TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for July, 2004

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Audiobook and E-Book Expo: Exploring Digital Books and Content will be held Friday, October 29 in East Peoria, Illinois.

It will “explore where the library field has been and where it is going in the area of audiobooks for everyone–adults, children, the visually impaired, the learning disabled, and more. Experts will share the latest in web-based ebook management systems, handheld players, and collaborative projects.

“Keynote speakers include: Tom Peters of TAP Information Services, Steve Potash, CEO of Overdrive, Inc., Jenny Levine of the Shifted Librarian and the Suburban Library System, and Judy Dixon from NLS. Other speakers include Jane Chamberlain, Adult Services Manager at the Bloomington Public Library, Sharon Ruda, Illinois State Library Talking Book and Braille Services, and Diana Sussman of Southern Illinois Talking Book Center. There will also be time for exhibits and ideas!”

Sponsors are The Alliance Library System and the Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center. Cost is $25. For more details, reach Lori Bell, 1-800-426-0709, ext. 2128.

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Loved many of the points that John Kerry made last night, but when will he and John Edwards wise up on copyright? Think about the copyright-related implications that Kerry unwittingly raised in his speech:

A young generation of entrepreneurs asked, what if we could take all the information in a library and put it on a little chip the size of a fingernail? We did and that too changed the world forever.

Hmm. Dream on, John. The biggest obstacle isn’t the tech; it’s campaign contributors. How fascinating that you talked about a library on a chip–the very stuff gives copyright holders nightmares! And yet your policy advisors blew me off when I tried to educate them about Bono and also interest them in innovative ways of paying content-providers. Of course, the real action isn’t in libraries on a chip. It’s in networked libraries.

Perhaps a few of my fellow Democrats can get through to Kerry’s thick-skulled advisors and make a difference. I’d love to hear that “Help is on the way” for legitimate P2P activities, AOL-type networks and other areas of high tech–menaced by our own party in cahoots with the Republicans.

Kerry can talk all he wants to about billions for tech-related R&D; but thuggish Hollywoodish efforts like INDUCE-style laws will neutralize the money. If it weren’t for Hollywood, tech entrepreneurs on their own could accomplish far more–investing true private sector money rather than tax dollars (or those from tax breaks). We need both public and private investment. Too bad Hollywood lawyers are discouraging the private sector variety in such areas as P2P. So many of Kerry’s campaign donors are toxic to broadband. His good buddy Jack Valenti just sees it as a faster way to pirate. Regardless of all the Kerry rhetoric and his tax-break plans, the Senator really does not feel comfortable with high tech. According to one report, he did not work on The Speech with a computer but rather used a yellow legal pad. Although it surpassed the typical Kerry effort, the right cuts and pastes might have resulted in conspicuous improvements.

The Thomas Wolfe angle: “A great American novelist wrote that you can’t go home again,” Kerry said. “He could not have imagined this evening.” In a different context, Kerry made me think of the other John, who comes from Wolfe’s North Carolina. Why can’t Kerry and Edwards come home to the needs of their constituents rather than Hollywood’s copyright overlords? If it hadn’t been for Bono, North Carolina children could “come home” to Thomas Wolfe from Project Gutenberg and other free libraries on the Internet.

Reminder: TeleRead itself is nonpartisan; and, as you can see, it’s grouchy about the cluelessness that both parties have shown toward copyright.

Coming: More Librie-related musings, Hollywood-bought copyright laws vs. tech jobs here in Northern Virginia, DRM’s harm to non-VIP creators, short stories on the Net, and Turkish bookmarks (the p book variety). So much to say. So little time to say it in. Hey, come back Monday!

By David Rothman

See mention of ABC correction below. – David Rothman

Via a story headined Officials: Democrat’s Biggest Money Man Has Mob Connections, ABC News is raising the questions similar to the ones I’ve asked for months.

I wondered why, so early in the presidential campaign of John Edwards, Hollywood producer Steve Bing coughed up at least $900K to Edwards’ New American Optimists PAC. Bing’s people and Edwards’ were mum when I sought answers. I also noted that Bing is among the biggest Dem donors. And now ABC says Bing isn’t explaining his massive donations of more than $16 million to Democrats and their PACs. I didn’t use the M word in the related context, however. ABC does.

