Lennihan

When the news of the Department of Justice’s antitrust suit against Apple and five of the nation’s largest book publishers became public earlier this spring, it took many by surprise. The suit accused Apple and the publishers of illegally colluding to resist Amazon’s aggressive strategy of pricing many new and bestselling books at $9.99 — well below the prices charged for hardcover copies and below what many in the industry say it costs to produce those volumes. The popular conception of an antitrust suit involves the government going after…