Apple offered them an Agency Model sales program, exactly the same as the App stores, the Music store, and the movie and video stores that have and are perfectly LEGAL. In fact, the New York judge even ruled that there was nothing illegal about every single portion of the acts that Apple did. . . but all those LEGAL things, somehow, in her opinion, made up an illegal act! It was an entirely NOVEL creation of the Justice Department and that judge. She announced BEFORE the trial and before hearing any evidence that she had made her judgement! What is surprising here is that the US Supreme Court, with Justice Scalia writing for the Majority, had outlined guidance which REQUIRED that only horizontal participants could be indicted for such conspiracies. Apple, not being a publisher, was a retailer and hence only a purchaser from the publishers, by definition could NOT BE PART of a horizontal conspiracy by LAW. That was the conclusion of the dissenting Appellate Court Justice who USED THE US SUPREME COURT'S OWN GUIDELINES on such cases. The other justices did not even use the most modern cases, and in fact used cases that had BEEN REVERSED by the US SUPREME COURT in the case in which they set down the guidelines on how to evaluate these cases.
The two associate justices went back to case law that was INVALID to make their ruling upholding Judge Cote's ruling! The dissenting Justice was shocked and read them the riot act on their misbehavior and misapplication of the LAW. He was absolutely certain that the US Supreme Court would reverse based on their own very clear guidance, and so were most legal scholars who commented on the case! That is why the Court not granting Apple's appeal is shocking!
This is what happens when the LIBERALS dominate the Court. We can no longer rely on the Rule of LAW, we are now dependent on the WHIMS of Men. . . and there are enough LIBERALS in the appellate system to back up those liberal judges who think that doing the most GOOD for consumers is what is most important, not upholding the edifice of established LAW. In the two commentaries written by those two Associate Justices of the Appellate Court, they did not TALK at all about what the law said. . . they talked about what was good for the consumers and how wonderful it was that the consumers got lower pricing under Amazon's pricing scheme on best sellers, which was disrupted by Apple's entrance into the market! Bad, bad, publishers, and Bad, Bad Apple. Judge Cote, upheld!
Let’s see.
Apple conspired with publishers to raise prices of eBooks while at the same time getting agreements from the manufacturers to charge Apple less for the books than they charged Amazon and others.
If you go back to actual words of the law, it says “Every person” and “Every contract”. That means anyone.
“Apple offered them an Agency Model sales program, “
With a price structure that would force them to raise prices.
“This is what happens when the LIBERALS dominate the Court. “
I believe that it was Judge Jacobs that lead the decision that DOMA was unconstitutional.