ebooks

Apple this week once again took aim at the antitrust lawsuit filed against it by the Department of Justice, arguing that its entry into the e-book market improved competition.

That argument -- which the company included in a statement last month -- was outlined further in a court document filed yesterday.

In it, Apple claims its e-book business strategy, which employs the agency model, is "well-recognized as perfectly proper," and that it had not conspired with other companies to set prices or limit competition.

"The Government's Complaint against Apple is fundamentally flawed as a matter of … Read more

Apple and five big publishers are still on the hook to battle allegations of price fixing after a U.S. district court judge rejected their bid to dismiss a consumer lawsuit accusing them of colluding to maintain artificially high e-book prices.

Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice announced settlements with three publishers: Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, and Harper Collins. Apple, Macmillan, and Penguin intend to fight the allegations in court. (Disclosure: Simon & Schuster is owned by CNET's parent company, CBS.)

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, … Read more

New details have surfaced in the class-action e-book price-fixing lawsuit against Apple, according to tech news site paidContent. The most notable revelation is an e-mail from Steve Jobs to one of the bookseller's executives that was previously redacted and is now public.

The gist of the case, which was filed in April and now has 29 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico involved, is an allegation that Apple and a group of book publishers illegally fixed e-book prices to "boost profits and force e-book rival Amazon to abandon its pro-consumer discount pricing."

The Department of Justice … Read more

Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice took on Apple and publishers over charges of e-book price fixing. Depending on what you read, those parties are either guilty as charged or are the only thing holding back the greater evil of Amazon.com. I don't know who's right. I do know, however, that the e-book model itself feels pretty broken.

Over the past few years, I've gone from paying $7 for paperback novels that I could read anywhere, lend to others, or even resell, to paying $10 for the novels in e-book format with none of … Read more

In case you missed it, the U.S. government recently filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple and five of this country's largest publishers, alleging they conspired to limit competition for the pricing of e-books. Three of the five -- HarperCollins, Hachette and Simon & Schuster -- opted to settle the case, while Penguin, Macmillan, and Apple didn't.

So where does that leave us?

Well, if you've spent any time reading through the terms of the settlement, you quickly realize not everything's all that black and white and is in fact quite muddled. For starters, a judge … Read more

We'll likely get the official word soon but it's starting to look as if Apple is about to get sued by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Sources confirmed with the Washington reporters for Bloomberg and Reuters that a lawsuit may get filed today. (Update 7:10 a.m. PT: Bloomberg and others are reporting that the U.S. has indeed sued Apple and Hachette over over e-book pricing.)

Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, and HarperCollins are apparently settling with the government, while McMillan and Penguin are gearing for a fight -- along with Apple. (Disclosure: Simon &… Read more

While e-books are steadily gaining in popularity with the reading public, an overabundance of devices and formats keeps the lid on. The market will probably sort out the competition the way it always does, but until then, your options are to limit your reading to titles available for your reader, or convert e-books into a format your reader supports. That's where Hamster Free Book Converter enters the story. This simple, free tool lets you drag and drop or add e-book titles in a wide range of formats and either choose your device or file type to automatically convert them … Read more

Readers eager for digital books were out of luck at Amazon's Kindle Store for a short period today.

Shoppers could browse the site with their Kindle e-readers. But titles were listed as "currently unavailable."

Amazon didn't immediately reply to requests for comment.

The store resumed normal sales by about 1 p.m. PDT.

Correction 1:39 p.m. PT: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that the new digital versions of the Harry Potter series were affected by the outage. Buyers of those titles on the Kindle store are redirected to the Pottermore Web … Read more

iBooks is a stylish, crisp-looking, colorful e-book reader and storefront that runs on Apple's iOS devices. The latest version of the software includes support for textbooks, a new addition to the iBookstore for students.

As with other e-book readers, iBooks responds to the device's accelerometer and switches between landscape and portrait modes. Its controls disappear when unused, and a swipe (or tap on the left or right side of the screen) will cause the pages to turn. iBooks' page-turning is smooth and engaging, with page corners digitally curling toward you as you advance, but this behavior is only … Read more