Apple Pays Canadians to Read

Canadians who bought an e-book from Apple could be rewarded for their purchase.

Well, not exactly. But if the lawyers behind a new class action suit are successful, the Mac maker could be required to pay Canadian consumers who purchased a digital book from Apple

within the last 24 months. The

reports that, just as the U.S. Justice Department took issue with Apple's tactics to

, Canadians don't like the idea that the Mac maker may have colluded with book publishers. Once again, Amazon

is cited as the biggest victim of the story -- next to consumers who overpaid for e-books, of course. But is Amazon really a victim? Over the past few weeks I've heard a multitude of opinions regarding these lawsuits. Several bloggers have dismissed them entirely; some argue that the suits are silly while others say there are bigger fish to fry. Some claim that Amazon is evil because it pushes prices so low that authors can't make any money. That may be true. But raising prices isn't the solution. To maintain their value, e-books need to be significantly cheaper than hardcover books. They should probably be cheaper than the average soft cover book as well. Normally, Apple would agree with this philosophy, as the company is typically more concerned with selling hardware than software. But Apple doesn't sell any e-readers -- it sells tablets, smartphones, and MP3 players that can display digital books. Consumers may use their iPads to read frequently, but very few buy the tablet solely for that purpose. (As opposed to the Kindle, which consumers buy specifically because they want to read.) Thus, Apple isn't noticing a serious connection between e-books and iPad sales. Apple has also been distracted by the incentives of selling e-books, as it earns 30% from every book sold. This gave the company a justifiable reason to help book publishers raise the prices, since higher-priced books means greater profits for Apple.