Apple and publishers reportedly willing to abandon iBooks ?agency model? to appease Justice Department

Under the traditional book-selling model, retailers like B&N, Amazon, and others could get 50% or more of the revenue from the sale of a book. Under Apple's "agency model", they get 30%. The traditional model is retailer-centric. Apple's model is publisher-centric. This upsets the US Justice Department. Why? Because under the old model, the retailer set the price and so could sell the book at any price they wanted, even at a loss. Under Apple's model, the publisher sets the price, so there's no retailer discount. What's more, part of Apple's deal is a "most favored nations" clause that means publishers can't sell to competitors for less than they could sell to Apple, thus making deep discounts for consumers pretty much impossible. According to Reuters, however, this may be about to change.

go ask alice go ask alice john mccarthy john mccarthy lumpectomy robin williams blaine gabbert