TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for February, 2003

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“This is great, and I hope to see more stories like this in the future. Why can’t the government do this sort of thing?” - Ernie the Attorney on wireless hotspots in low-income housing.

The TeleRead take: I’m thinking of the speed of Wi-Fi and looking back to the time when people told me that e-books would never work out because modems weren’t fast enough. And talk about a way to reach low income people who may not even have reliable phone service (perhaps because they’ve skipped a payment)!

Other details from CNN–about the Boston-area experiment: “Now that Camfield’s Internet provider has ended its two-year commitment to offer discounted cable modem access, the project’s organizers will soon give residents the option of replacing their wired Internet access with a wireless connection.

“The high-speed WiFi system transmits and receives data from four barely visible antennas atop the development’s main building.

“Residents can buy wireless cards for their desktops or laptops. The cards, which can cost up to $100 retail, will be given away to the elderly and sold for $60 to others.”

And the usefulness of the experiment? Rather evident already. “A resident poll found that virtually all participants used the computers to read news, learn about health and housing, or to shop online. Several said they were training to become Web designers, programmers and network administrators.”

Oh my God, what would Cliff Stoll think? Remember Silicon Snake Oil? Sure the Net got hyped up, it’s not a world-saver, but as the CNN piece shows, innovative technology can be a veritable life-changer for the poor.

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“Bill Gates manages to write a guest editorial about ‘libraries’ that does not mention the word books. In fact, it’s just an ad for the Gates Foundation. Remember, freedom of the press is only for those who own [or can buy and sell] them. [ thanks bill ].” – From librarian.net.

The TeleRead take: Gates concludes the Seattle Times editorial: “We must all pitch in to keep our libraries vibrant and strong, whether through volunteer hours, donations or government spending. We must continue to support our libraries so they can keep the doors of knowledge open to all.” Hint, hint, Bill. So when are you going to pay to get the Great Gatsby on the Net for American library-users–the book of which you bought several rare early copies for the library of your $50-million mansion? It’s in the public domain in Australia and whatnot, but not over here..

By a TeleBlog Contributor

Ophrah Winfrey’s revived book club will do the classics–three to five a year. Great excuse for local libraries to print out hard copies of Project Gutenberg texts and also recommend them in e-book form, not just on paper. And if Oprah can send a little money in PG’s direction, so much the better.

Again, I’m not saying, “Hey, Oprah, just talk up the e-books and the printouts.” Most readers will want the familiar medium of paper, and many will insist on commercial editions–I’m happy to see the publishers get the business, which, these days, they badly need. But she could do a major service by also reminding viewers of the “free” electronic option and the printout one.

If, along the way, Oprah can promote the concept of public domain and call for reduced copyright terms, then so much the better.

My suggestion for the first title, by the way, is My Antonia–hardly the most original selection but a very appropriate one. Find it at Amazon.com or via a Web site with material from PG.

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For years I’ve wondered if ex-White House advisor Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Assocation of America, might not be a foreign agent. Hilary Rosen, too–the CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America. No, not really, but almost. Along with many others, I’ve warned of the intense hatred that our clueless copyright laws are stirring up against the States. Brilliant way to recruit hackers for Saddam. Regardless of the consequences, Hollywood and Washington want to inflict our antiquated intellectual property models on the whole planet. Who says the Iraq crisis is the only source of divergence from Europe?

Now, from the United Kingdom, has come some anti-Yank xenophobia that Valenti and Rosen and their congressional allies vastly deserve, or at least would if the damage could be limited to them.

The difference is that Bill Thompson, ranting in the Register, is only a writer-consultant and presumably isn’t in a position to bribe legislators with massive campaign donations, unlike Hollywood and the American recording industry. “Damn the Constitution: Europe must take back the Web,” is the headline of a column that he wrote last year, and that I discovered today through Luke Francl, a TeleRead contributor who had read my item below. Seems that Thompson’s call for hyper regulation of search engines was very much in character.

In fairness to Thompson, he is on the market, er, on the mark, on many a point. I’d agree when he complains: “We have already seen US law, in the form of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, used to persuade hosts in other countries to pull material or limit its availability.” And how right he is about some other matters such as “Congressman Howard Berman’s ridiculous proposal to give copyright holders immunity from prosecution of they hack into P2P networks.” I applaud, too, when he writes: “In Europe our copyright laws allow lending of material, and so material players licensed for use within the dataspace would not restrict personal copying or lending, although they would respect other rights.”