Bing partner locked up on racketeering charges 

My angle has been the possibility that Hollywood biggies leaned on Bing to make donations to John Edwards because Edwards could influence copyright law through the senator’s membership on the copyright-related Judiciary Committee. ABC isn’t so polite. It quotes law enforcment officials as saying that Bing friend and business partner Dominic Montemarano is in federal prison on racketeering charges. [ABC has since retracted the assertion that Montemarano was a Bing partner. See below.] Says ABC:

Montemarano has a long criminal record and is known to organized crime investigators by his street name, Donnie Shacks.

“Donnie Shacks’ main activity was murder. No question about it. That was his main function for the Colombo family and for organized crime in general. He was one of the top hit men in the New York area,” said Joe Coffey, a former NYPD investigator.

According to The Los Angeles Times, Bing paid Montemarano’s legal fees after his most recent scrape with the law. Montemerano’s lawyer said his client was an employee of Bing’s.

After a recent private lunch with Democratic vice-presidential candidate Edwards, Bing also declined to answer questions about his relationship with Montemarano.

What’s going on here? Could the Mob, which, as every Godfather fan knows, has had more than a few entertainment industry connections over the years, be buying off the Dems on certain issues? Including copyright? I can’t say. But I do believe these are fair questions to ask.

I’ll also give the other side. Could it be that Steve Bing merely likes to have colorful friends? And is it just possible that he was told: “Contribute to the Democrats or watch your career vanish?” Could he be a shakedown victim? Or maybe just someone who values his privacy and doesn’t feel compelled to explain his massive donations? A one-hundred-percent law-abiding citizen? That could well be the case. I’ll not accuse Bing of crimes.

But if he values privacy, why is he such a massive contributor to the Democrats and especially to Edwards? It would be wrong for pesky bloggers and the press not to ask questions.

Certainly the existence of the news stories would be an argument for curiosity.  Given Disney’s ownership of ABC–remember, the company lobbied for the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act–I doubt that the network would be going with this story without being damn certain of its facts.

Meanwhile here are some of the copyright-related items that TeleRead has carried about Edwards and Kerry and the sleazy Bono Act on which they’re silent:

A million dollars in Hollywood-related political cash: Why Sen. Edwards won’t speak out on the DMCA and Bono–even when his own constituents suffer?

The Hollywood-Edwards connection: Senator’s Judiciary Committee role merits close scrutiny if Valenti statement applies

Yo, Edwards! If you hate pesky questions, then you need to speak up on Net copyright issues

Sonny Bono law harms UNC Internet project–does Sen. Edwards care?

Needed: A public list of Kerry-Edwards’ REAL advisors on Net and copyright matters

Think Kerry and Edwards don’t pal around with Hollywood lobbyist Jack Valenti? Here’s proof

Still wanted: Copyright answers from John Kerry’s people in photo below

Attn. Ms. Edwards! Time for a library-lover to educate the Senator on the multi-billion-dollar copyright giveaway?

Fewer Americans enjoy good books–but here’s how Washington could help

PR depicting Edwards as “The People’s Senator” (except in copyright-related areas?)

Hollywood-bought law stars in professor’s nuts-and-bolts guide to Washington sleaze

Given all the questions here, it is high time that Sen. Edwards come clean with us about copyright issues and the reasons for the Bing donations. So far ”The People’s Senator” has yet to speak out against, say, Bono, the DMCA, or the proposed Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act. As I said, I’m going to vote for John Edwards in November since I’m not thrilled with Bush either, but I’ll hold my nose very tightly.

Finally, what the devil happens if it somehow turns out that the Bing money was mob-tainted in a dangerous way? Will Sen. Edwards and the other Democrats return at least the most recent contributions, just as he did within the past week or so when questions arose about donations from a Los Angeles lawyer?

The importance of copyright law as a symptom of something wrong: In the context of Edwards’ claimed populism, his silence on Bono and other elitist is totally irrational unless Hollywood cash has made him wimp out. I wish Prof. Lessig and the rest would stop being so damn polite. They need to ask if Hollywood donations have bought Edwards’ silence and stop tolerating his cowardice, rather than accepting it as matter of fact. Without being used, the public domain will vanish. Similarly, without pesky questions being asked, our political process will lose what integrity is left. Needless to say, by taking a pro-consumer stand on copyright law, Sen. Edwards could immediately lessen many of my concerns. hey, Senator, loved your speech at the Democratic Convetion, but how come you’re a tiger on HMOs and drug gouges but so far a pussy on copyright?

