TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for April, 2003

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“China’s largest PC firm, Legend Group, is now selling a Chinese language Palm OS handheld in China. The Legend Palm 168 features a color screen, MP3 player, dictionary and voice recorder. The Legend Palm 168 has a 3.5 inch, 240 x 320 pixel screen that can display over 65,000 colors. It has a ‘virtual graffiti’ area which can be hidden to allow full screen photos and ebooks.” – Palm Infocenter.

The TeleRead take: In the e-book area, the Legend Palm will face competition from makers of dedicated devices. Oh, and then there’ s the ever-present, ever-pesky format question. Global Sources says: “Companies…believe that developing a content format that allows interoperability, accessibility and reusability is vital to stimulating demand.” Hint, hint for the Open eBook Forum. Do you really want to write off the Chinese market? The same article also has a few choice passages on the role of government in stimulating demand in China and Taiwan–exactly what TeleRead has been saying for years.

The demand for e-book devices hasn’t been as strong as analysts had hoped. However, suppliers in Taiwan and mainland China are expecting a strong market to develop within the education sector. The government in Taiwan has initiated several education programs that integrate the use of e-books in schools. In addition to the export potential, the government has also launched experimental programs to promote e-book devices through an association organized by the Ministry of Education, the National Science Council and the Taipei Computer Association, along with about 30 handheld device manufacturers and software developers. The programs involve the use of e-books among Taiwan’s 3.8 million elementary and high school students.

In mainland China, Taiwan’s Argosy Research Inc. has been working with the Education Department in Beijing to provide 1,000 trial e-books for schools in the capital city. The company, which plans to ship some 300,000 e-books to the world market in 2003, projects the size of the market in mainland China’s education sector to grow by over 10 million a year.

“Using e-books in schools with local government cooperation can resolve copyright issues and create volume demand,” said Argosy vice president George Wang.

In the end, this isn’t a Communist issue or a capitalistic issue. It’s an education and marketing issue. Schools and libraries can play important roles in the popularization of e-books if the private side is sensible about formats and everyone is sensible about the need for balanced copyright policies.

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Economy is among the reasons cited for e-books reaching some public libraries in the UK. Of course, this argument would work much better with a standardized consumer format.

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“Education is a little bit disappointing. The school market, in particular, is being affected. States are reviewing their finances, how they are going to pay for educational costs.” – Edward Atorino, an analyst with Blaylock & Partners L.P., on McGraw-Hill’s latest earnings report.

The TeleRead take: While McGraw-Hill as a whole posted higher earnings than during the first-quarter in ‘02, revenue from education fell 1.6 percent. And that decline could worsen if the present recession drags on and schools and libraries must cut further. We’ve seen what happened in Texas. If McGraw-Hill and other publishers want to keep the money flowing in from the public coffers, they need to offer more value, and a consumer-level e-book standard could help. McGraw-Hill, of course, is a member of the Open eBook Forum. Suggestion for Bob Bolick, director, product development, McGraw-Hill: Time to use your OeBF seat to get the group to return to the original vision from Microsoft? The present situation, “Beta vs. VHS times ten,” will cost your company millions in lost markets.

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“Three years ago, the feeling was government needs to stay out of the Internet. Now, Internet service providers has really become a threat to their business, annoying their customers beyond belief.” – Virginia Delegate Timothy Hugo, executive director of the CapNet tech lobby, following the signing of one of the nation’s toughest anti-spam laws at the state level.

The TeleRead take: I’m right here in Virgnia and hoping that my state government will sue the bejesus out of artmarket.com, the makers of various organ-enlargers, mortgage-lenders, and other companies that stuff my email box–doing their best to outsmart the filter in SpamKiller

But, look, did you notice something beyond the immediate issue at hand? Yep–that’s right. Even here in this conservative state, people are demanding action from government. And that could have benefits, in terms of eventually breaking down resistance to the idea of well-stocked public digital libraries–including maybe those at the national level.

Remember, Uncle already is a big player in the copyright area. It’s just that he’s serving Hollywood, corporate monopolists and other elitists rather than the rest of us.

By David Rothman

Is China secretly preparing to clone native versions of Jack Valenti or his counterparts from the pharmaceutical industry in the States? Well, maybe not. But you’d almost think so if you go by a headline in People’s Daily–Intellectual Property Protects China’s Traditional Cultural Heritage. A sample:

A Chinese official said, China has for a long time had the largest numbers of scientists, mathematicians, and engineers in the world. Add to that the practitioners of TCM [Traditional Chinese Medicine], the scholars, craftsmen, artisans and businesspersons in all fields. Clearly, there is an immense national heritage to protect and defend…

Treatment that evolves from traditional methods and unique techniques should be considered as an important contribution to national economic and social progress and should be protected by patents.