Thompson errs big time, however, when he says: “I believe that the time has come to speak out in favour of a regulated network; an Internet where each country can set its own rules for how its citizens, companies, courts and government work with and manage those parts of the network that fall within its jurisdiction; an Internet that reflects the diversity of the world’s legal, moral and cultural choices instead of simply propagating U.S. hegemony; an Internet that is subject to political control instead of being an uncontrollable experiment in radical capitalism. It is time to reclaim the net from the Americans.”

But as grouchy as I am about Valenti and Rosen, would Thompson’s approach really be better? How about the billions of people in China? I like it when U.S. conglomerates resist Chinese efforts to turn the Net into just another arm of that government. If anything, they should take harder stands. Blogger, Google’s newest purchase, via Pyra Labs, won points with me when the Chinese banned its Web site. That’s what these blogs are all about—freedom of speech, a concept that is hardly American only, unless the ancient Greeks just happened to have settled in the New World. Simply put, America is not just about Valenti and Rosen. It is also about Pyra Labs and the other innovative free spirits. Linus Torvalds did move to Silicon Valley; I doubt he’ll be relocating to Beijing soon. Chinese censorship is just as loathsome as the American corporate variety.

Recently I was reminded of the obnoxiousness of Beijing’s censors–in the most direct way this week–when a client working for a labor union said that a local government agency might block employees from accessing the union’s site. The agency had already attempted to block his members’ email. I told him about Google’s hassles with the Chinese, and he sent out an electronic newsletter invoking the parallel, in effect warning the thuggish bureaucrats that he would play it up in the media. That is how the Net can empower democracy, not just here in the States but elsewhere.

But what about different national values? The real answer isn’t to try to remake the Net the Thompson way, so it’s simply a creature of local elites. Instead governments at all levels should establish alternatives such as TeleRead-style libraries that could reflect and promote local culture and values without imposing them on the rest of the world. The role of governments should not be to take away the richness of the Net from citizens, but rather to add treasures of their own.

Note: Readers might also be intersted in Andrew Orlowski’s skeptical dialogue with Thompson.

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“‘Blogging is not journalism.’ Period. Technology consultant Bill Thompson–whoever he is–has an absurd little temper tantrum today on BBCNews.com in a column about Google’s purchase of Pyra and the excitement it stirred in the blog community.” – JD’s New Media Musings

The TeleRead take: J.D. Lasica is right on the above–and something else, too. Especially I fear Thompson’s call for extremely close government regulation of search engines. Well, yes, Google does bear watching on the privacy issue. But be careful. Paradoxically, the more closely the government regulates, the more likely it is to demand sensitive information about users–and get it! A far better approach than heavy-handed regulation would be the creation of a massive, librarian-run search engine project–building on existing Net-related efforts of librarians.

While Google bears watching and maybe even some regulating beyond present laws, we shouldn’t rush into this without considering the downside, especially First Amendment issues. Google has had enough trouble with the Chinese government. We don’t need to add to the ability of U.S. politicians to exert pressure.

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“While the Internet has given us all a forum within which to write and be published as never before, the Internet also gives us tools to search for and locate documents online to detect work or works that have been plagiarized. Detection of plagiarized material can be as simple as doing a Google Search or when the stakes are higher, using a specialist service that can detect plagiarism for you.”

Google Search

“Simply copy out any sentence of the text that seems to be the most representative of the uniqueness of that text and place that in the search field on Google. While this is not foolproof, it has worked for me eight time out of ten to identify a plagiarized text when I have suspected that text to be doubtful. This may not always work as the text may not be on the Internet, may not be indexed by Google or it may simply be a text that is well down the Google results page that you miss seeing it. “

–Smoogle

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Cable/Phone Monopolies Take Aim at Muncipal Fiber In today’s column I suggest that the phone and cable monopolies will do everything communications alternatives. That may include sheer deception, as this report from an Illinois newspaper suggests.- Dan Gillmor’s eJournal.

The TeleRead take: Not that different from copyright extension. If you’re rich enough and you don’t like the rules–well, just come up with enough campaign contributions to change ‘em.

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Dr. Ralph Wilson, a marketing expert who has self-published, serves up some interesting advice in his Web Marketing Today. He discusses formats and even Adobe Acrobat substitutes. Meanwhile here’s what he says on the issue of password protection:

“E-book publishers seem paranoid that someone will steal their intellectual property and e-mail it to a friend. And they will–occasionally. This is my take on the matter. Few people who spend $25 or more on an e-book are likely to e-mail a copy to friends. And most of the people who collect such illicit freebies never read them–nor would they have likely bought the e-book if they couldn’t get a free copy. I argue that you lose very few potential sales by leaving password protection off your e-book. It’s not an issue to loose your sleep over–this from a writer who has had hundreds of articles pirated onto websites by ignorant or unscrupulous webmasters. People who steal from others are seldom successful in business and are unlikely customers.”

