NewsCorp may buy Simon & Schuster

[cal888]

According to Deadline. What impact could this have on the ST book line?

[Daddy Todd]

Well, it could cause me to abandon the line. I won't do business with Rupert Murdoch.

[Markonian]

Daddy Todd wrote:

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Well, it could cause me to abandon the line. I won't do business with Rupert Murdoch.

Dependent how good your German is, you could read the ST novels from the German publisher CrossCult.

[Daddy Todd]

Markonian wrote:

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Dependent how good your German is, you could read the ST novels from the German publisher CrossCult.

That's an appealing notion.

However, if I ever learned German well enough to read Star Trek novels, I'd probably get caught back up reading Perry Rhodan, which I read (in translation) from 1971 until the American editions stopped about 1979. Then I'd never have time for Trek, since I'm something like 2500 issues behind on my Perry Rhodan reading.

[Ian Keldon]

Hey Todd, as an aside: where did you get your avatar? I LIKE it!

[BillJ]

Markonian wrote:

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Dependent how good your German is, you could read the ST novels from the German publisher CrossCult.

But then he's still supporting Murdoch, since I'm sure CultCross is paying Simon and Shuster for the reprint rights.

[DEWLine]

Not sure I'd want to keep doing business as a reader if the company becomes a Murdoch arm either.

[Christopher]

DEWLine wrote:

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Not sure I'd want to keep doing business as a reader if the company becomes a Murdoch arm either.

I don't think one can worry too much about which multigajillionaire owns a piece of any given thing, since you'd pretty much have to live on a desert island to avoid using something that was connected to them in some way. For instance, the Star Wars films are distributed by 20th Century Fox, which is a subsidiary of Murdoch's NewsCorp. Would you boycott Star Wars for the rest of your life because of that? Or Planet of the Apes or Die Hard or X-Men or the Alien franchise? What about The Shield or Burn Notice or White Collar? Do you boycott Hulu and Photobucket because NewsCorp owns them? What about its 5% share in MySpace?

The thing to remember is that there are countless layers of hierarchy between the things you actually watch or read or use and the moguls who ultimately profit from them. For instance, there was all that furor recently over the homophobic statements of the guy who owned the Chick-Fil-A corporation, but that wasn't the fault of the people who owned the individual restaurant franchises or the people they employed (many of whom are gay themselves). Boycotting their restaurants probably hurt those people lower on the totem pole a lot more than it hurt the owner. At that level, these moguls don't have much contact with the actual businesses they own. They just see the money that comes in from them, and it's all kind of interchangeable to them.

[JD]

Hmm, if this happened how many major individual publishing companies would be left?

[Therin of Andor]

Markonian wrote:

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Dependent how good your German is, you could read the ST novels from the German publisher CrossCult.

Who surely pays Pocket (and its owners) and CBS to be allowed to publish them?

[Sci]

Therin of Andor wrote:

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Who surely pays Pocket (and its owners) and CBS to be allowed to publish them?

Does CultCross pay S&S to print German translations? Or does CC only pay CBS?

'Cos S&S doesn't retain any copyright to the books. It could be like the situation where IDW was reprinting Trek comics originally from DC Comics, because DC didn't retain any rights to those comics after their contract with Paramount expired.

[Therin of Andor]

Sci wrote:

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because DC didn't retain any rights to those comics after their contract with Paramount expired.

But Pocket/Gallery does still have a current license, and many of the translated titles continue to be in-print in English, and still earning royalties for the authors.

[Sci]

Therin of Andor wrote:

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But Pocket/Gallery does still have a current license, and many of the translated titles continue to be in-print in English, and still earning royalties for the authors.

Which is why the question is, does S&S's license with CBS give S&S royalties from foreign translations, or do royalties only get paid to the authors?

[Fer]

Christopher wrote:

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What about its 5% share in MySpace?

MySpace... MySpace... that sounds vaguely familiar. Do they have a Facebook page?

[rahullak]

Facebook isn't yet owned by a multigajillionaire is it?