“Imagine if the science of acupuncture, which has been widely adopted worldwide, was subject to intellectual property control by China. Now extend that image to other methods and products of Chinese inventions. One quickly can see the potential size of the markets involved, in every technology sector,” said David J. Pratt, vice president of the M-CAM Company in America.

The TeleRead take: Yes, the story does say “traditional methods and unique techniques,” but one wonders if the nuances might vanish someday. What’s ahead? Patent protection for ancient practices “discovered” by greedsters and passed off as original? Kinda like copyrights on folklore. The scary thing is that Valenti and company don’t realize what a demon they’ve unleashed. What if ancient Chinese stories can’t be pick-up fodder for Disney, the way the Brothers Grimm were? Perhaps the Central Committee of the Communist Party can supply appropriate creative guidance.

Less frivolously, consider the following in the story: “A Chinese official said, China has for a long time had the largest numbers of scientists, mathematicians, and engineers in the world. Add to that the practitioners of TCM, the scholars, craftsmen, artisans and businesspersons in all fields. Clearly, there is an immense national heritage to protect and defend.” Now flash ahead a few decades. China dominates more and more industries, including the high-tech variety. It’s also stronger militarily. And guess what: It actually wants to gouge the West the way we’ve run roughshod over developing countries in areas ranging from drugs to entertainment.

Yes, piracy in places like China is a problem. But in a zeal to spread around the gospel of “intellectual property,” let’s be prudent capitalists and not overdo it in patent or copyright areas. Instead think of more constructive solutions, such as a program to help developing countries create national digital libraries with free or affordable content for users and appropriate compensation for creators–balance, in other words. The present Hollywood-dominated approach could could boomerang against the United States the way “Atoms for Peace” has in certain Third World countries (even if China wasn’t an AFP participant). No Maoist rant here, just a capitalist one. Valenti-esque laws and court cases, in the long run, could be just plain bad business. Jack, can you spell p-r-e-c-e-d-e-n-t? While not as deadly as nuclear proliferation, the copyright-and-patent variety comes with its own share of negatives.

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World Intellectual Property Day slipped past us on Saturday, complete with an accompanying comic book. Perhaps Lawrence Lessig and Harry Shearer can team up on a rewrite. Hey, no laughs, please. China, ever on the prowl for trade breaks, is using WIPD as a chance to suck up to Hollywood.

(Spotted via uppity items in the bIP Log and Matt Morse’s Web log.)

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A TeleRead link shows up in the Web log of Diane Duane, the best-selling writer of sci-fi and fantasy–as well as the author of many scripts, including one of the early episodes of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” She’s also an old hand in the online world–a former regional coordinator for FidoNet, in fact.

The TeleRead take: Thanks, Diane. So your Young Wizards are on our side? If you can put in a word with Spock and Crew–well, so much the better. Point is, TeleRead would be catnip for young adult readers in search of just the right book. It would also help address the Replicator question as applied to books. And, oh, aren’t e-books old stuff to Spock anyway?

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“I have no clue where he got the idea, but during the mid-’80s, my father, an optometrist and occasional tinkerer, dreamed up a concept a lot like today’s e-book. The gist of the idea was to have a paperback-sized book/computer with a screen for reading. A knob on the side of the device would allow readers to scroll from page to page. The book would be small enough to bring to a couch or bed and free readers from the drudgery of flipping pages.” – Allan Hoffman, in the New Jersey Star-Ledger (via Pocket PC eBooks Watch).

The TeleRead take: Allan Hoffman back then could never envision reading books on a computer and enjoying it. But to his credit he changed his mind when he saw e-books demonstrated in the offices of Fictionwise, one of the better e-book publishers on the Net. Too bad so many other journalists have written off the technology. In O’Reilly publisher Tim O’Reilly’s response to a Washington Post article, I especially liked the following:

I’ve always held that the successful “eBook” will either be much bigger (e.g. MapQuest vs. the Random House Road Atlas, or the Safari library of all O’Reilly and Pearson tech books) or much smaller (e.g. A very specific web page vs. an omnibus reference book, or a quick reference document on a PDA) than regular books. The eBook that simply mimics the print book on screen is a transitional form, just like the early “moving pictures” that simply pointed a camera at actors on a stage.

Exactly! And true progress will be much, much easier if the e-book world can wake up to the possibilities of a universal consumer-level format–and perhaps someday a library model, with stable and precisely located links encouraged. E-book should enjoy at least the linking power of today’s Web, and hopefully much more.

As surprised as Allan Hoffman was by the progress of e-books, so much more will be on the way if the right people can summon up the requisite vision.

