Will Apple Prevail in its E-Book Pricing Case?

In an

world, e-books would cost $9.99 apiece (or less), everyone would buy $200 Kindle Fires to read them, and publishers would accept this format without argument.

If

ruled the world, things would not be very different -- except that consumers would be asked to pay $5 more for books and at least $129 more for a device to read them. Publishers loved the sound of that world, particularly the part about consumers spending $5 more per book. The Justice Department sued five of them --

Simon & Schuster,

HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Hachette Book Group -- after discovering that they colluded to ensure prices would stay above $9.99. All five publishers settled out of court, leaving investors to wonder if they were guilty, could not prove otherwise, or simply did not want to spend the money defending their names in court. Apple has taken a different stance. The company has repeatedly stated the Justice Department's claims are false. Orin Snyder, one of Apple's attorneys, even suggested that government has reverse-engineered a conspiracy. "What the government is trying to do is reverse engineer a conspiracy from a market effect," Snyder remarked during opening arguments this week, as quoted by

. Whether guilty or innocent, Apple seems to be determined to protect its good name among investors and its customers. The Mac maker has repeatedly denied that it was involved in a scheme to raise e-book prices. Apple's defense may be more of a formality than anything else, however. Benzinga reported yesterday that the company

if it is found guilty of colluding with book publishers. However, the Cupertino, California-based tech giant

face class action suits, among others, if it is found guilty. Those penalties could be catastrophic.

, for example,

to settle a class-action suit alleging that the company fixed the price of its various football games. The suit claimed that by securing an exclusive deal with the National Football League, it was able to raise the price from $19.99 to as much as $59.99 per game. Unlike Apple's price-fixing case, however, there was no evidence suggesting that Electronic Arts actually intended to fix the price of its games. In fact, new games have been universally sold for $49.99 and $59.99 since 2005 when

released the Xbox 360. How did the lawsuit occur, then? For a brief time,

dropped the price of some of its sports games to $19.99. Take-Two did this to compete more effectively against EA's titles, which typically

.

did the same thing during the '90s to compete more effectively against

and to improve the sales of

, among other games. When other publishers chose not to do the same, they simply exercised their right to sell games at a rate they expected consumers to pay. EA did the same thing. By securing the NFL license, however, lawyers argued that EA had, in fact, committed an act of price-fixing. If a lawsuit like that can cost EA $27 million, one can only imagine how much Apple will have to pay if a class-action suit is filed against it for selling $15 e-books.