Control of almost half of all books...
An interesting observation from the NY Times:
“One entity’s control of almost half of the nation’s anticipated top-selling books threatens competition in multiple ways,” the Justice Department wrote in a post-trial brief. “Authors’ advances would fall — advances that they use to pay their bills and that reflect compensation for their work.”
And:
The Justice Department’s focus on author earnings, rather than harm to consumers, marked a shift in how the government applies antitrust law. Antitrust policy has largely been guided for decades by an effort to prevent large corporations from imposing higher costs on consumers, rather than focusing on the impact a monopoly might have on workers, suppliers or competitors. By zeroing in on the potential harm to authors, the Justice Department signaled that it’s taking a broader view of the possible impact of consolidation.