Late Thursday, Cupertino, California-based tech giant Apple formally responded to the lawsuit and corresponding allegations from the U.S. Department of Justice regarding eBook price fixing.
As Mobile Marketing Watch has covered in ample detail this week, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit against Apple and five of the largest publishing houses in the world (Hachette, Harper Collins, Simon & Shuster, Macmillan, and The Penguin Publishing Co. Ltd) alleging that this group engaged in unfair business practices.
Last night, Apple finally reacted to the lawsuit, saying that the company’s iBookstore should be praised, not derided for breaking “Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry.”
“The DOJ’s accusation of collusion against Apple is simply not true,” Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told All Things D. “The launch of the iBookstore in 2010 fostered innovation and competition, breaking Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry.”
“Since then customers have benefited from eBooks that are more interactive and engaging,” he added. “Just as we’ve allowed developers to set prices on the App Store, publishers set prices on the iBookstore.”
Although it remains to be seen what will become of the DOJ lawsuit, most legal experts believe Apple doesn’t stand to lose much if anything at all.