Important update, June 10, 2005: The Bing-Edwards connection continues to be worth checking out. Is there any meat to the allegations about Bing in obviously biased right-wing blogs? I find it disturbing that Edwards has yet yet to explain the contributions. And I’m also intrigued by the unsubstantiated report that Dominic Montemarano was a friend of Sonny Bono’s.

In fairness to Bing, however, it is essential to note an ABC correction–of which I just become aware–saying that Montemarano was not a partner of Bing’s. Here is a statement from Accuracy in Media, a right-wing group that monitors the media:

Accuracy in Media has cited a statement by ABC News that Stephen Bing, a prominent Democratic Party fundraiser, was a “business partner” of a convicted organized crime figure, Dominic Montemarano. However, ABC has since reported–and a statement to this effect has been communicated to Accuracy in Media by a lawyer for Bing–that they were not business partners, and that the ABC News report was in error. Their relationship consisted of Montemarano acting in a movie produced by Bing. In its own correction of this false statement, ABC News also reported that “no one is accusing Bing himself of any criminal wrongdoing or any involvement in Montemarano’s criminal activity.” AIM never stated and did not and would not imply that Bing himself was accused of any criminal activity. AIM supports this correction of the record and will correct our commentaries accordingly. While we always cited ABC as the source in our reporting, AIM apologizes for having published this false information.

Well, so much for trusting the mainstream media! As a Sopranos fan, I would applaud Steve Bing’s quest for authenticity and see nothing wrong with payments to Montemarano for legitimate work in his own movies. Now if only Bing and Edwards will answer the questions about the circumstances of the donations–and Edwards’ stand on copyright issues such as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act!

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While Sony’s been backing off from PDAs in the States, it’s actually moving ahead with ultra-portable computers, some of which could be great e-book machines. They come with sharp screens–and without the horrendous DRM hassles that Sony is imposing on the Librie e-book reader being tested in Japan. No E Ink, but perhaps that’ll eventually be available. Check out Sony U-70 review-is that a PC in your pocket? in the jkOnTheRun blog. A few details there:

The Sony comes in two flavors, the U-50 & U-70. There are three differences between the two models which are otherwise identical. The U-50 comes with a Celeron 900 MHZ processor, 256 MB of RAM, and Windows XP Home Edition. The more powerful U-70 comes with a Pentium M processor running at 1 GHZ, 512 MB of RAM, and Windows XP Pro Edition. Of the three differences noted above the amount of RAM is probably the most significant, as anyone running Windows will certainly attest to. The different processors might exhibit different battery consumption too, but I don’t have two devices to compare.

Hmm. You don’t suppose that Sony could quietly do a more powerful Librie and call it a “computer” rather than an “e-book reader”–a term that so often seems to mean: “Just think, suckers: You get Draconian DRM at no extra charge!”

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Alternative history, anyone? Might e-book enjoy billions of dollars in annual sales by now–far beyond the present $20-$30 million–without Hollywood-bought laws? And might the Net be even bigger than it actually is? I won’t blame the DMCA, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and the like for all of the problems of the electronic media, but they didn’t exactly help.

E-books are a $3-billion-a-year business now, with all the U.S. best-sellers instantly available throughout the world at affordable prices. Small wonder. The cheapest machines for reading them off high-resolution screens go for less than $50, and low-cost computer networks have penetrated even rural villages in the Haiti and Vietnam. Mass-market international Internet TV is a reality.

Thank goodness for the scandals of the motion picture industry. Those boys–and, yes, a small predominantly male group controls the big studios–couldn’t get it right. Jack Valenti earlier had thought that the  video cassette recorder would kill off Hollywood, when actually the opposite happened despite his resistance. He bumbed yet again in the 90s in joining the RIAA and other copyright zealots in calling for Draconian copyright laws. Valenti and henchmen would have gotten their way except that an overeager lobbyist for Hollywood was caught providing hookers to Bill Clinton and large sums of unreported campaign cash to key members of Congress. Recording industry executives, in the tradition of the payola scandals of years back, were also implicated. Valenti the master puppetmaster had nothing to do with scandals. But their strench proved so overpowering that for years he and the rest of the copyright establishment were rendered impotent on Capitol Hill.