The TeleRead take: What’s true of business-oriented books may not always be true of other categories. Still, at this point, the audience for e-books is so tiny that publishers of protected material may well be at a disadvantage compared to those selling similar books without protection. Whatever the category, consumers will balk at inconvenience and at stupid protection tricks that, say, make it difficult to transfer e-books back and forth even between readers’ own machines. A TeleRead approach, allowing easy file sharing, without charging extra for intra-household transfers, would be far superior. Of course, ideally enough online books would be paid for by a national digital library fund to make such issues moot in many cases.

(Wilson item spotted via Jerry Justiano’s Pocket PC eBooks Watch.)

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From Ted VanItallie, president of the Florida Historical Society, urging the signing of a petition to save the State Library:

Dear Friend of Florida History:

As President of the state’s only statewide historical society and oldest cultural institution, The Florida Historical Society, I feel it is imperative for me to voice my strong objection to Governor Jeb Bush’s recent proposal to eliminate the State Library of Florida, severely limit the activities of the Division of Archives, and eliminate the State Museum of Florida. This is an ill-conceived idea that will greatly impair the work of individuals interested in Florida’s history and a create negative perception of modern Florida among thinking Americans.

The State Museum is a vital component of the cultural and educational life of the state. The valuable collections it houses deserve the very best efforts of trained conservationists and museum professionals. Placing these irreplaceable items under the Park Service (as the governor proposes) is irresponsible. Moreover, this action represents a most unfortunate and cynical repudiation of the pledges made on behalf of the State of Florida to the many donors of priceless historical items. This kind of action is shameful.

The Florida Archives need full-time, adequately trained professionals to oversee the preservation and curation of this unique and wonderful collection. To relegate such a valuable resource to the “care” of an amorphous and curatorially unqualified “Management Services” bureau, as proposed by the governor, is entirely unacceptable.

The proposed elimination or dismantling of the State Library of Florida is an abomination. The unwarranted attack on this fine institution has provoked an outcry from the public that transcends the boundaries of our state. The Florida Historical Society created an on-line petition (www.floridahistory.info/petition) on February 10 to register protests against the governor’s plan of action. In a mere 48 hours, more than 2,000 verified e-mail signatures have been added and an additional 600 are in the process of being verified as legitimate. What a response! But, what an issue!

I encourage anyone interested in Florida history, or who supports the concept that these cultural treasures should be readily accessible to all of our citizens, to sign this petition. Perhaps we can put a stop to this “evil” idea before it comes to fruition.

Ted VanItallie

President, The Florida Historical Society

The TeleRead take: TeleRead, however gung ho on the use and preservation of e-books and other digital items, abhors the proposed closing of the old-fashioned State Library. Even from a tech and new-media perspective, this idea is utterly clueless. Intact, the State Library might contribute in some wonderful ways to execution of the Florida Virtual Library Plan mentioned below–systematically putting the Library’s collection online. Yes, that could be done by other agencies. But not with the same cohesion that an established State Library could bring. Beyond that, aren’t historical documents worth preserving in their original formats, with the help of the very most qualified librarians? What’s the logical end result of all this nonsense? Will it spread to Washington? Now that the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence have been digitized, shall we shred them to save money and space? Hyperbole, but in Florida the line between reality and satire can be, er, paper-thin.

Many thousands of miles away, the Taliban no longer are the main rulers of Afghanistan, but their damage lives on. They remain a threat to history since future generations will still be deprived of important elements of Buddhist culture. Does Jeb Bush really want the destruction of the State Library to be his legacy? Imagine–a governor as an American Taliban.

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Live in Florida? This petition is a “must” sign if you value the State Library–now menaced by Gov. Bush. Remember, this pol is a librarian’s brother-in-law. Imagine the threat posed by the rest of the pack amid all the budget-cutting. No advocacy of government waste. But here we’re talking about an attack not just on a library but an entire state’s memory.

On the positive in Florida: Under the Florida Virtual Library Plan, individual library users would have access to a wider variety of material as a result of consolidated databases–with statewide licensing (perhaps to extend to e-books someday?). In a K-12 context, the plan would fit in well with the proposal of a Dade County teachers’ union leader to spread laptops around the schools, freeing computer-lab rooms for use as regular classrooms. Gov. Bush deserves credit for open-mindedness to innovation here.

