Is Amazon Giving Away Money? No, the Five Largest Book Publishers Are Settling a Lawsuit

Anyone who bought an ebook on Amazon between April 1st, 2010 and May 21, 2012 just got an email with a credit usable on Amazon. Slate reports the backstory: “In 2012 state attorneys general led a class action lawsuit against the five largest book publishers in the U.S. for e-book price-fixing. In a related case,

Post author By Amanda MacArthur
Post date March 26, 2014
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Vikas Bajaj from NYTimes shares his email

Anyone who bought an ebook on Amazon between April 1st, 2010 and May 21, 2012 just got an email with a credit usable on Amazon. Slate reports the backstory:

“In 2012 state attorneys general led a class action lawsuit against the five largest book publishers in the U.S. for e-book price-fixing. In a related case, they sued Apple for conspiring with the publishers. And though Apple is still contesting its involvement in court, the publishers (Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Penguin) settled with regulators. Now Amazon is beginning to distribute the settlement. The company prominently notes, though, that “Amazon is not a party to these lawsuits.” Meaning Amazon itself wasn’t sued.

The amount of the refund is based on how many Kindle books you bought, and if they were New York Times best sellers, according to Slate.

Read the full story on Slate and NYTimes.

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By Amanda MacArthur

Research Director & Managing Editor

Amanda is responsible for all the articles you read on the Mequoda Daily portal and every email newsletter delivered to your inbox from us. She is also our in-house social media expert and would love to chat with you over on @Mequoda. She has worked with Mequoda for almost a decade, helping to evolve the Mequoda Method through research, testing and developing new best practices in digital publishing, editorial strategy, email marketing and audience development. Amanda is a co-author of our four digital publishing handbooks.