Attack of the Giant Penguin

Looking to offset the surge in electronic books and the growth of Web retail companies such as Amazon and Apple, two media conglomerates, England's Pearson and Germany's Bertelsmann, plan to create the world's largest book publisher, Penguin Random House ("PRH"), the Wall St. Journal reports today.

If it withstands antitrust review, the new entity would represent nearly 25 percent of the world's English-language book sales, according to the WSJ article. Authors who would publish under PRH include John Grisham, Tom Clancy, Toni Morrison and naughtynovelist E.L. James of Fifty Shades of Gray fame.

Bertelsmann will control 53 percent of PRH to Pearson's 47 percent interest in the joint venture. Random House CEO Markus Dohle is expected to oversee the entity and Penguin CEO John Makinson would serve as Chair of PRH, according to the WSJ piece.

Dismissal of 'Invisible Eden' Libel Suit No 'Flook'

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Barnstable (Mass.) County Superior Court Judge Robert Rufo has tossed the 2006 libel case filed by the former boyfriend of murdered fashion writer Christa Worthington against the publisher and author of a book that he claimed suggested he was her killer.

In Tim Arnold v. Maria Flook & Random House Inc. (Case No. 06356), the plaintiff, who found Worthington's body, claimed the book, "Invisible Eden," invited readers to conclude he murdered Worthington. According to the complaint, the "imputation of crime, though indirect, is yet unmistakable."

Apparently, not to Judge Rufo, who decided that Flook merely reported information from prosecutors who, at one point, considered Arnold the prime suspect. Christopher McCowen, a Cape Cod sanitation worker, was convicted of stabbing Worthington to death in a case that involved accusations of racial bias by certain jurors.

Judge Rufo and Arnold's counsel also disagrred regarding the plaintiff's burden of proof in his libel suit, with the latter arguing Arnold was a private individual and Judge Rufo considering him a public figure because of the multiple news media interviews in which he participated.  Under Massachusetts libel law, a public figure must prove "actual malice" on the part of the defendant, whereas a private citizen need only satisfy the lower standard of "negligence."

Rock Impresario Sues Waits Author for Libel

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Manager Herbert Cohen, whose stable of rock stars has included Frank Zappa, Linda Ronstadt, George Duke and Alice Cooper, has sued British author Barney Hoskyns and publisher Random House for defamation, following publication May 19 of Low Side of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits.

The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (cv09-4400) on June 18, claims the book damages the reputation of Cohen, Waits' long-time manager, by accusing him of stealing royalties from the singer-composer-actor and by including him in a group described as "fish-peddlars and professional vermin."

The complaint appends pages from the book that include the allegedly defamatory passages, including purported comments from folk rock musician Jerry Yester that Waits' wife told him that "Herbie nicked a lot of money from Tom," and "Waits absolutely trusted Herbie to his core, and it devastated him when he found out that he grabbed a lot of the royalties."

Although the 59-year-old Waits is quoted in the book, he is not named as a defendant. Waits, dubbed "one of the last beatniks" by music critics, recorded for Asylum Records in the '70s and Island Records in the '80s, including the albums "Swordfishtrombones" and "Rain Dogs." He also has appeared in several movies, including "Short Cuts," "Coffee & Cigarettes," and "The Fisher King."

Surprisingly, although Hoskyns is British and the book was released in the United Kingdom in March 2009, Cohen brought suit in California, rather than the more defamation plaintiff-friendly England.