LAWSUITS NEWS & LEGAL INFORMATION
Publishers Reach Settlement Agreement over eBook Pricing Lawsuit
Los Angeles, CA: A $69 million settlement has been reached in a lawsuit brought by US states and territories against Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster over ebook pricing. According to Publishers Weekly, if the agreement receives court approval, Hachette will pay $31,711,425, HarperCollins will pay $19,575,246, and Simon & Schuster will pay $17,752,480. The agreement includes fees and other costs to be paid by the publishers.
The lawsuit centered around agreements made between publishers and Apple to move away from the industry's traditional wholesale-retail model, in which retailers set the price of ebooks, to an agency model, in which the ebookstores served as agents that earned a percentage of each sale, allowing publishers to decide how much their ebooks would cost. Publishers who wanted to sell with Apple moved to a similar model with Amazon.
The settlement translates, at least to consumers, into refunds for ebooks purchased between April 1, 2010, and May 21, 2012, that had been priced according to the agency model.
According to report in the LA Times publishers will $1.32 for each bestselling title purchased by a consumers, 32 cents for books that were less than a year old but not bestsellers, and 25 cents for older e-books.
Refunds will appear in e-book buyers' online accounts on iTunes, Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Readers who purchased e-books through Google or Sony's storefronts will receive a check, and others can opt to. They can also opt not to receive any rebate at all.
Published on Sep-3-12
The lawsuit centered around agreements made between publishers and Apple to move away from the industry's traditional wholesale-retail model, in which retailers set the price of ebooks, to an agency model, in which the ebookstores served as agents that earned a percentage of each sale, allowing publishers to decide how much their ebooks would cost. Publishers who wanted to sell with Apple moved to a similar model with Amazon.
The settlement translates, at least to consumers, into refunds for ebooks purchased between April 1, 2010, and May 21, 2012, that had been priced according to the agency model.
According to report in the LA Times publishers will $1.32 for each bestselling title purchased by a consumers, 32 cents for books that were less than a year old but not bestsellers, and 25 cents for older e-books.
Refunds will appear in e-book buyers' online accounts on iTunes, Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Readers who purchased e-books through Google or Sony's storefronts will receive a check, and others can opt to. They can also opt not to receive any rebate at all.
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