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The owners of Gibson Guitar give to Republicans and they’ve been prosecuted on dubious grounds—violating Indian laws that India doesn’t consider violated. Their chief competitor gives to Democrats and is left alone (for the very same alleged crime! —Ed.) Gallup has had a similar clash with the Obama administration over their tracking of unemployment rates and is facing similarly dubious prosecution. And don’t forget the prominent big city Democrats who thought they could ban Chick-fil-a from their cities. They cannot do that, but watching Obama in action, they thought they could. This is nasty stuff.

Inkling Book’s Michael Perry posted a surprising and a little shocking rant on the DOJ ebook settlement. 

Even though it is a misunderstanding of the DOJ charges that is not really my problem with the piece. My problem with this editorial lies in the fact that it is not about the book industry at all. The unsubtlety of the articles political propaganda is shocking and not at all what one would expect on Teleread.com and it makes the choice of book cited in Mr. Perry’s bio, Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that led to Nazism and World War II both offensive and ironic. 

In and of themselves varied opinions on the ramifications of the DOJ case are perfectly justified. One of the evolutionary changes as a result of digital publishing is the shattering of the barrier to entry into publishing. The issues facing publishers as they struggle with digital disruption are complex and fundamental and extrapolations and interpretations will continue to be varied as those new to publishing endeavor to fill in gaps in experience and knowledge. As an industry we need to accept that the more populist part of our business may have different concerns than the more corporate part of the business. Who controls price, retailers, publishers, or consumers is a constructive conversation we should be having.  

Unfortunately this piece is neither constructive or about publishing. 

~ eP