linux App, as well as One for Android."
Would you really want to stick that monstrosity on a Linux installation? I've seen Windows machines where you are better off wiping the drive and re-installing the OS than trying to get iTunes and its dog's-breakfast of co-installed applications to either behave or uninstall properly.
"I've seen Windows machines where you are better off wiping the drive and re-installing the OS than trying to get iTunes and its dog's-breakfast of co-installed applications to either behave or uninstall properly."
I developed an uninstall procedure for that. A step by step list on what to look for, how to uninstall it, when to reboot (again), and importantly - in exactly what order to uninstall it. Not exactly an unpleasant experience, but there were a million other fun things I would rather do.
Then it occured to me, why the f*&k am I installing it in the first place?
I found a third party application that talks to iPods to do the same job (well, better), but that was after reviewing a dozen others before I found one that actually worked properly. I figured if Apple crap was this fussy to work with, I'll go with something else. I bought a regular MP3 player with USB bulk drive support. Later, my new phone did good enough job to replace the separate MP3 player. Haven't looked back since.
I gave away my 80g iPod classic to someone I worked with - he had some apple-specific audio files he couldn't be bothered converting. I don't regret giving it away one bit.
That goes for many newer Apple products, both hardware and software. Which is somewhat sad. Pursuit for perfection has mysteriously stopped halfway.
My biggest disappointment was opening up a Macbook Pro. Cheap blue motherboard, cheap cables, cheap mechanicals. Looked like a $500 Foxconn "generic" notebook.
This post has been deleted by its author
"My biggest disappointment was opening up a Macbook Pro. Cheap blue motherboard, cheap cables, cheap mechanicals. Looked like a $500 Foxconn "generic" notebook."
You're looking at it wrong[ly].
Who (of its intended audience) cares how well it works as long as it looks (in their eyes) "cool" and boast worthy?
Yes I know your right, and I'm surprised that I didn't get more down votes then I did.
OTOH: Though there is NOTHING like iTunes anywhere. Now I'll grant you that ever since the iBone the overall service has declined significantly! But, as a One Stop Music Shop it was and, IMHO continues to be the best One on the Web.
This post has been deleted by its author
""Apple's lawyers called the DoJ's remedy... wildly out of proportion to any adjudicated wrongdoing or potential harm."
Different laywers
One group for IP, one for copyright.
When you try to control what they want to sell stuff for that's monopolies and copyright.
When they want to charge people for stuff they claim to have invented that's IP.
Yes, they can legally hold those funds offshore.
The issue isn't whether it's legal or not, it is that Apple, in this example, are being dicks. It isn't nice to go around being a dick. It is not nice and quite dumb to go being a dick to the US, the planets biggest bully.
Even properly raised children are taught not to take advantage of things, I guess Apple missed those lessons.
........but have a look at who the DOJ are protecting with this ruling? Notice a theme running through the companies named? All fellow US companies? I wonder if the same ruthless justice would be brought to bear if, for example, there were ever anti competetive practices againt a non US company? Let's say, for the sake of argument, Samsung.
I'm sorry but this ruling is nonsense. A race to the bottom in ebooks helps nobody. The current prices seem reasonable reward for all concerned.
I'm not an Apple fanboi but, pre iDevices, the mobile space was nowhere. Fragmented crappy interfaces and fragmented crappy markets. Apple delivered easy to use devices, and stores where you could easily and cheaply buy content. It was a revolution.
eBooks for 99c? How will that help deliver great content? I'm one of those who was fine with the 'net book agreement' in the UK.
Apple's actions harmed nobody. A class action suit is pointless. Free markets don't necessarily make great content available for less money - they mostly make crap content available for less money. The value is seldom in the cheapest products.
Apple are a great business. They have produced devices that people want to buy and which, by and large, work very well. Nobody is compelled to buy them. Would people like them to be different? Perhaps, but then they wouldn't have produced the same devices...
You're fine with the 'net book agreement' in the UK? You accept the stupid e-book VAT charge? I'm not, I think it's ridiculous that I can pay £5.99 and have delivered a 200 page tome, with a nice glossy cover as opposed to £6.50 for a 135kb file.
So for now I will stick to normal books for the ones I pay for and keep using my nook to read the public domain classics, which publishers love charging £10 plus for in paper format.
This has very little to do with apple and a lot to do with the US GOV wanting to work themselves into apples data. They start with the easiest target (books) and move in then set up shop. I think it probably started when apple tried to keep them out of iMessage (don't know what ever became of that one). This is a classic US GOV power move.
You want designer labels, you pay designer prices. Any business is about making profits, the bigger the better. No one forces anyone to buy Apple. I don't, and don't intend to any time soon. What I, or others may think of Apple there are many who are happy to pay their prices. My question is, will people stop buying Apple if their goods are just seen as what they are, high priced shiny consumer products. I think not. Good business for the lawyers on both sides , OK yah.