By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Somebody call the cops -- eh, antitrust authorities. Apple's subscription plan is here, and it's as bad for many, if not most, publishers as rumored. The first of several key sentences from Apple's press announcement: "Publishers may no longer provide links in their apps (to a website, for example) which allow the customer to purchase content or subscriptions outside of the app." That means you Amazon Kindle; before the announcement, all Kindle transactions took place outside the app in a web browser. This change applies to any content, but it's nestled in the subscriptions announcement.

Another piece of nastiness: "Apple does require that if a publisher chooses to sell a digital subscription separately outside of the app, that same subscription offer must be made available, at the same price or less, to customers who wish to subscribe from within the app." That rule conceptually would prevent some publishers from extending to existing customers the benefits of a free iPad subscription."

So, Apple doesn't prohibit publishers from selling subscriptions outside the app -- how could it and get anyone to offer content? But the company does fix prices. So if publisher A charges 50 bucks a year and wants to offer a holiday or school graduation promotion from its website, the deal must be offered for app subscriptions, too. Remember, Apple collects 30 percent from publishers.

No one should misunderstand other terms, as stated in Apple's press release: "Publishers can sell digital subscriptions on their websites, or can choose to provide free access to existing subscribers. Since Apple is not involved in these transactions, there is no revenue sharing or exchange of customer information with Apple." Based on the wording in context, Apple isn't saying that app subscriptions can be offered free to existing customers but that publishers can offer free subscriptions on their websites (I am asking Apple for clarification).

"Our philosophy is simple -- when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing," Apple CEO Steve Jobs, said in a statement. "All we require is that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app, so that customers can easily subscribe with one-click right in the app."

That "philosophy" could be considered anticompetitive. I laid out why in February 3rd post: "iPad is a devil's deal for publishers." Apple is imposing restrictions on how publishers conduct their business from a monopoly position. Apple has the leading App Store, with 300,000 applications and more than 10 billion downloads.