Greater prosperity for Hollywood

Without strict copyright laws, Napster-style endeavors boomed, and outright piracy took off. The end result? Greater prosperity for Hollywood. What happened is that venture capitalists could invest confidently in broadband and other new tech without fear of bribed legislators and thuggish Hollywood lawyers shutting down their P2P networks. That, in turn, helped justify all the nifty new pipes that telecommunications firms were building. Although the wildest predictions of growth did not pan out, companies such as JDS Uniphase indeed did prosper. The mass demand for broadband was there.

Because the embarrassing truth about Hollywood had emerged, the overpaid black suits had to seek out allies. They found them in, of all people, librarians and EFFers who helped them obtain a tax on blank CDs and hard drives through which revenue was obtained for compensation of many copyright holders. At the same time, without lobbyist-written copyright law resulting in consumer gouges, the prices of the content was kept reasonable. Consumers responded by showing support for artists they loved, especially as movie studios and record companies cluefully encouraged the formation of performer-and-fan-centered communities. They also took care to invest sufficiently in new performers, rather than frittering away so many millions on rapacious executives and, yes, lawyers. Movies and music were less of a commodity, more of a true part of consumers’ lives–er, people’s lives.

E-Books take off

Over in the e-book world, many of the same concepts applied. Publishers appreciated the need for a community-oriented approach and reasonable prices. What’s more, publishers and writers could benefit from a well-stocked national digital library system that the librarian/content-provider coalition had brought about. While copy protection schemes existed, they were of the non-instrusive kind. The book industry unerstood that consumers would turn to illegal copies if it were not easy to buy and use the legal variety of book.

At the same time the Napster-fueled explosion in broadband worked to the advantage of book publishers, not just movie and recording studios. Most of the devices bought for viewing movies via the Net were also superb for reading electronic books. What’s more, broadband connections were almost all of the “always on” variety. So it was easy for e-books to link to each other, especially with WiFi-style technology in popular demand far earlier than if the copyright zealots had prevailed. Needless to say, the overnight success of broadband also fueled the rise of multimedia e-books.

Edwards turns back on old farts

As the 2004 election approached, some old farts in Hollywood tried to shove massive cash in the direction of North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and other candidates. Edwards turned them down. “I’ve got to stay true to my populist roots,” he said when one pushy lobbyist called him. “Besides, the system works.” And it did and does. Helped by the ease of downloading and the superb display technology developed, his trial-lawyer memoirs are selling twice as well as they would have with Hollywood-bought laws wreaking havoc on electronic books and the Net.

Hollywood reality: So much for fantasy. Now read up on reality–the Hollywood-inspired FBI raid on the SG1Archive.com website, which happened even though the fan site had helped to move more than $100K in CDs. Love the way Hollywood cooperates with fans to create a sense of community, eh?

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Washington’s medieval policies on stem-cell research are one reason why many of the world’s best bioscientists are ending up in Singapore rather than the States. Alluding to those researchers, a headline in the August issue of Wired even reads: “Singapore Wants You!” The man who cloned Dolly has already moved to Singapore.

Now apply this concept to the INDUCE debate over technologies such as P2P. Will the world’s best tech brains stop coming to the United States because Hollywood greedsters dictate our copyright laws? Will they go to Singapore instead? I’m not sure about Singapore, given P2P’s inherent threat to the top-down pols everywhere, not just Hollywood. But I can envision another country somewhere being clueful enough to exploit the inanities of Senators Hatch and likeminded fools and greedsters.”Come here!” this country might say. “We’ll give you some true ‘freedom to innovate.’” U.S. techies may or may not take up the offer, but they’ll be badly tempted, considering the dire effects that an unmitigated INDUCE could have on our tech community. And other countries’ best brains just might to skip us. Who needs thuggish lawyers and bought pols and laws to disrupt their research?

Meanwhile, you can join more than 30,000 people who have already sent letters to Congress to express their nausea over INUDCE-tyle legislation.

Will John Edwards, on the copyright-related Judiciary Committee, speak up on INDUCE despite the millions that the Kerry-Edwards campaign already has raked in from Hollywood? I’m skeptical but would love to be proven wrong. 

