The complaint states that the companies accomplished their conspiracy by agreeing to stop the longstanding practice of selling e-books, as they long sold print books, on wholesale to bookstores, and leaving it to the bookstores to set the price at which they would sell the e-books to consumers.

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Traditionally, publishers have sold books to stores, with the wholesale price for hardcovers set at fifty per cent of the cover price.

NEWYORKER: Publish or Perish

Once Apple and Amazon have taken their cut, publishers are likely to make less money on e-books under this new arrangement than under the wholesale one a price they seem willing to pay in order to limit Amazon's influence and bolster print sales.

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We were repeatedly advised that liquidity in wholesale markets depended on lending quality: good loan books would continue to attract funding when bad loan books began to default.

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Amazon sold many books, particularly best-sellers, for little more than the wholesale price, or even at a loss.

NEWYORKER: Publish or Perish

As we know the case is about the move from the wholesale model to the agency one for the selling of e-books.

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Eventually, e-books point the way towards a cleavage of content from platform, threatening publishing with the wholesale change that has hit the music industry.

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