But the Virtual Library, laptops, whatnot, would be no substitute for the dusty old archives of the very physical State Library. Hey, Guv, have you really thought this one over?

(Info on petition via Infomaniac.)

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Microsoft is planning to build Digital Rights Management into Office 2003, according to a Slashdot item quoting an article in Microsoft Watch. The new restrictions will be on Outlook mail messages, as well as on Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. Users should be prepared to potentially suffer obnoxious Digital Rights Management in tools that they may use to try to work with or view “protected” content–not merely in DRMed books themselves. Microsoft could be planning to help escalate the war against fair use through restrictions based not just on normal copyright and contract law but on rules enforced by technology. Of course, the issue isn’t e-books alone. Imagine the harm that massive use of DRM-protected email could do to the Net. I can appreciate the need for the corporate world to protect proprietary information, but the problem is that Microsoft software is the norm even outside the F-500.

In a very much related vein, it’s great to read in BusinessWeek, via Slashdot, that Linux is picking up more traction in the corporate world, or at least for apps such as servers or cash register systems for movie theaters. Problem is the desktop. For now I’m back to Windows XP, having found that with both Lindows and Red Hat, I could not paste back and forth–among different programs–as conveniently as I needed. A small detail to certain programmers, maybe, but not to me when I’m on deadline. Oh, the irony. Here the Penguin folks are advocating the free flow of information and yet within the Linux world, I could not even shuffle large blocks of text back and forth between Open Office and Mozilla, or at least not from the former to the latter. Maybe with more effort. But I just plain ran out of time and switched back to Windows XP. Until the Linux people can come up with standards that work out of the box or close to it–well, I’ll just stick to Microsoft products and hope that eventually the L people catch on. Hey, aren’t Red Hat, Lindows and the rest of ‘em supposed to add value by integrating the best products? Still has yet to happen to the extent needed. Perhaps in another six months or a year.

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“…Lawrence Lessig, pointed out Wednesday that millions of consumers are downloading music and other materials onto their computers because slow dial-up connections make it tough to stream content quickly to a variety of devices. That’s bound to change within a few years as connections get faster, he said, making today’s debate irrelevant.” – AP, Feb. 20, via NewsScan.

The TeleRead take: “In the future,” Lessig is quoted, “it will be easier to pay for subscription services than to be an amateur database administrator who moves content from device to device. We’re legislating against a background of the Internet’s current architecture of content distribution, and this is a fundamental mistake.” And hopefully one that publishers will avoid–by cooperating with librarians and through sensible use of the subscription approach.

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Followers of the TeleBlog know we’re paying close attention to the music business to see what it could portend for books. To Music Marketers, Oldies Are Goldies, a recent Washington Post article, brings to mind one possibility. The big studios are unabashedly going after the aging boomers–via oldies such as Rod Stewart’s–after having gotten the message that Gen X and below would rather get material online for free.

As the music conglomerates see it, the gray hairs are more likely than their sons and daughters to, gasp, pay for physical objects. Does this mean that eventually the book industry will try a similar tack with p-books as e-books grow in importance with the young?

OK, fine. (Just don’t crank up a massive marketing campaign for Valley of the Dolls.)

Better to think “free” as soon as possible, however, rather than fixating on past successes. Consider a TeleRead-style approach, which, of course, would include provisions for fair compensation for copyright holders. If not “free”–our preference in as many cases as feasible–perhaps a reasonably priced subscription plan would be the way to go. See our thoughts on business models.

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“Senator Ron Wyden is getting ready to introduce a compromise copyright bill that doesn’t seem like much of a ‘compromise,’ as it’s really a consumer protection bill in disguise (not that that’s a bad thing…). This bill would require consumer electronics, technology products, and media products to come with labels explaining their anti-copying technologies.” – A few more details at TechDirt. Also see a CNET article.

The TeleRead take: Let’s hope the copyright mess gets straightened out in a helpful way, even though, like TechDirt, I doubt that the music biz will appreciate the Wyden bill. Meanwhile the fossils in DC and the executive suites of the recording industry are hindering the development of promising new technology. A major venture capital firm, for example, won’t back a a new system to let music stream over cell-phone networks–lest this be Napster II, with Doberman-style lawyers turned loose by the RIAA and friends.

This is why one reason why certain Gen-Xers and Millenials hate us boomers or at least love us a little less. Guess what? A generation gap reminiscent of the Vietnam era is coming back with a vengeance. This time it’s more over technology and workplace practices than foreign policy (although it looks as if many of today’s young are questioning that, too). Just wait until the RIAA starts prosecuting ordinary consumers. I almost hope it does. Great way to get out the vote and help cast out Washington’s many bought politicians.

