Apple is starting to pay customers who purchased e-books from the iBooks store in the past, as part of its
$450 million settlement to end a lawsuit over alleged e-book price fixing. Starting from today, affected consumers will receive a store credit from the company, with the law firm Hagens Berman
advising the $400 million allocated to customers would be paid out at different levels, depending on the popularity of the books in question.
Anyone who bought an e-book that was a
New York Times bestseller will get a credit of $6.93, while other books will net their owner $1.57 each in store credit. Purchasers who have previously requested the credit as a check will receive one in the future. Those who received a credit during the first round of distribution of publisher settlements and didn't opt out will automatically get this credit as well.
The $400 million comes after the final stage of the legal process in March, where Apple was
denied an appeal by the US Supreme Court over the lawsuit. Aside from the money headed back to consumers, the remaining $50 million of the total settlement fund will go towards legal fees and states involved with the lawsuit.
The
lawsuit centered around alleged collusion between Apple and major publishers Hachette, Macmillan, HarperCollins, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster, to fix the prices of e-books at a higher rate in a conspiracy to undermine Amazon's store. Hagens Berman claims the action "caused the price of e-books to increase 30 to 50 percent" compared to Amazon's $10 price point, making the books more expensive for consumers, and potentially harming book sales.
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