Forum - View topicNEWS: Penguin Random House Argues That Its Acquisition of Simon & Schuster Will Be 'Pro Competit
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Blanchimont
 Posts: 3446 Location: Finland |
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Of course they would argue that. Hopefully that argument will mount to zero, zilch, nada in the end.
It's one thing if it only concerned a niche like manga, novels, comics, etc. But this merger would create a supergiant in the publishing industry reigning over practically all categories of printed goods... |
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Fluwm
 Posts: 889 |
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Pretty ballsy argument, given how blatantly obvious it is that this will produce the exact opposite result.
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9835 Location: Virginia |
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Blanchimont wrote:
Ah, but we already have that. It is called Amazon. Amazon has already killed most of the bookstores here. They now control enough of the distribution pie that if they refuse to carry a title its chances of selling well are severely limited. As a result they are controlling the market by the prices they will pay at wholesale and the prices they charge at retail. This already has the publishers complaining that it limits how much they can pay authors (and of course their own profits). I suspect that at least a part of the intent of this merger is to be able to negotiate with Amazon on a level basis. Oh, and Amazon has gone into publishing themselves, both digital and real books. |
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Picky33
Posts: 263 |
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The US hasn't stopped a merger in decades, this is just a formality at worst and a demonstration of how weak our Monopoly laws have become at best.
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tsog
Posts: 223 |
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While I'm also apprehensive of this merger, this statement is patently false. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_purchase_of_T-Mobile_USA_by_AT%26T https://www.reuters.com/article/us-qualcomm-m-a-broadcom-merger/president-trump-halts-broadcom-takeover-of-qualcomm-idUSKCN1GO1Q4 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-officedepot-m-a-staples/staples-office-depot-to-scrap-merger-deal-after-judge-rules-for-ftc-idUSKCN0Y12SF Of course, just because a deal was rejected/denied doesn't mean they can't try again, e.g. Staples is still trying to buy Office Depot. |
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Ushio
Posts: 630 |
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If this was happening 20 years ago I would agree but the internet is well established and it allows self publishing of e-books by anyone for cheap. What does it matter how the dead tree publishers merge or how their obsolete business model continues. With environmental concerns publishing physical books should be consigned to the history e-books. |
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Fluwm
Posts: 889 |
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It matters enormously, no matter how dismissive you try to be about it. These "deadtree publishers" may not have as wide of a share of the digital market, but they still control the lion's share.
Self-publishing is great and all, but it is not analogous and certainly is not a replacement for the traditional model. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6867 Location: Kazune City |
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But were they really competitors in the first place, since they publish totally different books? After all, if you want a book that PRH is releasing, you have to pay for the PRH version; you can't opt to buy a version released by S&S instead. Maybe it's better for consumers to not have all this fake exclusive-licensing competition fragmenting the market into a million tiny pieces.
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