> Publishers could set their price, they just couldn't set it any lower than
> was available in Apple's store.
Apple very clearly did collude with publishers to try to set some minimum
pricing for ebooks, which is most certainly against the law. The DoJ is bonkers
because the minimum pricing they were setting was below that typically
available in the near-monopoly Amazon store. Apple was colluding with
publishers to try to introduce competition to the market and break some of
Amazon's monopoly power.
> In that regard, the situation seems similar to that of any content provider -
> I suspect we'll see similar rules across the board as others start wondering
> why ebook publishers can bypass the store but they can't.
As I understood the proposed change, it's not ebook publishers or ebook apps
that are being singled out for special treatment, but ebook stores/readers. So
Amazon's Kindle app (for example) would be able to link to its own store for
purchasing ebooks but an individual ebook app wouldn't be able to use an
external payment mechanism to download additional chapters. I very much doubt
this particular change will happen because it is entirely outside the scope of
the original price fixing issue but also draws an obvious parallel to other
media (e.g. music) where Apple has massively more pricing power and market
share than they do in ebooks.
On the general topic of allowing external payments for in-app purchase, Google
has just changed it's policies to be much more in line with Apple. Content on
Google Play has to use Google Play's in-app billing service as the method of
payment except:
* where payment is primarily for physical goods or services (e.g.
buying movie tickets, or buying a publication where the price also includes a
hard copy subscription); or
* where payment is for digital content or goods that may be consumed
outside of the application itself (e.g. buying songs that can be played on
other music players).
The first point is almost identical to the app store (except Apple doesn't
allow you to use their in-app purchase for physical goods at all). The second
point is similar to Apple's allowing external content purchases and
subscriptions for apps, except Apple doesn't allow that payment to occur within
the app, nor link to an external website where it can happen. Obviously the
second point allows for ebook purchases in e.g. the Kindle app to go through
Amazon.
Apple's basic premise is that if you use their store for discovery or as the
only channel for delivering your service then you can pay them a sales
commission. Since the app store is truly terrible as a discovery mechanism (for
all but a handful of apps at the top) and most services need to be on both iOS
and Android now, this issue seems to get much more attention than it deserves.
The only condition that's occasionally tricky to comply with is providing some
content for those that haven't paid, so the app isn't just a login box. Since
Apple clearly doesn't have a monopoly in smartphones (or even tablets) I don't
see why any kind of regulator should get involved. Apple is just being a bit
greedy.
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