As rumored this morning, the US has officially sued Apple, Hachette SA, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster, claiming the companies attempted to fix the price of ebooks. The suit comes as Apple and Macmillan have refused to talk to the DoJ about settling, which means this could end up a battle in court.
The fight comes from Apple supporting a shift to the “agency model” of ebook pricing, where publishers set the price and Apple takes 30% off the top — but demands that a lower price not be offered anywhere else. This is at odds with the previous model, where the seller — say, Amazon — purchases the books at a low price, and then sells them for whatever they want, occasionally at a loss.
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