DOJ Alleges Apple E-Book Price Fixing Scheme

Image: PBS.org

In what promises to be the opening salvo of a long, interesting courtroom war, the unsequestered Department of Justice alleged Apple masterminded an e-book pricing scheme in coordination with major publishers.

The filing's details are noted in today's Washington Post. Up to now, Apple has fought the DOJ's broadside tooth and nail. The Post article noted that Apple, its court filing, asserted that "Amazon...spoke in detail to publishers who at one point offered an exclusive arrangement that would cut out Apple" from the e-book market.

The court case should be fascinating, especially as Apple's deep pockets could give the DOJ a run for Amazon's money.

The Justice Department, "Big Six" Publishers, and Amazon

Shakespeare?

In what must have been this year's world's worst kept secret, the Justice Department (DOJ) finally came out and publicly accused five of New York's "Big Six" publishers of collusion. The epicenter for the alleged illegal activity was e-book pricing, with "consumers" as the ostensible victims. Three of the five publishers are reportedly intent on settling with the DOJ, with Apple, Pearson, and Macmillan determined to have their day in court.

Notably, the European Commission has pursued a more or less parallel case. Rumors of settlements in that action have been reported.

The DOJ's brief, part of which I read this morning courtesy of a Financial Times link, is at times unintentionally funny. Its citing of Mafia-like dinners in a New York restaurant, the name of which was misspelled in the DOJ brief, bordered on something from a plot-challenged movie. However, the DOJ's intent to "help consumers" is serious stuff. The question is whether the legal action will, in fact, aid e-book buyers. It will certainly help Amazon, whose race to the price bottom is motivated by monopolistic intent and the firm's CEO's desire to hijack an industry.

Well, what would happen if Amazon combined monopolistic distribution clout of "book-style content" with publishing ambitions? If your answer is "nothing good," you're on the right track.

What the DOJ announcement signified was something far more momentous than allegations of a tawdry criminal conspiracy in what was once a genteel business. It signalled the triumph of the tech world, its data collection capacity, the value of bits and bytes over mere words, and the "rationalization" of the distribution of what was once called "the printed word." Do you think this is a desirable outcome?

MIchael S. Hart Obit, Project Gutenberg, E-books, and Intellectual Liberty

Michael S. Hart (left side of photo), widely noted as the first producer of e-books, passed away this week. During his life, Hart advocated for or spawned far-reaching, disruptive digital initiatives. The most significant of them was Project Gutenberg, which provided somewhat crude digital copies of intellectually significant books and other important cultural documents available in the public domain.

His influence was something insiders knew and often, though not always, understood. In reading various obits about Hart, one is struck at the difference between blog entries from those who actually knew Hart and cared about his work, versus the mainstream media's versions (the insincerely written one by The New York Times' annoyingly ambitious William "Biff" Grimes is a prime example). This dichotomy seems entirely in keeping with Hart's perspective on access both to knowledge and to the means of communicating about it. Hart, unlike tech sacred cows such as Steve Jobs, strongly believed in free access to information. Google's founders believe in the buying and selling of data traffic patterns in its "free" search engine. Hart would not have signed on for that concept.

In fact, judging from blog anecdotes about Hart, his notions of radical change probably made Silicon Valley hipsters and libertarian ideologues squirm. In a moment of sublime irony, as Nate Anderson noted in Ars Technica, the agents of libertarian icon Ayn Rand tried to compel Project Gutenberg to cease distributing her work Anthem. He refused, citing the work's availability in the public domain. Hart was also, by all accounts, virtually uninterested in making money from his activities. The vulgar notion of "monetizing" his revolutionary road had absolutely nothing in common with his idea of freeing humanity from the shackles he perceived were binding it.

In fact, Project Gutenberg's mission, according to Hart's biography in Wikipedia, is as follows:

Encourage the Creation and Distribution of eBooks

Help Break Down the Bars of Ignorance and Illiteracy

Give As Many eBooks to As Many People As Possible

In Hart's The History and Philosophy of Project Gutenberg, he insisted that eBook documents be written in ASCII code so that the works could be easily copied and transmitted. That precept has been maintained, with a couple of recent exceptions, throughout the project's life. One wonders what Hart thought about the app phenomenon and its impact on access to what feeds the mind.

The more I read about Hart, the increasingly fascinating his life is for me. A man of action, he believed in tangible accomplishment. He also had the advantage of being something of an outsider (although the insiders were and are keenly aware of him and his impact). In that sense, Hart reminds one of painters, writers, scientists, philosophers, and political thinkers (yes, they really do exist) whose works have opened new doors of perception and expanded our opportunities for intellectual and personal liberty.

It is certainly worth your time to learn more about Hart. In addition to the links already cited, the following posts offer useful insights into Hart's life, personality, and interests:

Glyn Moody's excellent post in Computer World UK

Nat Torkington's personal reminiscence in the tech publication O'Reilly Radar

Brewster Kahle's touching post

Reader comments from Slashdot.org's brief obit

Reflections from TechCrunch printed in sfgate.com (let's hope TechCrunch gets away as rumored from Arianna Huffington's unwelcome grip as soon as possible)

And last, but certainly not least, Hart's obit by his friend and Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation CEO Dr. Gregory Newby, who is next to Hart in the photo at the top of this post.

Facebook Acquires Innovative E-Book Publisher Push Pop Press

Push Pop Press, hailed for its genuinely interactive Al Gore book Our Choice, just received an offer from Facebook it could not refuse. As a consequence, the e-book publisher's two founders announced they "were setting off to help design the world's largest book -- Facebook." That's pretty good work, considering the acquisition was made on the basis of one completed e-book and some sexy beta test results.

However, as an April 2011 Podcasting News (PN) story noted, the gold in Push Pop's hills emerges when one examines its "underlying publishing platform." The PN writer, James Lewin, noted its features:

* Easy to Publish -- Layout and publish interactive digital books without writing code

* Mixed Media -- Tell rich stories using text, images, audio, video, images and interactive graphics

* Interactive graphics -- Embed interactive graphics that use the microphone, accelerometer, and more

* Multi-Touch User Interface -- Edge-to-edge content, without any distracting toolbars or buttons

* Visual Table of Contents -- Browse through hundreds of pages quickly and easily

* Pages Load Instantly -- Pages load as fast as your finger can swipe

* Start Reading Immediately -- Start reading the first chapter as the rest of the book downloads in the background

* Updatable Content -- Update your content without having to update the app

* iPad, iPhone & iPod Touch -- Publish one universal app that can be read on an iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

The San Jose Mercury News offers a brief, coherent story about the acquisition announcement, and is one of the few articles that notes Push Pop's founders' former employment with Apple. Earlier this year, Wired published a useful piece on the firm's guiding lights and their ambitions. (The above image originally appeared in Wired and shows Push Pop's founders Kimon Tsinteris and Mike Matas.) The TED video linked here shows Matas's address to a March, 2011 Long Beach, California conference in which he introduces the Gore book and its features.