TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for December, 2002

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Surprise of surprise, a Pew study finds that the Net is now a primary medium for many Americans. So, when will policy makers in the States and elsewhere connect the dots and put libraries on the Net in a major way–complete with modern e-books, not just valuable classics?

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If you want to know why book sales in the States aren’t growing as quickly as they should, one big reason could be publishers’ infatuation with predictability. Nowdays it isn’t enough to write a good book to enjoy really serious attention from major publishers. You must have a “platform”–for example, your own TV show or a business with an army of PR flunkies. A Washington Post article offers NBC interviewer Tim Russert as an example of the platforming of U.S. publishing.

The TeleRead take: Via a TeleRead-style distribution system, books could be easily and legally shared by readers. What’s more, librarians would matter more; marketers, less. Publishers and the rest of society could consider books more on their merits and less on the basis of the authors’ PR connections. Word of mouth has always been one way for good books to find an audience. Now imagine the power of being able to pass on whole books in a flash, so your friends can immediately grasp why you’re so enthusiastic about particular titles. Ideally, other countries will avoid the mistakes of U.S. publishers and build publishing industries–especially the electronic variety–around more appropriate business models for the Napster generation. TeleRead could help, not hurt, good publishers.

The bottom line here? Books should rely less on the whims of the news and publicity industries. Of course, this is an old problem in a new incarnation. Witness all the difficulties that Upton Sinclair had with the trendies of his time, especially those with corporate connections. Although Sinclair found many thousands of readers in his heyday, it was often in spite of, rather than because of, big media.

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Useful site from 321 Studios, makers of DVD authoring and backup software. – Via The Shifted Librarian.

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“Coverage of the case in the Russian press has abated following the initial surge of xenophobic indignation in July last year. But the indigenous media–both print and electronic–failed the tests of maturity, balanced reporting and adherence to reality. They could have transformed their coverage into a tour de force of the ‘poor east’ against the ‘rich west,’ freedom of speech versus stifling multinationals, digital versus print copyright, noble principles contrasted with grubby money. They could have garnered the support of liberal intellectuals and free thinking folks the world over. Instead, they defaulted into their usual mode of wild speculation combined with injured grandiosity. This is the real tragedy underlying this unfolding farce.” – UPI columnist Sam Vaknin, via Electronic Book Web.

The TeleRead take: Certain members of the U.S. press grasped the Constitutional implications of the Elcomsoft case–but not as many journalists as we’d have hoped. The issue isn’t just east-vs.-west. It’s also rich corporations vs. the rest of us. Ironically, via more consumer-friendly ‘tudes, the multinationals could increase their revenue from enlightened use of the new technology. Alas, if anything, Adobe is smarter about the Net than the typical corporation, especially the entertainment variety. The backwardness of Hollywood, in areas ranging from file-sharing to the prices charged for online movies, is a classic example of the problem.

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“Readers are deserting public libraries, depressed by shabby decor, odd opening hours and the impossibility of getting the book they want, according to a report into the country’s libraries. Despite a sharp rise in the number of books being bought and read by children–thanks to the ‘Harry Potter effect’–younger readers are staying away from their local branch libraries. There are fewer than two books per person in libraries across Britain. ‘There is a potential crisis looming for library services in the future,’ said Claire Creaser, one of the report’s authors. The report says the number of books being taken out of libraries has dropped by almost a third in the past 10 years. But the number of books available to those who do attempt to use their local library has also fallen, with just 87 million books available for lending.” – The Guardian Unlimited Observer, via Library Stuff.

The TeleRead take: The article goes on to say: “Attempts to draw in a younger market has failed, with loans to children declining during the year. At the same time, however, the proportion of professional librarians has dropped by a fifth over the past decade to 6,200.” Obviously, via e-books and a TeleRead-style approach, libraries in the U.K. and elsewhere could expand the number of titles and also make themselves more attractive to younger readers. And, yes, a more Net-savvy approach could also increase the usefulness of librarians–hence, their funding prospects–as well as the allure of the profession.

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1. DRM5 Microsoft Reader has been cracked by a 32K program.

2. Not guilty for Elcomsoft in providing a program to crack Adobe-format e-books–for fair use.

3. More mainstream e-books are available. Tens of thousands of titles are in digital form, according to a recent Newsweek story.

4. Sales of e-books hit records.

5. E-books go to campus.

From Jerry Justiano of Pocket PC eBooks Watch, based on nominations from his readers.

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“DigitalOwl.com – Hooters: E-book company, DigitalOwl.com, just bit the dust after three years of operation and burning through $11 million in venture investments.” – F’d Company.

The TeleRead take: Pocket PC eBooks Watch nicely zeroed in on some comments from the F’d Company forum. “These are supposed to be books. If you think you can charge the same price (or higher) as printed-on-paper with these things, you are doomed to failure. With any form factor, you will not succeed until you make this type of ‘content delivery’ cheaper than print.” Exactly!

By David Rothman

“The congressional Class of 2002, which has more than two-dozen millionaires, will face votes on issues that could affect their financial holdings.” – The Associated Press, Dec. 25.

The TeleRead take: Hey, the issue isn’t just conflict of interest. It’s also empathy. Will the typical millionaire really care as much about online public libraries as an ordinary mortal interested in self-improvement? Yes, wealth is hardly incompatible with a concern for the commonweal. But isn’t it fascinating that Bill Gates bought several copies of The Great Gatsby for the private library of his $50-million-plus mansion, yet failed to understand the importance of getting the book on the Net for free and legal access by his fellow Americans? No, he isn’t in Congress yet. But give it time–considering the bias of the U.S. political system in favor of the rich.