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From a Vancouver Sun article by Peter Tupper:

Paper books offers familiarity and reliability. Electronic books offer keyword searches and easy cutting and pasting passages into your email or word processor. You can put an entire library on a thumb-sized USB drive and plug it into a computer anywhere. You can print a couple of chapters, take them to the beach and not worry about sand or water. A visually impaired user can feed the text into a speech program instead of waiting for a Braille or audiobook edition.
…
The hitch with e-books is not that they are inferior to print books in certain ways such as portability and readability. The real problem is that ebooks aren’t allowed to be as useful as they could be by their publishers; they don’t take full advantage of the e-book format.

Along the way, Peter notes the existence of OpenReader, which, of course, would offer publishers the choice or whether or not to use DRM. As cofounders of the Open Reader Consortium, Jon Noring and I and others hope that publishers think long and hard before harming themselves with DRMish reader-repellant. If they must use DRM, they should iimit themselves to milder forms that create minimum inconvenience.

Speaking of stupid controls on readers: The Vancouver Sun article is unfortunately hidden behind a nasty registration wall.

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“Senator John Edwards returned $44,000 in campaign contributions on Saturday after learning that the prominent corporate lawyer in Los Angeles who raised the money is facing misdemeanor campaign-finance charges in California. The lawyer, Pierce O’Donnell, was charged two months ago by the Los Angeles district attorney with violating California election laws.” – New York Times.

The TeleRead take: Perhaps the Times can now ask Sen. Edwards about the more than $900K that Edwards’ New American Optimists PAC received from Hollywood producer Steve Bing early in the campaign under circumstances that neither will explain. Is Hollywood money why “The People’s Senator” won’t speak out on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and other anti-consumer legislation even though he sits on a copyright-related Senate committee? No illegalities claimed here. But so far the media seem not to be asking the essential questions–and pressing Bing and Edwards on the “why” behind the $900K and his silence on the DMCA and the rest. Did important figures in the movie industry suggest to Bing in a pushy way that it would be awesome for his career if he coughed up the money so early in the Edwards campaign? Why should a Hollywood producer have cared so much in 2002 about a freshman North Carolina senator’s long-shot bid for the presidency?

Relevant or not: What’s interesting is that Pierce O’Donnell is a noted intellectual property lawyer, among his other specialties, and has represented such clients as Art Buchwald and Faye Dunaway. I have no idea if he had any role in the Bing-related matters. Interestingly, O’Donnell’s Web site says he “served as a consultant to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on federal criminal law reform.” Sen. Edwards sits on Judiciary, which also handles copyrights and other issues, incuding consumer matters that the DMCA could affect through its anti-competitive nature.

Further info from the Times: The Los Angeles ethics commission “accused Mr. O’Donnell of reimbursing 22 employees and others for $25,500 in contributions to the 2001 mayoral campaign of James K. Hahn, in violation of a $1,000 per person limit.” Remember, the commission’s actions involve Hahn’s campaign, not Edwards’, although some of the supposed “straw” givers to Hahn reportedly also gave the $2,000 maximum in personal contributions to the Edwards campaign organization (technically a different creature from the political action committee to which Bing contributed). 

And also in fairness to Edwards: If improprieties did happen, he may not necessarily have been aware of them. But even if he isn’t aware of the details, isn’t it possible that general fear of Hollywood money is causing him to wimp out on Bono?

Related: Edwards Returning $44,000 in Donations, from the Associated Press.

Reminder: I’m a lifelong liberal Democrat who will hold his nose and vote for Kerry-Edwards in November. My intent here is not to hurt Kerry-Edwards but to encourage them to live up to their rhetoric. Why should “populists” like Edwards not care about stupid copyright laws that will cost consumers billions? I’m less interested in the full story of the Bing contributions than in Edwards pledging to take and maintain pro-consumer positions on Net-related copyright issues.

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Poor people’s Blockbusters. That’s what a librarian friend of mine warns public libraries against becoming. Libraries should enter the multimedia age but never forget the importance of their role in promoting good literature that stretches readers’ minds.

Alas, in the August issue of Cites and Insights, an old-guard techie named Walt Crawford approvingly quotes critics of the invaluable Reading at Risk report from the National Endowment for the Arts. For example:

…Ann McVea used the subject heading “Logic at Risk” to note that people just might be reading nonfiction, magazine, newspapers–or even listening to audiobooks. “I don’t think I’m striking at the heart of literary culture if I read Churchill’s memoirs instead of Margaret Atwood.” Others also note that nonfiction books show growing circulation.

