U.S. aims to stop Apple from entering deals that will raise e-book prices

NEW YORK — The U.S. Justice Department and 33 state attorneys general on Friday said they want to prevent Apple from entering into contracts with sellers of e-books, movies, music and other digital content that are likely to raise prices.

The demand comes out of an antitrust suit against Apple Inc. and five e-book publishers. A U.S. federal judge ruled last month that Apple had colluded with the publishers to raise ebook prices.

The Cupertino, Calif., company has denied wrongdoing and has said it will appeal the decision.

On Friday, it called the remedy proposal “a draconian and punitive intrusion into Apple’s business.”

The inclusion of digital media other than books in the proposal doesn’t bear any relation to the findings in the case, Apple said.

The book publishers previously settled the pricefixing charges. They are Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan and Penguin Group. The settlements were designed to encourage price competition, but that hasn’t happened.

The government alleged the publishers colluded with Apple to move the ebook industry away from the wholesale model employed by Amazon.com Inc., which had unnerved publishers by selling ebook versions of popular hardcover titles for as little as $9.99 before the April 2010 release of Apple’s iPad. Under its contracts with publishers, Amazon was free to sell books at any price it wanted.

Apple instead adopted the “agency” model, under which publishers set the retail price and the store takes a cut. Under that model, the store can’t discount a book.