Paul Aiken

Updated In a decision that could start an e-book price war in the publishing industry, a federal judge on Thursday approved a settlement between the Justice Department and three major publishers in a civil antitrust case that accused the companies of collusion in the pricing of digital books.

The long-expected approval soundly rejected criticisms of the deal that had accumulated throughout the summer from hundreds of parties, including Barnes & Noble, the Authors Guild and the American Booksellers Association.

The time to submit comments to the DoJ about the proposed price-fixing settlement has ended, and the Authors Guild filed its own comments on Monday. Publishers Weekly has a post containing the full text of the rather lengthy open letter from Executive Director Paul Aiken, as well as some commentary. There’s not a whole lot [...]

It is most important that discovery continues as it happened in the past.  Some stuff is better bought in person because of the touch factor.  That’s why Jobs started the Apple Stores even though he faced a lot of opposition from peoople who thought it was backward looking.  Need bookstore for that experience, in children’s [...]

Representatives of the book industry's leading trade groups say the pending agreement brokered last week with Google over the Internet search giant's controversial Book Search tool will benefit the U.S. publishing industry for years to come.