But a little balance, please. As essential as nonfiction is–I’ve perped half a dozen nonfiction books myself–aren’t we going to gain different insights from Great Expectations than from Popular Mechanics or even Churchill’s memoirs? And is a computer manual really the same as Crime and Punishment or The Great Gatsby? Furthermore, isn’t there something seriously wrong when some library districts are diverting large percentages of their content budgets to, say, DVDs, thereby inspiring my friend’s warning against libraries becoming Blockbusters for poor people. By necessity under the current approach, just a small fraction of library spending goes to books and other content, thereby increasing the damage. And meanwhile, yes, the NEA report does jibe with other sources.

Perhaps Walt could benefit from reading As I Live And Read: One Book Lover’s Plea For a Literati Nation, a just-published Washington Post article by Michael Dirda, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Dirda beats up on the Net and other electronic media for stealing time from book-reading, one situation that a well-stocked national digital library system in the TeleRead vein could help remedy. It could be well-integrated with local schools and libraries and professional development programs for teachers and librarians, and promote the spread of hardware fit for reading e-books hour after hour. TeleRead could help address Dirda’s plea for a wider range of books in a typical American’s reading fare. It would be a rather economic way to spread around literary classics, the best contemporary fiction and other fare missing from so many school and public libraries. I remember when I was young and could buy the works of Saul Bellow and Norman Mailer at my drugstore newsstand. No more–not even with the younger equivalents. We need to use the new technology to get back to those days, both as buyers and borrowers of books.

With or without TeleRead, don’t expect full progress until librarians regain a sense of mission rather than cutting back on books to buy DVDs or magazines. Walt Crawford, as well as like-minded people such as ALA President-elect Michael Gorman, will ill-serve both libraries and society at large if they ignore Dirda’s pleas. Some would say that literature is elitist. Just the contrary. It can help to hold society together, especially in a multi-ethnic America where educated people from all backgrounds should be able to appreciate the meaning of the word “Gradgrind,” for example, or “Babbitt”–not the least relevant words in the library debate.

Related: Fewer Americans enjoy good books–but here’s how Washington could help.

Irony Department: Walt dislikes most uses of e-books and worries that the medium will deprive Americans of a chance to read paper books. Oh, the irony–given the potenial of e-books to increase the number of choices for the typical library patron, especially among classics!

Important Detail: Yes, library funding typically depends on how much is checked out. Moreover, I sympathize with libraries that must deal with clueless politicians. Perhaps, however, the ALA should undertake a campaign to help local libraries better educate policymakes on the purpose of libraries. They are bookstores, record stores and DVD franchises not. Simply put, they are in business to enlighten and inspire as well as entertain–not just push DVDs and other popular items. Of course, e-books can be far, far more efficient than paper books as vehicles for best-sellers where contracts and copyright laws allow–leaving more money for valuable but less trendy items. Again, the key word is balance. Libraries need popular items to entice visitors in cyberspace and in person, but let’s not turn them into Blockbusters.

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No, I haven’t tried the Symbian Bookworm e-reader for “creating” and reading e-books for the Sony Ericsson P800, P900 and P910 mobile smart phones. I don’t own the hardware. Beyond that, despite my general enthusiasm for Mobipocket, which also sells versions for Symbian-OS phones, I’m down on proprietary formats.

Just the same, Bookworm’s “creating” part opens up some interesting possibilties for fans of public domain literature, and the screen shots look interesting, as does the list of claimed features:

–Easy installation
–eBook creation
–Auto chapter detection
–Title, Author, Synopsis (Back cover description) fields
–Large book sizes supported (Up to the maximum space available on your device)
–Auto file system scanning to populate the library
–Stylish menus and controls
–Full screen text
–Choice of font faces and sizes
–Remembers you current book and place between phone reboots
–Remembers current place and furthest read for each eBook
–Fast switching between books
–Jump to chapters

One advantage that Mobipocket would have over Bookworm, of course, is that the format is more widely available for commercial e-books. Still, at $19.99, Bookworm looks interesting. Any actual users out there with comments? Email me.

(Found via All About Symbian.)

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I wondered if the Creative Incentive Coalition, a major combatant in the net.copyright battles in the late ’90s, was organizing a bash for potential donors attending the Democratic Convention this coming week. Strange. I didn’t see a Web site for the coalition at or near the top of the Google listings for that name. Did someone misspeak, did I hear the news item incorrectly on a cable news network, or was the CIC being revived? OpenSecrets.org apparently does not have an annual listing for CIC more recent than 1998.

