Apple not to be blamed for e-book price increase, Eddy Cue
Eddy Cue, head of Apple's iTunes business, has said that some of the e-book titles have become more expensive following the entry of the company into the business.
Cue also said that Apple cannot be blamed for the increase in price of books. He is being blamed by the government officials for colluding with major publishers to force all retail sellers to increase the price of e-books. Government prosecutors pointed out that there are dozens of e-mail exchanges and records of more than 100 phone calls and handwritten notes sent between Cue, other Apple executives and the publishers that point to a conspiracy to increase price.
Cue said that he has entered into deals with five major publishers - Penguin, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hatchette and Macmillan. He also shared the information about negotiations with other publishers in general terms with publishers. He affirmed that the aim of the agreements was to win contracts for Apple to enter the digital books market and not attack rivals.
He is now the central witness in the lawsuit as he was chief negotiator for Apple in all its content deals with record labels, book publishers and movie studios. Government prosecutors have said that company forced publishers to adopt agency model and this convinced major player Amazon to adopt the model. Meanwhile, the prices of popular titles rose as much as $2 to $4 in the country.