The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected Apple’s appeal, which was made to the highest court in America as a last-ditch effort to relinquish itself of responsibility as per the terms of the judgment handed down in October, 2014’s iBooks antitrust case.
According to Bloomberg, Apple filed the appeal with the Supreme Court in October of 2015 — nearly a full year after the original judgment was made.
As per the terms of the original settlement: Apple owes approximately $400 million to iBooks (e-book) consumers, an additional $20 million in legal fees, and the rest of the hefty sum to individual states that were involved in the lawsuit.
U.S. District Judge Denise Cote originally sided with the Justice Department back in 2013 — having found that the Cupertino-company conspired with various publishers to unnecessarily and arbitrarily inflate the price of certain books sold within the company’s iBookstore. At the time, Amazon’s long-standing $10 price tag was allegedly the target in the case, however Apple’s risqué tactics drove the standard prices up several dollars per book across a relatively broad field of the e-books industry.
Apple and several book publishers opted, exclusively for the iBookstore, to adopt sales tactics constituent with a quote unquote “agency” pricing model, allowing publishers to control the prices of books, which ultimately prevented resellers like Amazon from undercutting those rates. The government then intervened and took the appropriate action, when it first caught wind of the questionable pricing scheme.
There is some good news in all of this, however — at least for consumers of e-books. The $450 million penalty will be granted to consumers to offset the inflated prices of titles purchased in the iBookstore — either in the form of cash or a store credit.
The website where you can follow the case and Apple’s payout can be found here. Consumers are eligible to partake in the settlement if they purchased one or more titles from the iBookstore between April 1, 2010 and May 21st, 2012, from one of he following publishing companies involved in the lawsuit:
- Hachette Book Group, Inc.
- HarperCollins Publishers LLC
- Macmillan, aka Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC
- Penguin Group Inc.
- Simon & Schuster, Inc. & Simon & Schuster Digital Sales, Inc.
Unfortunately, the settlement applies only to purchases made by American citizens within the borders of the United States. For those looking to claim a slice of the pie, you’ll have your residency confirmed by the billing address of the Credit/Debit Card used to make the purchases.
Those who bought New York Times bestsellers within the specified period of time will be eligible to receive between $6.05 and $6.54 per title, while purchases of non-bestseller titles are eligible for rewards ranging between $1.39 to $1.50.
The case doesn’t only apply to purchases made within the iBookstore, however. If you purchased an eligible title through Amazon, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, or Kobo, you’re also eligible, and will soon receive an automatic account credit. Purchases made through Sony, however, will result in a physical check sent via U.S. Mail.
No forms need to be filled out in order to obtain a refund or store credit.
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Are you eligible to receive credit or cash for your e-books purchases?