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TeleRead, alas, isn’t here yet to help narrow the digital divide between rich and poor, and meanwhile we’re sorry to hear that Texas Gov. Rick Perry wants to kill off the state’s $1.5-billion Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund. Check out a news story in the Austin American Statesman, dated Feb. 18, with a link I’ve added below:

“David Disko’s workday is supposed to end at 4:30 p.m., but he usually stays late because students at Del Valle Junior High are hungry for more time on the computers.

“Every day after school, the computer lab teacher and more than a dozen students tackle advanced technology projects such as robotics.

“‘I have to throw them out at 6 p.m.,’ Disko said.

“The school computers are the only ones many of these kids know. About 75 percent of Del Valle Junior High’s 1,150 students come from families that can’t afford computers, and school officials say the district can barely afford them.”

Let’s hope this talk of abolishing the Telecommunciations Infrastructure Fund is just politics. Fascinatingly, Gov. Perry today announced the appointment of a new member to the Fund Board, with a term scheduled to expire in ‘05 (the just-given link goes to a Word document).

Perhaps, amid the budget-cutting frenzy, the Governor’s plans are in the category of: “Let’s propose the abolition of the Department of Sanitation, so we can get the voters riled up enough to approve of tax increases later on.” Then again, in a state like Texas, he probably means business. Too bad. A Perry Web site says the Governor “has prioritized public and higher education.” What’s more, he’s from a farm area, the very kind of place that the Fund benefits the most–along with cash-strapped urban schools and libraries.

Serve taxpayers efficiently? Of course. However, let’s not tear down, helter-skelter, what’s working today, and if this means higher taxes to support both the computer initiative and other educational endeavors, then so be it. Even well-financed, hardware-oriented groups like the Beaumont Foundation of America will be able to do only so much to spread the desktops around. Schools like Del Valle Junior High will suffer.

But what about a related issue not mentioned in the article? The cost of maintaining computer-lab rooms in crowded school districts that could make use of the space as classrooms. We’ve in favor of that, with the students given portable computers. But we need to think of the here and now. Anyway, might not the idea of the Telecommunications Fund be eventually modernized to include TeleRead-style computers for use at home and school? Sooner or later, the machines will cost a fraction of what today’s desktops do.

Interestingly, Texas has been a leader among the states in the evaluation of e-books for use in K-12, and that, of course, means it has an interest in the evolution of the tablet computer. Time for Texas and maybe a consortium of other states to get together on a TeleRead act–both in terms of hardware and content–if the feds won’t move forward? Not that I’ve lost hope about President Bush. Given all the bad news from high tech in recent years, he could do worse than to propose a well-targeted program to help both kids and the industry at the same time.

(Austin item via ASCD SmartBrief.)

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Is the time nearing for a massive, librarian-run search engine without commercial ties? Overture’s buyout of AltaVista may greatly increase the need for such an arrangement. In the New York Times today, Ted Meisel, Overture CEO, said that in the future AltaVista will charge Web sites extra for indexing page other than the home page. Stinkin’ idea if applied to any site, and especially horrid if it applies to noncommercial ones. Let’s hope that the Googlers and others are clueful enough to know that this kind of greed is not good. In full, here’s the relevant paragraph in the Times article announcing the Overture-AltaVista deal:

“One way that AltaVista will make money for Overture is through what is called paid inclusion–charging Web sites to have more of their pages included in the search results. Typically search engines, like AltaVista, will index the home page and a handful of other pages on any Web site. If the Web site owner wants more pages searched–each product in a catalog, for example–companies like Inktomi and AltaVista charge for additional referrals that result. (Google, so far, does not charge for inclusion in its index.) Mr. Meisel said that the paid inclusion market was far smaller than its existing search advertising business.”

Note: Overture was founded on the Yellow Pages model, with sites paid to be listed, period. That I can stomach if the consumer knows what’s going on. And since Google and the like need to make money, I can understand the need for keyword-driven ads if they are identified as much. What I hate, however, is the taint that Overture has in mind for AltaVista, which started out with the same glow now enjoyed by Google. May the Googler’s resist temptation!

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On the Horn of Africa, east of Ethiopia and Sudan, sits the nation of Eritrea with 3.5 million people in nine ethnic groups. Just the kind of place where a TeleRead-style national digital library system could eventually thrive, given the rural nature of the country and the need to spread books around inexpensively to different cultures. Today we were delighted to learn that tFanus, an Eritrean Internet company, had placed TeleRead on a list of the most interesting computer-related sites–right behind TechWeb and PCWorld.com.