Entering your book details is the first step of the setup workflow. During the publishing process, KDP tries to match book details like title and author name to other editions available in the Amazon catalog. This is a developing story and will be updated. Kindle eBooks, paperbacks, and hardcover books are linked automatically if the author name and book title of both editions match exactly. All the publishers named in the filing had no comment as well.
The five publishers settled their claims for some $166 million, while Apple lost at trial and paid out some $400 million to consumers.Īmazon had no comment on the lawsuit. Hagens Berman was the first to sue Apple and five of the then six major publishers for e-book price-fixing in 2011, in a case that would eventually draw suits from a number of states and the Department of Justice. That harm persists and will not abate unless Amazon and the Big Five are stopped.”Īmong the relief requested, the suit seeks monetary reimbursement for consumers who purchased e-books through Amazon’s competitors, damages, and injunctive relief that would require Amazon and the publishers to “stop enforcing anti-competitive price restraints.” “Amazon’s agreement with its Co-conspirators is an unreasonable restraint of trade that prevents competitive pricing and causes Plaintiffs and other consumers to overpay when they purchase e-books from the Big Five through an eBook retailer that competes with Amazon. “In violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, Defendant and the Big Five Co-conspirators agreed to various anti-competitive MFNs and anti-competitive provisions that functioned the same as MFNs,” the complaint states. However, it labels each of the Big Five publishers-Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, and Penguin Random House-as “co-conspirators” in an alleged scheme to use various forms of a Most Favored Nations clause (MFN) to squelch consumer price competition and keep e-book prices artificially high. The suit names only Amazon as a defendant.