I just read the story in PW about AuthorHouse losing a libel suit. At first I was surprised because from my slightly snobby publisher perspective, I always just thought of places like AuthorHouse as glorified print vendors for the masses.
Since beginning my freelance venture I have done some more research on self-publishing companies. I want my job to be connecting authors with readers using my publishing knowledge without necessarily being a publisher. Self-published authors seem like the perfect market for such a service.
My research lead me to start changing my opinion of self publishing. Each company has a slightly different version of the same racket, and honestly some aren't so bad. I am particularly intrigued by Lulu. Basically some of these places are very good tools for authors to approach the publication of their book in a different way. Some authors, such as Lars Clausen have used the self publishing system in a very effective manor. And any book blogger worth their salt knows about POD-DY MOUTH, a blog dedicated to reviewing the best and worst that the self publishing world has to offer (bless her heart, as that seems like a very onerous task to me).
The problem is that self publishing companies need to promote themselves as "publishers" in order to attract clients. But "publishing" is hardly what they do. Self-publishing companies print, they design (sort of), and they open distribution channels. More than anything they dedicate their time signing more authors to feed the machine. What they don't do is read the books they produce. I wonder if AuthorHouse didn't refer to itself as a "publisher" if they would still be held responsible. When I worked at Barricade Books we were sued more than a few times, but no one ever sued our printer.
The last thought on this is unrelated to libel, it is how eerily similar the self-publishing experience is to many author's experiences at "real" publishers. I bet there are some publishers out there that don't even read their own books. As a matter of fact, I know it.
This all really begs a question of what is publishing? Is it editing? Printing? Designing? Distributing? Promoting? Marketing? I have long argued that publishing is a process of developing a great idea or a great writer into a valuable product. Printing, designing, distributing, and marketing can all be part of that process. But those things can also confuse publishers about what they are really here to do.