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So you want to know why even honest e-book buyers will cherish software to help them crack encryption schemes? Read a horror story that we just ran across from a victim, er, user, of the Microsoft Reader. He didn’t have to resort to cracking, thanks to e-books in a Palm format that worked on his PocketPC-type machine, but first he went through his own little hell because Microsoft had moved on to a different verson of its reader software. Adding to his frustrations? Win XP. Microsoft’s tacky treatment of early owners of the PocketPCs, when it come to reading protected books, is old news. But this particular account has a special bite to it.

The TeleRead take: A well-stocked national digital library system would give users, librarians and publishers more influence in the format battles. Microsoft and the rest can make all kinds of noises about the need for new formats, but the point is that text is text, and with proper planning, yes, books could keep appearing in older formats–and I don’t mean just plain old ASCII. Would you believe, there’s a, ugh, built-in conflict of interest here. A certain tech vendor wants you to throw out your old machine and operating system. Not the biggest incentive for the format stability that the e-book market really needs to take off. Comments welcome from Microsoft folks, who, judging from our traffic tracking system, are dropping by.

Additional thoughts: No anti-Microsoft jihad here. I myself vastly prefer the Microsoft Reader to, say, the Adobe equivalent, and I applaud the company’s guts in pushing the tablet concept in a massive way. But on compatibility and fair use issues, I remain grouchy.

By David Rothman

Merry Christmas to all of our readers who celebrate it! Luckily even the most zealous of the copyright Scrooges cannot wipe out the entire public domain. And so, via an email list from Project Gutenberg, we’re pleased to bring you the following old favorite–first published in 1823 by the New York Sentinel.

THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
(A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS)

by Clement Clarke Moore

THE MILLENNIUM FULCRUM EDITION, 1988

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that ST. NICHOLAS soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled down for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
“Now, DASHER! now, DANCER! now, PRANCER and VIXEN!
On, COMET! on CUPID! on, DONDER and BLITZEN!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my hand, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
His eyes — how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
“HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT.”

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Note: Not everyone thinks that Clement Clarke Moore is the true author of the above. Some say that Major Henry Livingston Jr. wrote it. TeleRead won’t take sides. Let’s just be grateful that the Disney conglomerate was born in the 20th century and hadn’t anything to do with the poem. Otherwise Congress might have been bribed with campaign money, in the Mickey Mouse tradition, to extend copyright back to the 1820s after all. – DR

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“Are we expected to simply pay our money up front in the vain hope that sometimes we will be allowed to read? We believe this was not the intent of Congress.” – Paul Schroeder, vice president of governmental relations for the American Foundation for the Blind, as quoted by Wired News on the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The TeleRead take: This was just one of a number of scathing comments that the U.S. Copyright Office received on the act when the office sought public reaction as required by law. Meanwhile it’s good to see a court weakening the DMCA via the Elcomsoft case. Other programmers, too, are doing their share. And via a Reuters item mentioned in Pocket PC eBooks Watch and on a Mac-oriented Web site, we see that copyright zealots aren’t faring quite as well in Europe as before.

Message to Hollywood: Beware of technology-related business models that depend on buying votes in Congress. Public hatred of your policies, and changes in tech, just might do you in. Older voters apathetic about tech-related issues are dying off. Younger ones don’t want your copyright cops on their backs. Even today, politicians can take only so much. Copyright is a wonderful, essential concept, but only if carried out with fair use in mind. Vanity copyright laws, as we’ll call them–self-published, so to speak, by way of campaign cash–have corrupted a noble idea.

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TeleRead has emphasized the need to enrich the Net with literature–not just upload “practical” technical information. Balance, please. And now we’ve run across some possible new fodder for this argument. In his best-seller American Jihad, terrorism investigator Steven Emerson quotes his colleague and friend Khalid Duran as saying that engineers and other university graduates without education in the humanities can be extra-vulnerable to recruitment by Muslim extremist groups.

Exactly how does this fit in with TeleRead? Again and again we’ve advocated the establishment of well-stocked national digital libraries in developing countries, which, like the rest of the world, will be benefitting from the falling costs of technology. The idea shouldn’t be to Americanize the planet; rather, to strengthen local cultures and instill new pride–as opposed to just spreading technical information alone.

In American Jihad, Emerson quotes Duran: “Engineers don’t exercise their fantasy and imagination. Eerything is precise and mathematical. They don’t study what we call ‘the humanities.’ Consequently when it comes to issues that involve religion and personal emotion, they tend to see things in very stark terms. The Muslim Brotherhood has become very conscious of this. They’ve set up special programs in the universities to try to recruit students in the humanities, but they never have any luck. Having an education in literature or politics or sociology seems to inoculate you against the appeals of fundamentalism.”

Emerson’s critics dismiss him as a biased Western journalist–we won’t take sides, here since we’re not anti-terrorism experts–but Duran himself is a Moslem highly educated in his religion. And none other than Prince Hassan of Jordan has reportedly endorsed Diram’s book Children of Abraham: An Introduction to Islam for Jews.

Caveats: The heel-clicking engineer is hardly a Muslim or Third World phenomenon alone. Consider all the blond-haired, blue-eyed technical people in Europe who gave us the like of Dachau. Too, it would be reckless to smear most engineers and other technies as robotic–clearly that wasn’t Duran’s intention. More importantly, while Duran’s thesis is helpful as possible fodder for us boosters of the liberal arts, one must also consider that unemployed intellectuals in developing countries have been among the most ardent revolutionaries.

But then again, if jobless intellectuals can be prime candidates for violent causes, this could suggest even more need for national digital libraries to bolster local cultures. Perhaps no small part of the anger results from lack of opportunties of the kind that TeleReads could promote for Third World acadmics and writers if the online libraries were carefully integrated with local educational systems. Instant results expected? No! But digital libraries should be part of the long-range planning of educational systems everywhere, not just in the developed countries of the West.

Reader comments welcome.