Apple settles ebook price-fixing damages lawsuit with US states

Apple has settled out of court with the 33 US states and territories that had been seeking up to $840m in damages for its ebook price-fixing shenanigans. The fruity firm, which was found guilty of engaging in the price-fixing conspiracy with five major book publishers in a separate trial, has always maintained its innocence …

[Crazy Operations Guy]

"filed lawsuits on behalf of their local ebook consumers."

How generous of them... I assume they will also be generous enough to keep the money so we don't have to worry it.

[Robert Helpmann??]

Re: "filed lawsuits on behalf of their local ebook consumers."

I would settle for store credit, say a free book for every two that I bought and paid for. Let Apple make up the difference to the publishers and authors.

[Gis Bun]

Errr

Apple will continue to fight tooth and nail. It is their policy not to lose a court case. :-)

Ok. Question is will the consumer see anything.

[kmac499]

Re: Errr

And presumably a "settled out of court" result means that in the future spokes-persons can claim we were never convicted of such an offence..

I wonder if the DVLA would accept out of court offers in return for no points on a licence..

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Errr

Some courts do - you pay the fine and go to "traffic school", which costs money that goes in the county's pocket and in exchange the ticket doesn't go on your driving record. Sounds like your country is behind the US in this regard!

[Kevin Johnston]

Re: Errr

Oh no, we are there with the 'traffic school' concept and when it was originally launched it was too popular as it was the same cost as the previous fine/points option but this time with no points on the license. It was in fact so popular it only got offered to people who were only just over the speed limit.

Now it is apparently MUCH more expensive than the fine and it is getting close to the bit where it is cheaper to accept the points and the hit on insurance premium rather than to go to 'traffic school'

[John 104]

Re: Errr

@Kevin

And with the already ridiculous insurance rates in the UK, that has to be pretty steep.

[Bob Vistakin]

Re: Errr

Yes, because Apple is never humiliated in public, even when they apologize wrong and are forced to do it again.

[Tom 13]

Re: Question is will the consumer see anything.

Nope. They were never going to despite what all the hypesters put in their political activism pieces.

[W. Anderson]

It is unfortunate that Apple has taken such a draconian and hostile position of not admitting guilt or being willing to pay fines even when their guilt has been proven unequivocally.

This is a dangerous and counter productive policy, and can only lead to a situation when a successful plaintif does not accept "out of court" settlement, and nails the firm to the wall for tens of billions of $$dollars as well as gaining Court Order stopping distribution and sales of Apple's flagship products.

Only then will they realize that their insane attitudes and positions have come ack to seriously and infectiously bite them in the ass.

[James O'Brien]

Careful with the Apple hating

It is libel to get you down voted even though you made a perfectly valid point. Trust me....I know

[Trevor_Pott]

Re: Careful with the Apple hating

It may be liable to get you downvoted, but only homonym misuse is libel to get you downvoted.

[johnnymotel]

really?

"even when their guilt has been proven unequivocally." show me where exactly this is written, because aside from the somewhat biased trial, there are many outsiders who don't agree with Judge Cote's judgement.

[SisterClamp]

Re: really?

The key point being "outsiders".

If you've been following the case (as I have, as I'm in publishing), it's beyond obvious that several meetings were held between publishers and Apple in order to discuss what "they were going to do" about Amazon. They decided on price-fixing. It was in emails, it was in Jobs' book, it was admitted in court. READ THE TRANSCRIPT!

Of course, if you're an "outsider" who hasn't bothered to read up on the case, then I'd agree that you might not agree with Judge Cote.

[Anonymous Coward]

And once again...

...the fines for allegedly 'duping' the consumer wil disappear without a trace in the gouvernment's bottemless coffers while the duped consumer will be left holding their matrimonial apparatus'.

...And Justice for All.