Barnes and Noble complains to DOJ about e-book lawsuit

Written by

Laura Hazard Owen:

In a complaint sent to the Department of Justice this morning, Barnes & Noble says that the DOJ’s proposed settlement with HarperCollins, Hachette and Simon & Schuster for allegedly colluding to fix e-book prices “represents an unprecedented effort” to become “a regulator of a nascent technology that it little understands.”

Nice aggressive stance by Barnes and Noble.



  • Gretchen

    I tried to buy an e-book today. A travel guide no less.

    Paper version £12, e-book £15.

    Let me say that again, the paper version was £12 the e-book was £15.

    I will spend the next 10 hours searching for a pirate copy and then I will toast your moneyed party.

  • lucascott

    I can’t really blame Barnes and Noble for this stance. They didn’t have Amazon’s catalog of other stuff to make up for loss leader pricing. Apple going to an agency model may have actually helped them.

    If this settlement goes through it could screw Barnes and Noble so they are going to be very against it. Especially the part where the DOJ says that there is a ‘right’ price for ebooks and they know what it is.