I still haven't read Judge Florence Pan's decision, but Publishers Weekly copiously quoted the judge in their article this week about the matter. It will be interesting to see what happens with PRH's planned appeal.
The whole case is unusual in that the DOJ took the side of the product producers (i.e. the writers) instead of that of the consumers. However, Judge Pan was quick to point out that Apple was slapped with $450 million fine after its trial back in 2013 because the Big Five idiotically admitted to the price-fixing during the course of their settlements with the DOJ. She essentially stated the Big Five were using the same type of collusion between themselves with their product producers.
It will be interesting to see how far Randy Penguins get with their appeals, considering Apple failed with their appeals in the 2012 price-fixing lawsuit.
She rejected the idea that literary agents would keep the merged firm in check.
ReplyDeleteBecause she has a couple of functioning brain cells...? [eyeroll] Yeah, the idea that literary agents are capable of keeping big New York publishers "in check" about anything is completely ludicrous.
That "internal bidding" BS is almost as stupid. Even if they circulated a memo to that effect, and even if that was the actual for-real policy for a while, I don't see that surviving for more than maybe a year, max. And actually, I don't see it happening at all, because they'd be all one company and they have A Responsibility To Their Shareholders which would quickly override any vague promises made to a judge.
The only benefit I can see from letting the merger go through is that tightening the screws on the big-dog tradpubbed writers just might blast a few of them out of their rut and persuade them to try indie. Probably not at this point, but if it happened, that'd be a good thing. Aside from that, though, it's clear they're just going for a bigger piece of the pie and more control/leverage.
Angie
Honestly, I don't see the Big Five lasting much longer. Not that I wish anyone ill, but they are not adapting to the changes in the industry.
DeleteI've have the last couple of trad publishing contracts I've signed for short stories insist on audio rights, but neither company has done a darn thing with those rights. These days, I'm like, why bother with them,
The only thing I can think of is what Kris says about it -- that they're listing these rights under "Assets" and using them to pump up the value of their company, and therefore their stock prices. For that purpose, whether they do anything with the rights is irrelevant. :/ So yeah, they're screwing people over for their own benefit. No shock, right?
DeleteAngie