I'd have more sympathy for this point of view if the Big 6 publishers hadn't been running a de facto cartel since, well... forever, and basing their relationshi

I'd have more sympathy for this point of view if the Big 6 publishers hadn't been running a de facto cartel since, well... forever, and basing their relationship with authors on a business model that could be compared, unfavorably, with a payday loan operation. Seriously? Standard author contracts have clauses that a) acknowledge that the author owns all copyrights & is only granting the publisher a limited right to publish, b) said publishing rights revert to the author if the publishers ceases to publish the work (admittedly a more difficult concept in these days of permanently available e-books, anyone know how this is being handled these days?) and c) the publishing industry is structured so that (sane) authors are represented by agents who are not employed by the publishers. By comparison with the music industry the publishing world is populated by saints! (Personally, I wonder if the fact that authors tend to be represented by agents instead of the music industry model where musicians are usually signed up by industry representatives is an accident of history that explains the relative difference in the normative contracts between the two. Thoughts?)