Remember that Rusch post where an editor mentioned that your traditional publisher could get bought up by one of the tech players? Amazon just bought some 1,000 titles from the publisher Dorchester (via PV), which closed earlier this year.
Note that when Dorchester went under, rights to their books did not automatically revert to the author. Instead, they went up for auction. An auction that had all of ONE bidder. It appears that this bidder will allow the writers who don't want Amazon as their publisher to get their rights back, but guess what? They didn't have to do that.
Did Amazon buy all of Dorchester's titles? I don't know. What would have happened if the auction hadn't attracted any bidders? I'm guessing limbo....