Randy Penguin Is Shooting Blanks

Since I'm a recovering attorney, other writers asked me about the trial in U.S. v. Bertelsmann SE & CO KGaA et al.

A lot.

Except that's not how the other writers describe the above case. It's all about Randy Penguin's attempt to buy Simon & Schuster, and the Department of Justice's anti-trust lawsuit.

So, what do I really think?

After Penguin's purchase of Random House, we were down to five major book publishers left in the U.S. Only one of these five publishers was completely owned by a U.S. company--Simon & Schuster.

In my limited knowledge of anti-trust law, I figured if any of the remaining publishers (all owned by foreign interests) tried to buy Simon & Schuster, the DOJ would have something to say about the merger/buy-out. Besides, it doesn't look good if the U.S. and its precious First Amendment allows all major publishers to be owned by foreign interests.

After three weeks of witnesses, both lay and expert, the bulk of Randy Penguin's defense is "We're incompetent."

WTF?!

Basically, Randy Penguin give one line to the writers (without whom they wouldn't have a product to sell) and the opposite of that one line to Judge Florence Pan. And it sounds like Judge Pan doesn't like their Kool-Aid.

For a decent lay article on the trial, check out Vox's summary. Publishers Weekly has a detailed run down on their website.

As I write this on Thursday evening, I could not find a final ruling on the trial by Judge Pan, which is not unusual in a Federal bench case. It will be interesting to see where the final decision lands, but I'm putting my money on the DOJ.

The one thing that amused me out of all the hullabaloo was Randy Penguin trying to introduce evidence that the indies sell more books than Randy Penguin does. However, where do they get the numbers to prove it? LOL