Winners and losers from DOJ suit against Apple, publishers

Who are winners and who are the losers in the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Apple and five top publishers?

• Apple: Loser. But not as big as you might have expected. Despite being painted in the DOJ filing as a huge part of a major conspiracy to fix prices on e-books, but e-books aren’t a large part of Apple’s business. Investors aren’t that interested in this particular suit.
• Amazon: Winner. Even the company has said so.
• Publishers: Losers. The agency model that Apple proposed — where publishers set the prices and retailers got a cut — was a godsend for the companies that were chafing under Amazon’s way of doing business. But their decision to act together and move to completely change from letting retailers set prices to taking that power for themselves ended up backfiring on them in a big way.
• Barnes and Noble: Snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. The Justice complaint mentions the mega-retailer frequently as a victim of the pricing agreement, and it would seem that any agreement that keeps publishers from setting prices would be a win for retailers. But Barnes and Noble stock was down — almost 6 percent at one point — since the loss of the agency model opens the door for Amazon to sell books cheaply to gain market share.
• Consumers: Unclear. On one hand, the price of e-books is likely to go down if Justice is successful. That’s good for consumers, who — for obvious reasons — like lower prices. On the other hand, if Amazon rises to be the dominant force in the e-book market, that will certainly mean that there are fewer competitors. That can be bad for the industry as a whole.