Our fabulous (
) DOJ is actually doing something sort of worthwhile that may have some wider-reaching repercussions.
The lawsuit brought by the DOJ alleges that the Big 6 (sometimes Big 5) book publishers (boo, hiss), whose output accounts for some 60% of revenue from print publishing and 85% of "bestsellers," colluded with Apple (boo, hiss) to fix prices on digital books at an inflated level to a.) benefit Apple, b.) hurt Amazon, c.) discourage sales of digital books and protect print publishing.
The most recent development is that the judge hearing the case, Denise Cote, has thrown out a motion to dismiss and is letting everything go forward. Some of the evidence is damning.
I've been following this for about a year now, and it's starting to make some waves. Rather than post a bunch of links to news releases, here are a few that kind of bring it all together in one fairly need package:
Background:
http://dearauthor.com/ebooks/antitrust-primer-for-the-publishing-price-fixing-lawsuit/
Latest developments:
http://dearauthor.com/features/industry-news/doj-lawsuit-update-where-windowing-becomes-important/
There are lots of comments and links there. Whether this will eventually have any impact on the general consolidation of media, I have no idea. But it's something.
Oh, and have I mentioned that I really, really, really hate publishers? 
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