Well, on checking, I see that the group is the Creative Coalition, not the Creative Incentive Coalition, and that the CC is raising money for itself. It “educates and mobilizes leaders in the arts community on issues of public importance, specifically in the areas of First Amendment rights, arts advocacy and public education.” Hmm. Does this mean it can take a good stand on Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and other creative and Constitutional threats like the DMCA? Even if HBO is among the permanent sponsors and the RIAA is among the bash’s sponsors? Certainly the Creative Coalition has access to policymakers.  According to The Party’s Parties: Lavish Parties Lead to Access at Nominating Convention, from the Center for Public Integrity:

Two events are rivaling one another for the honor of being the hottest event in town: The Creative Coalition’s benefit gala at Louis Boston, home of the Asian/French fusion Restaurant L in the city’s high-end shopping area (Newbury Street), and the gala for Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy at Boston Symphony Hall.

The Creative Coalition—a group comprised of members of the arts and entertainment community—has the upper hand when it comes to Hollywood wattage. It’s lined up celebrities like Boston’s home boy Ben Affleck, Oscar winner Chris Cooper, actor William Baldwin and actress/Air America talk show host Janeane Garofalo to attend a fundraiser for the non-profit group, hosted with the Recording Industry Association of America, Esquire, Allied Domecq and Volkswagen. Alternative rockers the Red Hot Chili Peppers are scheduled to perform at the fundraiser. Tickets to the event range from a low of $1,000 for one ticket, to $50,000, which would buy you 40 tickets, gift bags, 20 VIP tickets and Green Room Access, according to the Creative Coalition’s site, which lists issues such as arts and music education, First Amendment rights, gun control and campaign finance reform as topics of importance to the group.

Wow! Campaign finance reform? Ugh, that’s an interesting term in a copyright context,” especially involving VP candidate John Edwards.

Related: In poking around, I see that Steven J. Metalitz, a Washington lawyer now Senior Vice President of the International Intellectual Property Alliance® (IIPA®), who at least in the past has been the Creative Incentive Coalition’s counsel, is refreshingly honest about the origins of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Or at least a Metalitz bio from the IIPA is candid enough:

As counsel to the Creative Incentive Coalition, he was instrumental in the drafting of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, and he has also served as counsel to the Copyright Coalition on Domain Names since its inception in 1999.

Nice, huh? In defining “instrumental” here, I’d go by definition 1 at Dictionary.com: “Serving as a means or agency; implemental: was instrumental in solving the crime.” No comments on “crimes” in a copyright sense. In fact, isn’t copyright better left to the special-interest lobbyists? I wonder which ones are ghosting the INDUCE-type legislation for Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch. To what extent are he and his staffers the actual authors of his crooked and clueless bills?

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From the start, TeleRead has warned that books are losing out to video games and TV and scads of other competitors. Nothing against other media. It’s just that we need to assure books a proper place in the general scheme of things, and a Carnegie-style free library model, with proper compensation for content creators, could help immensely. Just as with commercial TV, people are more likely to engage in a free activity, especially if available via the Net as a TeleRead-type library system would be.

While leaders of the p-book industry are trying to play up the positives, the long-term numbers for book reading are not very encouraging. In an article headlined The end of books?, Kevin Nance and Mike Thomas of the Chicago Sun Times report:

…The deeper problem–the root of all evil, from the publishing industry standpoint–is the fact that as entertainment choices multiply, Americans are reading less. According to numbers crunched by Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a New York-based investment bank that specializes in media companies, Americans spent 120 hours a person a year reading consumer books in 1998; by 2003, the number of hours had fallen to 106. By 2006, the projected number of hours we spend reading will be 103.

By contrast, according to the VSS findings, television-watching took up 1,551 hours of our time in 1998, and is expected to rise to 1,679 hours two years from now. Internet use is also skyrocketing, from 54 hours in 1998 to a projected 213 hours in 2006…

And “Reading at Risk,” a new survey released this month by the National Endowment for the Arts using data collected by the Census Bureau, shows that the percentage of Americans who read novels, short stories, plays or poetry — and, in fact, any sort of book — has steadily declined in the past two decades. The drop-off was especially noticeable among young adults, with literary reading among 18-to-24-year-olds dropping from almost 60 percent in 1982 to about 43 percent in 2002.

