For book publishers at holiday time, mailboxes just keep filling up – not with festive season’s greetings, but with attorney’s bills. In various courtrooms around Manhattan this week, rulings from the bench approved class action settlements in the Apple e-book price-fixing case; dismissed a quizzical suit over online e-book sales; and gently defused arguments from a perennial objector.
In the Apple case, reports Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly senior writer, Judge Denise Cote has approved the final two class action settlements with Penguin and Macmillan. “That clears the way for more $166 million in refunds to begin flowing to consumer accounts,” he tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally. “But the refunds will not be hitting your account before Christmas. They will however hit in early 2014, and should give the publishers a nice little first quarter bump in revenues.”
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Every Friday, CCC’s “Beyond the Book” speaks with the editors and reporters of “Publishers Weekly” for an early look at the news that publishers, editors, authors, agents and librarians will be talking about when they return to work on Monday.