By David Rothman

Books and libraries, whether of the e- or p- variety, can’t replace good newspapers. Still, Jessa Crispin’s Bookslut blog, for which I’ve been looking for an excuse to link, based on her webzine’s memorable name, reminds us all of the need for intelligent reading matter to augment local dreck. Her news peg, to use some jargon from the trade that she once practiced, is the April 27 death of Edward L. Gaylord, 83, publisher of The Daily Oklahoman. In 1999 a headline in the Columbia Journalism Review called the Oklahoman The Worst Newspaper in America. A blow to local pride? Hardly. Look no farther than the start of the Review article:

One Sunday morning many months ago the Rev. Robin Meyers stood before some five-hundred members of his eclectic flock at Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City and ruminated about what he might do if he ever won a lottery jackpot. “I said I would give a lot of money to education, children, the homeless, that sort of thing,” he recalls. “Then I mentioned that if there were any money left over I would start what this city really needs–a competing daily newspaper to The Daily Oklahoman… Well, everyone just started applauding. The place went wild. And this is not a wild church. Even the Republicans were clapping.”

That same Sunday, like every day in Oklahoma City, a group of news-starved citizens ranging between five thousand and ten thousand, depending upon the quality of the football season, bought what many here call the most respected daily newspaper in town–a paper produced two-hundred miles away, The Dallas Morning News.

But how representative was the anecdote? Was the Columbia Journalism Review on target or just mean? I dropped by NewsOK.com, a joint site from the Oklahoman and News 9 in Oklahoma City. The lead story, of course, was Gaylord’s obit, and I excitedly clicked on “generosity, patriotism and dedication” within a quote from George Bush. Imagine my disappointment when the following message showed up on my screen:

Welcome! Thank you for visiting NewsOK.com, your source for in-depth local news and information. Simply log-in if you are already a registered user, or register now and you’ll have access to all sections and features available on NewsOK.com.

I was tempted to register, but for the moment will be content to trust the Review and Rev. Meyers.

By David Rothman

Mr. Linux himself, Linus Torvalds, would allow Digital Rights Management in Linux. He’s no fan of it. But he’ll tolerate it, according to the Inquirer.

“I’ve had some private discussions with various people about this already,” he says, “and I do realize that a lot of people want to use the kernel in some way to just make DRM go away, at least as far as Linux is concerned.” However, he himself refuses to “play politics with Linux, and I think you can use Linux for whatever you want to–which very much includes things I don’t necessarily personally approve of.”

The TeleRead take: Exactly! No need for Linux advocates to outMicrosoft the Softies with a control fixation of their own.

Perhaps Torvalds’ thoughts can pave the way for an eventual compromise between at least some Linux boosters and Hollywood. Remember, if you keep DRM out of Linux, that just locks up Microsoft’s operating system monopoly further. In turn, the DRM boosters would do well to be open-minded toward nonproprietary protection systems of the type Jon Noring suggests. That would help pave the way for a universal e-book format at the consumer level for different OSes.

For some interesting DRM-related thoughts, see a recent BBC essay by Bill Thompson. He came up with some rather off-target rants about Europe and the Web last year, but could be dead right in certain ways on rights management. An excerpt from his DRM essay:

If copyright is a good thing, and most of us seem to support giving authors the ability to sell their work and decide who gets to copy it, then protecting copyright should surely be a good thing too.

In this light, bringing the Linux-using community into the rights management world makes a lot of sense.

Because if Linux does not support rights management then Linux users will either have to do without access to e-books, music, movies and all other forms of digitally signed and protected materials–or write their own programs to break whatever protection is provided, irrespective of the legal rights or artistic desires of the copyright owners.

This, of course, is just what happened with the DeCSS program, written to crack the rather shoddy encryption on commercial DVD movies so that a DVD player could be written for Linux.

OK, fine. But now it’s time for the DRM boosters to come forward with more flexibility–especially about e-books.

Interesting link: Check out a W3C workshop presentation on Open Digital Rights Management. Oh, to avoid those proprietary wrinkles in protection systems that can wreak havoc on “Open”!

By David Rothman

“In a huge setback to the big record and movie companies, a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled in favor of two online services that allow people to share music, movies and other digital files freely over the Internet. The decision puts the brakes on the momentum the entertainment industry had previously enjoyed in its legal efforts to block file-swapping services, which have made it easy for consumers to acquire copyrighted material free.” – New York Times, April 26.

The TeleRead take: Heads up, book publishers. In essence, Judge Stephen Wilson said the corporations offering the tools for file-sharing weren’t infringers since the technology also could be used for legal purposes, just like a VCR. What’s more, the companies had less control over users’ actions than, say, Napster did. The ruling, of course, doesn’t mean that the users of the software can escape prosecution for actual piracy. Just the same, an entertainment industry analyst quoted in the Times said that if not reversed, the decision probably would spur Hollywood and recording studios to come up with their own online distribution services. Needless to say, the same concepts here just might apply to the publishers of e-books, which, of course, can be transmitted over the Net faster than movies and records can.