What’s ahead? Meaningful action by the book industry or more denial of the problem?

(Sun-Times article found via eBookAd.)

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From e-books to P2D and digital radio, legal hazards could abound from the proposed Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004–popularly known as INDUCE, the name of the original version. Here are a few gems we’ve noticed:

–E-books. Jon Noring, the main founder of the OpenReader Consortium, in which I’m involved, notes that someday it could be illegal to distribute e-book software without DRM. After all, some kooky judges might rule that such software could be a tool to spread around illegal DRMless versions of commercial books. There are some nasty possibilities even for established players such as Adobe, whose Acrobat technology is used by e-book pirates to create bootleg editions based on image scans–no OCR needed. It is even possible that mere word-processors would be illegal if you carried the language of INDUCE to its logical extreme. No wonder the Business Software Alliance is not quite as gung ho on the legislation as before. While INDUCE defenders claim that distinctions could be made between legal and illegal uses of technology, it isn’t always that easy in real life. The Act still seems more focused on technologies than on actual crimes. Correction. Make that read “more focused on innovative technologies” threatening Hollywood’s existing business models. If I were Hillary Clinton, I’d immediately withdraw support of INDUCE. Given the naked corruption involved here, not just the general cluelessness, INDUCE will be a very efficient way to transform some progressive technies into government-haters.

–P2P. StreamCast Networks CEO Mike Weiss says the Act reflects massive ignorance of P2P technology. Oh, well, under the influence of pesky troublemakers like Ernie Miller, Hatch has been forced to change his rhetoric. Meanwhile P2P.net has noted Hollywood’s contributions of the politicians on the Senate Judiciary Committee considering the bill.

–Digital radio. If INDUCE becames law, then companies such as Clear Channel Communications might not be able not go ahead with its favored form of digital radio–at least not without onerous copyright protection. The New York Times has reported: “The Recording Industry Association of America, a powerful trade group, last month asked the Federal Communications Commission to adopt rules that would prohibit the use of digital radio as a means of widespread piracy. The association’s concern is that listeners would be able to train their tuners to scan the airwaves to collect libraries of songs that could then be disseminated widely, and at compact disk quality, over the Internet.” RIAA may well be setting itself up to threaten Clear Channel in new ways if INDUCE becomes law.

The good news is that, as reported by Ernest Miller, Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) has revealed his opposition to the Act.

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WASHINGTON–Sen. Orrin G. Hatch horrified his many Hollywood campaign donors today with a new bill called the SEDUCE Act.

SEDUCE would ban sex on screen, in rock songs and in the media and life at large–part of the Mormon legislator’s war against “B2B.” The term is his shorthand for the sharing of bodily fluids and is not to be confused with “Business to Business” except in red light districts.

“I’m sick and tired of entertainment conglomerates promoting the sharing of bodily fluids,” said the senator. “B2B is unnecessary. While it’s true that humanity needs sex for reproduction, the harm outweighs the good. Imagine all the teenage pregnancies, AIDS cases and other immorality that the entertainment industry promotes.

“Let’s not go after the children. Let’s go after the business people responsible for it all. Just think: If there were no sex and no pregnancies, we could stop all crime. No new criminals would replace old criminals.”

Related: Techies Blast Induce Act from Wired News–and similar items.

Reminder: Would that the Wired News article be satire rather than reportage! Of course, TeleRead’s B2B item is satire in case you somehow didn’t notice. With clownish pols like Hatch on the loose, one needs to be explicit about what is and isn’t satire.

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Two informative articles explore the significance of the Internet Archive as a means to preserve material from the Net and elsewhere:

–Ephemeral to Enduring: The Internet Archive and Its Role in Preserving Digital Media (PDF alert), by Eli Edwards, in the March issue of Information Technology and Libraries (better late than never).

–A Conversation with Brewster Kahle in the ACM Queue, dated June.

The copyright angle: Edwards reports:

In a letter to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Professor Stephen R. Brown of American University complained that “[t]he Internet Archive is nothing more than an enormous copyright violation disguised as a library.” 14 Newspapers, especially those that have used their digital and microfilm archives as profitable ancillary revenue streams, have also complained that IA is undermining their archival collections by offering the same material for free, without the express permission of the papers. However, since IA does not provide daily or weekly archival copies of newspaper or journal Web sites and is willing to remove material on request, the complaints have been somewhat muted….”