The five publishers that settled with
the federal government in the ebook pricing case objected to the Dept. of
Justice’s proposed injunction for Apple, in a joint court filing on
Wednesday. They argue that the injunction modifies the settlements that
they already reached with the government, and would punish publishers more than
Apple. Penguin, Hachette, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster and
HarperCollins reached settlements with the DOJ that allow retailers to discount
their ebooks for two years and prohibit most-favored-nation clauses
for five years. Those settlements are already in effect; in fact, retailers
have been discounting HarperCollins ebooks for nearly a year now. DOJ’s
proposed injunction would effectively overturn those settlements by allowing
retailers to discount publishers’ ebooks for five years. “The provisions
[in the injunction] do not impose any limitation on Apple’s pricing behavior at
all,” the publishers write. ”Rather, under the guise of punishing Apple, they
effectively punish the Settling Defendants by prohibiting agreements with Apple
using an agency model.” The proposed injunction “directly conflicts” with the
settlements that the publishers already reached, and “unreasonably and
unnecessarily restrains the Settling Defendants’ independent business decisions
beyond the scope and time provided for in their respective consent decrees,”
they argue. The publishers conclude that the DOJ is “attempting to impose
a specific business model on the publishing industry, despite their express and
repeated representations that they would play no such role.” They ask Judge
Denise Cote, the federal judge overseeing the case, to reject the DOJ’s
proposed injunction.
