I think the point of the articles was the combination of your posts. Since they don't have the same overhead costs for ebooks, they should be paying writers higher royalties, ones commensurate with epublishers. At least, that's how I interpreted it. Admittedly, I know woefully little about royalties.
The cost of bringing a book to market is the same regardless of its format, up to the point that you go to print or e-book. Editing, design, typesetting... all these have to be done, and the cost of acquisition is often a significant amount too.
Once you get to printing or e-book stage the costs are different but often comparable. The main difference that I see is how the book is sold, rather than how the book is produced.
I do like a lot of the points you made Old Hack, especially about the possible production costs associated with epublishing. I've never seen anyone bring that up, and I think it's definitely worth examining.
There are quite a few threads here which discuss it: you might like to do a bit of reading around.
Besides, I think a lot of self published and indie writers are a little upset that the big trade publishers are venturing into what they consider their domain, full steam ahead.
Self published writers might feel that trade publishers are muscling in on their act by producing e-books but the truth is that the Big Six have been working with e-books for nearly two decades now. Their sales have only picked up relatively recently: but were it not for the Big Six's involvement in developing the various e-formats, self-publishers wouldn't have those formats available to them. (Not that the big trade publishers developed them alone, of course, but we can't ignore their participation in the process.)
I would also note that if you combine the link with what Publishers Weekly reports you get a bit of a different view. Ebook sales we only up double digits in 2012 compared to the triple digits they had enjoyed for the past several years. Print books were up double digits for the first time since 2009 and higher than ebooks.
Also, it's worth looking at the volume of sales per format, and the market penetration of each format.
When one particular format only represents 2% of the market any increase in its sales is likely to look significant: a 100% increase in that format's sales would still only take it to 4% of the market, for example. When the formats which dominate the market show a significant increase in sales, that's important.
Random House had little choice but to dispatch lawyers. They were sued.
That might be so in this instance, but that doesn't mean that publishers' lawyers won't step in and protect the books
and the writers they publish. I've been involved in several plagiarism cases now (my work was copied, I wasn't the plagiariser!), and in every single case either my agent's lawyers or my publishers' lawyers dealt with the litigation at no cost to me. We won every case.
These were significant cases for me, and for the books I'd written. I couldn't have afforded the excellent legal cover I was given, and I am very grateful for the help I received.
