It was reported that Penguin has settled with the US Department of Justice on the price fixing eBook lawsuit. Penguin had previously mentioed that they would fight this and take it to court. But that was before they agreed to be absorbed into the Bertelsmann collective and merge with Random House. They need DOJ approval for the merger. Probably a good idea not to be fighting a lawsuit at the same time.
Last year, the DOJ decided that five US publishers and Apple colluded and fixed the price of eBooks. This “Agency-5” consisted of the 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th and 6th largest publishers in America. Only Random House (1st) was excluded. Random House wasn’t in the suit because it took a year for them to work with Apple. The publishers named were in with Apple at the onset.
Hachette, Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins all quickly agreed to settle.
Macmillan and Penguin were going to fight it.
Now only Macmillan is left.
Of the “Agency-5” or the “Corporate-6”, Macmillan is the smallest. They are also the ones who fight the most.
Macmillan fought Amazon on discounts and terms so much that the Seattle giant de-listed their books. No other big publisher was willing to fight that fight.
Now it looks like Macmillan is going at it alone again.
I wish them well.
