E-books price fixing? Book 'em

[Commentary] When word leaked that the Justice Department was threatening to sue Apple and five major book publishers for allegedly fixing the price of e-books, the opposition from some tech advocates was swift and sharp. The feds were looking at the wrong problem, these critics said. The new pricing model adopted by Apple and the publishers promoted competition in the markets for e-books, e-book readers and hard-copy books that Amazon had come to dominate. Attacking that model might lower the price for some e-books, but it would hurt the rest of the book industry and give Amazon an inside track to a publishing monopoly. That's an interesting argument, but it's irrelevant.

The Supreme Court ruled long ago that companies can't fix prices just because they're worried they can't survive otherwise. If the Justice Department has evidence that Apple and the five publishers — Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette and Pearson — colluded on a plan to raise the price of e-books, it's right to seek a remedy.