Apple Inc was filed. The case involved a dispute over the prices of ebooks found within Apple’s iBookstore. The plaintiff, the United States, consisted of 33 states and territories. Apple Incorporation and the five publishers, Hachette, Harpercollins, Macmillan, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster, stood as the defendants. The defendants are known as America’s largest publishing companies and include five out of six companies known as “The Big Six.” The company that did not participate in this illegal activity was Randomhouse. As a result of the scandal, “The Big Six” is now referred to as “The Big Five.” The United States accused Apple of conspiring with these five publishers to raise the price of their e-books for sale on the Apple iBookstore. The participating five companies shared a distaste for Amazon’s approach to pricing ebooks at a flat rate of $9.99, in spite of the fact that the hardcover versions of the same books might be priced …show more content…
In this new agency model the process was reversed. Due to the publisher being able to set the price of their book, they pay the retailer a set price on each of their book sold. The publishers would keep 70 percent of the sale of their book and Apple would receive 30 percent (UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT. United States vs. Apple, Inc. Case 13-374. Page 23. 30 June 2015). This model switch ensured that Apple would earn commision on every sale. Although this was a large concern of Apple’s, the biggest problem was not solved. With publishers being able to set their own preferred prices, Apple feared that they would not be prices that were competitive with Amazon’s solid $9.99 pricing (UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT. United States vs. Apple, Inc. Case 13-374. Page 24. 30 June 2015). Apple’s team saw this problem and created a plan. Their first step was to create price tiers. They knew that realistically consumers would not pay outrageous prices for not top of the line books. This also resulted in “price caps.” The price caps were “$14.99 for hardcover books with list prices above $35; $12.99 for 11 hardcover books with list prices below $35; and $9.99 for all other trade books” (UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT. United States vs.