Judge In Ebook Price Fixing Case Takes Briefing Filed As A Comic (Somewhat) Seriously

from the well,-that's-impressive dept

Yesterday, we wrote about the judge in the ebook price fixing case quickly approving the settlement the government had reached with three of the book publishers involved (Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette). There was one side note that I thought was amusing enough to be worth a separate post. One of the stranger filings in the case was an amicus brief filed on Tuesday by Bob Kohn, protesting the settlement. After Judge Cote made it clear that such filings should be no more than 5 pages, Kohn decided to file his in a graphic novel format, that both (slightly) mocks the 5 page limit and tries to explain the basics of his argument. The full filing is embedded below, but here's a clip: Of course, much of the "argument" made by Kohn is really a thinly veiled suggestion that the judge look at the 93-page "comment" he had filed earlier in the case. The Justice Department was not impressed by Kohn's stunt. As for Judge Cote? She doesn't even mention the nature of the "graphic novel" filing -- but repeatedly addresses Kohn's points and calls him out by name. In the end, she doesn't find his theories or arguments persuasive -- noting that his comments "are insufficient to compel denial of entry of the proposed Final Judgment" -- but this may be the first time that I know of where a judge took a filing done in cartoon form seriously. That doesn't mean I would recommend it, or that I would expect to see more such filings. It's also unclear to me how what he did via the cartoon couldn't have been expressed just as easily in pure text.

Filed Under: amicus briefs, bob kohn, denise cote, ebooks, economics, graphic novels, price fixing