Despite public acceptance of self-publishing as a viable means of expression, the traditional publishing industry continues to claim that it is the final arbiter of what’s good and right and culturally relevant. Today the U.S. Justice Department agreed that self-publishing authors pale in comparison with their industrial counterparts:
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Apple and several book publishers Wednesday morning, claiming they worked together to artificially prop up prices for e-books. .
The publishers sued were Hachette SA, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster. The suit was filed in a district court in New York.
“Apple facilitated the publisher defendants’ collective effort to end retail price competition by coordinating their transition to an agency model across all retailers,” according to the complaint.
Real publishers illegally conspire with giant, anti-competitive, ruthless, monopolistic media companies like Apple to fix prices and screw their own customers in pursuit of profits. Self-publishing authors don’t do any of that, and probably never will.
— Mark Barrett
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