Ebook Publishers 'E-void' Antitrust Trial with Settlement Offer

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A federal judge must still approve the proposal, but three ebook publishers have offered to kick in a total of  $69 million to settle an antitrust suit that alleges they attempted to fix ebook prices.

Attorneys general of 54 states and the District of Columbia filed suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, State of Texas, et al. v. Hachette Book Group et al. (Docket No. 12-cv-6625), claiming that Hachette, along with HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster, conspired to "raise the retail price of electronic books"  in violation of the Sherman Act [15 U.S.C. sec. 1] and the Clayton Act [15 U.S.C. secs. 12-27]. The publishers' settlement proposal would reimburse consumers who purchased ebooks from April 1, 2010, to May 12, 2010, at purportedly unreasonably elevated prices, in amounts ranging from 25 cents to $1.32 a book.

If the proposed resolution is accepted by the court, repayment would begin 30 days later. Besides the $69 million to reimburse consumers, the publishers would also bear the burden of legal fees and costs of $7.5 million. Tip of the hat to Courthouse News Service for their coverage of the class action suit.

Palin Publisher Prevails--Putsdown Pugnacious Poster

Image via WikipediaIn HarperCollins, LLC v. Gawker Media LLC (Case No. 10 Civ.-8782), the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York this week sided with the publisher of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's second tome, America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag, against the Gawker blog that published unauthorized excerpts.

The court ordered Gawker to take down the posted excerpts pending a Nov. 30 hearing, but the parties have since settled the dispute, with Gawker promising to keep the Palindrones off its site. The book was released--to bookstores, not the Alaska wild--on Nov. 23.

Gawker had alleged its posting of the Palin segments was protected fair use, a dubious position given the U.S. Supreme Court 1986 decision in Harper & Row Pub. v. The Nation Enterprises (471 U.S. 539), which involved the defendant's pre-publication lifting of roughly  300 words of verbatim quotes from former President Gerald Ford's memoirs. The High Court rejected the fair use defense in the case involving Ford, who like Palin, never served a full-term in office, though through no fault of his own.