Bill HB 2983 was introduced on March 19th and currently has seven co-sponsors in addition to representative Canterbury.

For more information on Bill HB 2983, go here.

For more see the article in the New York Times.

CEO John Sargent announced that Macmillan is settling its case because the penalties, should they lose the case, would be too high. Sargent explains:

I had an old fashioned belief that you should not settle if you have done no wrong. As it turns out, that is indeed old fashioned… Our company is not large enough to risk a worst case judgment. In this action the government accused five publishers and Apple of conspiring to raise prices.  As each publisher settled, the remaining defendants became responsible not only for their own treble damages, but also possibly for the treble damages of the settling publishers (minus what they settled for).  A few weeks ago I got an estimate of the maximum possible damage figure. I cannot share the breathtaking amount with you, but it was much more than the entire equity of our company.

This means that e-books from Macmillan can now be offered at discounted prices by retailers, under certain conditions. Sargent says “this change will take effect quickly.”

For more details, see John Sargent’s letter, posted at Tor.com.

Because of Penguin’s proposed merger with Random House — never part of the lawsuit — announced at the end of October, Penguin decided to settle. A statement from the company said “it is also in everyone’s interests that the proposed Penguin Random House company should begin life with a clean sheet of paper.” The settlement, which imposes the same basic terms as prior settlements with HarperCollins, Hachette, and Simon & Schuster, still requires the approval of Judge Denise Cote of New York’s Southern District Court. Macmillan and Apple are now the only parties to the lawsuit who have not reached a settlement with the DoJ.

For more, and to see pictures of the stolen artwork, please see the post on Comic Book Resources.

The ongoing lawsuit between Google and the Authors Guild over unauthorized book scanning is not affected by this arrangement, and that litigation continues.

For more, see the Google blog post on the agreement.

For more, see the New York Times post.

Agents and authors owed monies by Dorchester will be offered an amendment to their contracts, offering the transfer of rights to Amazon in exchange for all back royalties owed by Dorchester for the work(s) as of May 31, 2012. The winning bidder may convert the books into e-book format and release them, with the original covers, which are part of Dorchester’s assets.

For more information, see Richard Curtis’ article and official press release.

While both Penguin and Macmillan’s responses make reference to Amazon’s near-monopoly in the e-book business, Penguin’s filing is getting the most attention.

Penguin robustly defends the agency model, claiming it “has specifically been found by the US Supreme Court to be a legitmate way to do business.” It states the reasons Penguin wanted to work with Apple under agency terms, accuses the DoJ of ignoring the complexity of the e-book business, picks apart the problems of the Kindle format, and accuses Amazon of also demanding “most favored nation” provisions (an allegation made against Apple in the suit).

For more, see the PDF of Penguin’s response and the PDF of Macmillan’s response.

Apple, Macmillan, and Penguin so far seem determined to fight in court, and all deny there was any collusion. In an open letter released after the suit was filed, Macmillan CEO John Sargent first stressed the company’s innocence, then explained that Macmillan could not settle because “the terms the DoJ demanded were too onerous.”

A complete story will appear in the May issue of Locus.