Even better than setting up online services for distribution, however, or simply working with online book stores, why not use the online library model, too? Provisions could exist for distribution of library and nonlibrary books alike (with the former paid for by a national digital library fund and the latter by individual readers–book by book or via subscriptions). Talk about universal distribution based on readers’ immediate wants and needs! File sharing could even take place with unintrusive, privacy-friendly tracking mechanisms. Ultimately that is the best way to address the piracy issue. Make e-books too cheap and too easy to buy–or even free, if included in the library system–and the typical surfer just won’t mess with piracy.

What we have here is VCR II. Remember how Hollywood screamed that video tapes would kill it? Instead the technology offered a lucrative income stream. With enough vision among business people, the Net could do the same for film-makers, recording studios and publishers alike. Ideally the Wilson ruling will encourage corporations to be more open minded about the library model and other alternatives to the cubersome distribution systems traditionally favored by the entertainment industry. Perhaps if AOL Time Warner had been more clueful, it would be much better positioned to profit off the transmission of films, recordings and books over the Net. How pathetic that this massive conglomerate feels compelled to sell its book divison rather than adapt it to ever-better new technologies–including, yes, file-swapping. Fingers crossed that the promised appeal of Wilson’s ruling won’t succeed!

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“This is a mess.” – Joe Bill Watkins, a lobbyist for the Association of American Publishers, as quoted on a budget proposal that would delay spending $318 million on textbooks in Texas.

The TeleRead take: Ouch! The Associated Press story is from April 11, but whatever has happened since then, publishers should regard this as a wake-up call. “Publishers,” the article correctly notes, “invest millions of dollars in Texas because texts adopted in the state of 4.1 million schoolchildren are marketed in dozens of other states.” The cuts will keep many thousands of Lone Star children reading obsolete textbooks. What poetic justice it is that at least one of the books says Democrat Ann Richards–rather than the present Republican, Rick Perry–is governor. Quite fittingly, a national report from the publishers’ association notes that less than a penny of every dollar spent on education goes for textbooks on the average. Still, $318 million, even well spent, is a scary sum. Might electronic books eventually give the taxpayers more for their money?

Of the several hundred million now envisioned for the delayed buys of p-books in Texas, imagine how much would be going for paper and ink as opposed to actual information. A chance for the e-book biz, especially the digital arms of large publishers, to move in? To preserve the textbook habit in an e-context? And keep the material up to date without having to go back to press? Well, maybe. Schools in Texas are a long way from providing each student with a portable computer, as Maine schools are doing at the seventh grade level. But that’s the future. And the big question is, “How much of the material will come from the Net at large and how much from e-publishers?”

By refusing to adopt a standard consumer format–something versatile that could accommodate the needs of textbook publishers and users–the industry is missing out on a major opportunity. Ditto if a well-stocked national digital library system does not come into existence for students and others. Time for schools, libraries, PTAs and publishers to team up and lobby as deftly as defense contractors do for good old American cash?

Related update on the format standards question: Next week–we wanted it to be this week but most likely have been delayed–TeleRead will release an account of a constructive conversation with the Open eBook Forum on this issue. One highlight? Despite the efforts of some very dedicated people, it looks as if e-book readers can forget about a standard consumer-level format in 2003–and it’s not clear when one will be coming after that. Meanwhile here are a few more stray thoughts. Publishers use states such as California and Texas to set textbook standards to keep costs down; now isn’t it time to apply the same logic to e-book formats at the consumer level?

Idea: What if the big textbook states approached the OeBF and agreed to spend a certain amount on digital material if consumer format standards were in place? Publishers themselves might want to help the OeBF with grants for techies to take time out from their regular jobs and act more quickly on format issue. Five years is just too long to keep waiting for the format paradise that Microsoft’s Dick Brass and Steve Stone promised in ‘98 in setting up the OeBF.

Even better, textbook publishers and others could help the cause by listening to Jon Noring, an OeBF participant, who, as we’ve repeatedly noted, has some very specific and promising solutions that address publishers’ piracy concerns. Noring’s plan could speed things up considerably.

Remember, publishing is like any other business. Time is money. In lost opportunities–in delaying the move to digital books–the format chaos is costing e-publishers many times more than piracy would. Especially, digital textbooks count in market development. Today’s reader of e-textbooks could be tomorrow’s reader of trade e-books. If publishers don’t wise up, then book sales of all kinds will remain far below their potential as more and more children grow up in a digital world.