Their stopping print and electronic publication of the first edition is significant. Certainly not enough to be sure they won't sue, but they'd have to have gone way beyond "lost their soul" to go that far and generate a massive amount of negative publicity.
He claims the rights have reverted back to him. They would be stupid to risk a lawsuit by continuing to sell the book. Especially since based on the tone of the article, it doesn't sound like it was doing particularly well anyway.
I think he has some valid points about O'Reilly, but stopping the sale of the book is a move about avoiding risk of lawsuit with someone who has made it clear that he will take action if need be. Saying that it was out of spite is only his personal interpretation.
Yes, and I think this means that they let him know that he may proceed, and that he doesn't also have legal issues hanging over his head. If it were me I'd prefer to have a clean break from the publisher before publishing a new book, than to have a book that's still being printed by a publisher who used to assert exclusive control of it while trying to print the next edition of it myself.
