LISNews: Librarian News

Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a socialist
"What we see here is pure rentier capitalism: monopolising a public resource then charging exorbitant fees to use it. Another term for it is economic parasitism. To obtain the knowledge for which we have already paid, we must surrender our feu to the lairds of learning."

See Also: Response to George Monbiot’s Rant against Academic Publishers
"No one doubts that commercial publishers are in the business of making money. But the way they make money is by doing something that academics value but that they would not do for themselves, left to their own devices. What I mean is captured in two words: ‘innovation’ and ‘extension’. "

Are There Too Many Books?
In fact, among the various forms of information and entertainment, books are distinctive because there are so many of them. Every movie, television program, news organization, and the top tiers of websites combined represent a relatively small number compared to the books being published. Books do fall into categories, such as fiction, nonfiction, and textbooks, and subcategories like politics, economics, history, romance, science-fiction and so on; yet, most books have to be considered separate entities with their own strategy for reaching an audience.

Hagens Berman Files Class-Action Lawsuit Against Apple and Publishers
Hagens Berman, a consumer rights class-action law firm, today announced it has filed a nationwide class-action lawsuit claiming that Apple Inc. and five of the nation's top publishers, including HarperCollins Publishers, a subsidiary of News Corporation , Hachette Book Group, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Group Inc., a subsidiary of Pearson PLC , and Simon & Schuster Inc., a subsidiary of CBS , illegally fix prices of electronic books, also known as e-books.

E-books are leading to earlier releases of softcover versions of novels and nonfiction works, like the above display at the Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle.

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