Following up on the Department of Justice’s revised proposed punishment from Apple’s e-book antitrust case, Apple’s lawyers filed a response this morning claiming the DOJ is trying to give Amazon an unfair advantage on e-books.
Defense attorney Orin Synder said that the DOJ’s 12-page proposal is just trying to find a remedy that will give Amazon a competitive advantage again. Synder had the following to say regarding the DOJ’s proposal that Apple allow App Store developers to sell e-books through their apps without Apple taking a cut:
Apple’s treatment of Apps used for the consumption of digital content on Apple devices is outside the scope of any injunction that might conceivably be entered in this case.
In its response, Apple says it’s totally willing to “apply the same terms and conditions to the sale or distribution of an e-book app through Apple’s App Store as Apple applies to all other apps.” Which means it’s not going to change a damn thing, because it already sells e-books in the same fashion as apps: Apple gets 30% on everything and if you don’t like it, you can shimmy over to Google Play where devs are making jack squat.
Apple hasn’t been completely uncompromising in its response, though. The company has already agreed that it will start having staggered negotiations with publishers to avoid collusion, but Apple wants to speak with publishers on its own schedule, rather than the one proposed by the DOJ.
The note finishes by stating that Apple believes the DOJ proposal will introduce needless regulation and complexity into an emerging marketplace via the addition of an external monitor, because Apple is going devote greater resources toward being antitrust compliant in the future.
Source: GigaOM
