Earlier this week, the Department of Justice officially charged Apple and a number of publishers with colluding to fix ebook prices. Apple has now issued a response, talking to AllThingsD. Spokesperson Tom Neumayr said:
The DOJ’s accusation of collusion against Apple is simply not true. The launch of the iBookstore in 2010 fostered innovation and competition, breaking Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. Since then customers have benefited from eBooks that are more interactive and engaging. Just as we’ve allowed developers to set prices on the App Store, publishers set prices on the iBookstore.
Short and sweet, but we’ll see how it holds up in court. As Kafka at AllThingsD notes, while ebook and apps are priced in this way, music sold through iTunes is not — there Apple buys the songs wholesale, and sets the price themselves.
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