American publisher closes online imprint

The publishing giant Random House became another victim of the slowing electronic revolution today, as it folded its e-book imprint atrandom.com .

"The e-book market was not as buoyant as we would have hoped," said a spokesman for the company. The change, the company said, was not as drastic as it seemed, but merely involved moving titles to other imprints under the umbrella of America's largest and most influential trade publisher.

The move also follows a court decision earlier this year, in which small e-publisher RosettaBooks won the right to publish books online after a judge ruled that the right to print, publish and sell the works in book form in the contracts at issue did not include the right to publish the works in the electronic format.