General Trade Book Publisher Mergers: Will a Window of Opportunity Be Opening to Revisit the Legal Publishing Industry Cartel?

Pearson and Bertelsmann have agreed to merge their general trade book publishing houses, Penguin and Random House. See yesterday's LLB post by Mark Giangrande and the WSJ's Penguin And Random House To Form Joint Venture Likely Leading To A New Company ("The combination of Penguin and Random House, if it clears antitrust scrutiny, would create a book-publishing powerhouse responsible for roughly a quarter of global English-language consumer book sales." (Emphasis added.))

Why? According to NYT Media Decoder, (in an article published before the announcement) Amy Chozick and Eric Pfanner explain:

The potential consolidation comes as traditional publishers try to compete with dominant technology companies like Amazon, Apple and Google that have gained power in the e-book market. Lower prices offered by retailers like Amazon have put pressure on publishers to adjust their digital book strategy at a time when brick-and-mortar stores have been disappearing.

In other words, a transformative change based on technological innovation in content delivery and commerce is underway. Some industry experts believe big publishing mergers have been "inevitable for some time." See this BBC story. Chozick and Pfanner add

A deal [between Penguin and Random House] could signal a move toward further consolidation among the major publishers, much the way the music industry realigned itself as it made the painful transition to the digital marketplace.

Rapidly aging and decrepit Boomer gen law librarians who lived through what is now the status quo probably would add:

For a case study of a technology-driven industry realignment, check out the consolidation and globalization of the legal publishing industry to learn from the mistakes when consumers fail to present unified aggressive opposition that resulted in cartel-like behavior; don't roll over and play dead like "we" did.

Reporting on the In re Books conference proceedings last Friday the then rumored Penguin-Random House merger may have been in the minds of some participants when the topic of antitrust issues in the general trade book industry was being discussed. Check out Jeff John Roberts' paidContent report, Do book publishers deserve special treatment? Antitrust experts say no. A couple of snips:

“There’s never been a defendant sued for antitrust who didn’t think their market was special,” said Chris Sagers of Cleveland State University, adding that “agency pricing” (a commission-style pricing system used by the publishers to check Amazon) is just another word for price-fixing.

And according to Ariel Katz, a law professor at the University of Toronto, publishers have been engaging in cartel-like behavior for more than a century.

Will AALL extract its collective head out of the sand? In the likely coming merger mania in the general trade book industy, will a window of opportunity present itself for addressing anti-competitive practices in the legal publishing industy? Will AALL see this as an opportunity to address cartel-like behavior by following ALA's robust consumer advocacy efforts for its member buyers and patrons?

Hell if I know but if consolation in the general book trade industry is "inevitable" (and I believe it is) the issue of competition will be addessed in the US and Europe by regulatory bodies. There is no doubt in my mind that our globalized providers of legal information want to stay under the radar of any new regulatory examination of the legal publishing industry. {JH]