What the e-book scandal means for Apple

What does the Department of Justice suit mean for Apple?

"Apple does hurt itself when it thumbs its nose at the courts, the American system, and that could hurt it," Jeffrey Durgee, a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, told US News and World Reports. Apple's "brand personality," he added is that of "a maverick, but not outside the law." On the other hand, even if the baseline price of an e-book does return to $10 – which is exactly where Amazon wants it, while publishers want a higher price – Apple might not actually sustain any real damage. Writing for The New York Times, Nick Wingfield argued that it was "doubtful" that Apple would try to meet Amazon at the $9.99 price point. "That, in turn, would hurt Apple e-book sales but do very little direct damage to Apple’s overall business," Wingfield added. "In the holiday quarter, Apple reported $2 billion in revenue from Internet services – about 4 percent of total company sales – with an undisclosed, but most likely small, percentage of that coming from e-book sales."