The battle over e-book prices Video

The battle over e-book prices Video Transcript

It's Wednesday, April 11th,2012. I'm Bridget Carey on cnet.com and its time to get loaded. The United States Department of Justice has filed a law suit against Apple and several book publishers over fixing the price of E-books. The lawsuit filed in New York District Court sues publishers Hatchette, Harper Collins,McMillan, Simon & Schuster, Penguin for colluding with Apple to raise the price of E-books. The core of the issue comes down to the rules Apple set for being in its bookstore. Before Apple got into the E-book game, Amazon was selling E-books for cheap at around $10. Amazon figured cheap E-books would entice folks to buy a Kindle and publishers weren't too happy because that just made it harder to sell hardbox. Apple changed the game though with the iPad. To get on the iPad, publishers had to follow a new rule. They could set their own book price, but no other online E-book store could sell it for less. So, if Amazon wanted to sell a book, they couldn't discount it to stay competitive. The Nokia Lumia 900 Windows phone just launched but this week, but some models have been found with a software glitch where the phone cannot get a data connection. Nokia says a fix will be out by Monday, but Nokia is also giving $100 to new and existing customers to make up for the problem. The phone cost a $100, so you're basically getting the Lumia 900 for free, but the offer is only good until April 21st. There's a lot riding on the launch of the Lumia 900, this is Nokia's big comeback into the US. Spotify is making it easy for website owners to embed songs albums or playlist on the site. The streaming music service launch the Spotify play button and lets website owners embed the player for free and Spotify will take care of the logistics of paying the artist, but in order to use the play button, you have to be a Spotify user. We're used to seeing short cut buttons to share an item on Facebook or Twitter, now Amazon and E-bay have added a button for Sharing an item on Pinterest. Pinterest is an online pin board for users to share interest in items and its growing to become the 3rd most popular social network. Jim Gaffigan is the latest comedian to release his entire stand up special online without restrictions for just $5. Gaffigan is ditching the traditional model of using a production company and selling it on Itunes or through a DVD and its following the foosteps of comedian Louis C.K. who produced his own special and sold it directly to fans online at December and just 10 days, Louis C.K. made a million dollars. Now, Gaffigan special Mr,. Universe was produced on its own and he's encouraging fans to spread the word, $1 from every sale will be donated to help veterans and their families. Comedian (Asisen Sorrey?) also filed the solo wrath recently putting his special online for $5 back in March. Those are your headlines for today. I'm Bridget Carey for cnet.com and you've just been loaded.