Yesterday, the Justice Department released its case against Apple alleging it conspired with publishers to raise ebook prices. Today, Apple is responding by calling the case “strange” and that the Justice Department is misrepresenting the words of company co-founder Steve Jobs.
In a Manhattan courtroom yesterday, Apple's lawyer, Orin Synder, denied any involvement by Apple in all of this, and said that not only did the company not conspire with the publishers, but they actually fought tooth and nail to convince the company to accept.
The case is heavily based on Apple contacting publishers and telling them they couldn't undercut their ebook prices on other stores like Amazon. According to Snyder, this was done solely to ensure that Apple would sell ebooks and make a profit because Amazon was selling ebooks at a loss because it wanted to increase its market share.
Furthermore, Snyder was not at all pleased with the fact that the Justice Department distorted Steve Jobs' words from his official biography, by Walter Isaacson, saying that it is unfair to base the case on the words of someone who is no longer here to explain what he meant by them.
We can't read Mr. Jobs's mind, but what we can do is look at the words he used, and they certainly aren't unambiguous admissions of a conspiracy.
To believe that Jobs's statements are direct, unambiguous evidence, admissions of a conspiracy, you have to credit the notion that he, in full public view and to his authorized biographer [whose book] he knew would be read by millions of people, made statements that can be interpreted in no other way than as unambiguous admissions of the price-fixing conspiracy charged in this case.
Dimitrios Georgoulas @ GreekAppleNews
