TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for August, 2007

By Chris Meadows

A few weeks ago, a DMCA takedown notice was issued by Andrew Burt in his capacity as Vice President of SFWA, the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers’ Association. The notice concerned many documents on Scribd.com, a site where people can post documents much as they might post photographs to Flickr. The notice alleged broad infringement of copyrights, and resulted in the standard 10-day takedown mandated by the pertinent provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The DMCA’s takedown provision protects Internet service providers such as websites from being sued for copyright violation provided that they act right away to remove infringing material when it is called to their attention with a notice. This means that websites do not have to check everything that is uploaded to make sure it does not violate copyright, which in turn means that infringing material (such as a scanned copy of an Isaac Asimov novel, for instance) could easily be uploaded there. In this case, removing the material is certainly warranted.

The problem is that the notice resulted in the removal of many works that were uploaded by their own authors, such as bibliographies and works of criticism that only mentioned Isaac Asimov books, and the electronic edition of an SF magazine called Ray Gun Revival—and Cory Doctorow’s novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, which was released under a Creative Commons license that expressly permitted such distribution. It also targeted many works allegedly by authors whom SFWA had no authority to represent.

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By David Rothman

“Prince Johan Friso, son of Holland’s Queen Beatrix, and his wife, Princess Mabel of Oranje-Nassau, last week acknowledged having altered a Wikipedia entry about the princess, formerly known as Mabel Wisse Smit.” – New York Times.

By David Rothman

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Comments welcome! What can Creative Common authors to do turn readers into buyers? Update:, 9:24 a.m.: Within the 25 percent or less range, what might your percentage be? Do the authors perhaps think that volume will be high enough to justify a five or even one percent rate?

By David Rothman

Sony e-book strategists, not just e-book fans, should read and reflect on the above item from from Gizmodo. The longer Sony relies on its proprietary BBeB format, the more risky for all.

For the company’s sake, not just consumers’, Sony should do as expected and change to Adobe Digital Editions, which can read the standard IDPF epub format, an Adobe-DRMed version, and encrypted and nonencrypted PDF.

Let’s hope that owners can update their Sony Readers, that the change won’t just happen in the forthcoming model.

Survival of Sony’s BBeB-oriented store: Iffy?

But that will still leave me wondering about the purpose and survival of Sony’s currently BBeB-oriented store. How will it be able to compete against Amazon even if the new sony Readers, too, can read BBeB? The store bragged in a promo e-mail about having more than 15,ooo BBeB books available, but even now Amazon/Mobipocket beats it by a large margin—with at least 45,000 titles at Mobi’s store and more to come.

Sony can pour big cash into the store. But will it do so, year after year? Amazon not only has money but also existing relationships with publishers. Will the Sony store vanish? Or might Sony and Amazon work out a deal? (more…)

By David Rothman

The Achilles Heel of the DT 375 Web tablet, which has an eight-inch screen and is sold at uBid for just $155, is the slow Internet Explorer browser. But the diligent Andy at DT 375.com has arranged for an experimental adaptation of the Opera Web browser. I’m removing the download link posted earlier since he’d like a little more time before going live. Caveats:

–Andy is still working out the wrinkles of Opera. He doesn’t yet have dramatic speed improvements over Internet Explorer. If nothing else, though, I’ll hope that Opera gets along better with current Web sites than the old IE does. Even with IE, the DT375 is just fine for downloading books from public domain sites such as Project Gutenberg and Manybooks.net.

–When the download link is ready to go—I’ll post it here again—you’ll need to unzip Opera first. Then you’ll download it from Andy’s site to your PC, extract Opera, then copy it to your DT 375’s memory cad. Put the Opera directory in the DT’s program directory, and make sure you’ve copied the aygshell.dll to the Opera directory. Alas, Opera won’t run off the memory card (a way to make it easier to use Opera after you’ve rebooted). The Windows CE operating system as implemented on the DT 375 has many nice features, but quirks like the just-mentioned one can drive some users crazy. If Opera meets Andy’s expectations, I wouldn’t be surprised if he burned it into the machines he sold (you can bet that Andy will give a lot more support than uBid-related vendors would!).

The TeleBlog draws its share of heavy-duty hackers, and I think it would be wonderful if some of them teamed up with Andy on Opera, in addition to investigating other alternatives such a Firefox-related browsers. Who knows? You might even get a free DT 375 out of it. (more…)

By David Rothman

I dropped by the Sony Reader’s e-store to pick up a some free Connect classics before the deadline expires at the end of tomorrow, Friday, Aug. 31. It’s also the deadline for the $50 credit toward nonclassics.

The big question about Connect Classics, listed here, is, “What’s the point?” Has anyone taken a close look at the freebies to see if they contain many fewer typos than public domain equivalents available via Project Gutenberg, Manybooks.net or elsewhere?

I glanced at the Sony Connect version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, picked up from Pennyslvania State University’s Electronic Classics series. As the above image shows, the Connect edition looks spiffy. But I didn’t see an introductory essay or something else—other than the cover, branded of course—that would add heaps of value for a casual reader. Similarly, Sony Connect does not appear to have really enhanced Robert Louis Stevenson’s Across the Plains, from the same source.

No boldface option for readability, alas

Oh, and you can’t change easily tweak content Reader’s proprietary format, so that, for example, you can use boldface to make the text easier to read on an E Ink screen. With RTF from Manybooks.net, on the other hand, a format that the Reader can also read, bolding is possible. So the end result is that the Sony editions might actually be less valuable to me, given my fondness for boldface for screens with less than optimal contrast.

Copyight notices, natch

On top of that, public domain boosters will be dismayed but not surprised to see that Sony has inserted a 2007 copyright notice “for this format version” and reproduced an earlier notice from Penn State “for the source electronic book file version.” (more…)

By David Rothman

The BeautifulPeople.net site, a dating service and social network for lookers approved by enough screeners, drew a well-deserved verdict from Wired as one of the six lamest social nets on the Web.

Curious, I dropped by. Notice the preferred browser? Internet Explorer, of course—even if I doubt that BeautifulPeople.net would grant Microsoft’s Bill Gates a membership despite all his billions.

Ugly cheapskates?

There. Doesn’t that make you feel all the better for having chosen Firefox or another open source alternative to Internet Explorer? No respect for Firefox users, eh? At least one book-related site has already dissed Firefox surfers as cheapskates because so many of us block obnoxious ads. Nothing against IE folks, of course. TeleRead welcomes all browsers, both the human and software varieties, ugly and beautiful.

Looking ahead to the world of e-book-based communities, I suppose it’s only a matter of time until a new kind of “Facebook” materializes with BP criteria for participation.

Some ugliness from Wired itself

A much less appropriate site for Wired’s “lame” designation, even as a joke, was StopCyberbullying despite the writer’s recognition of it as “A safe place for frank discussions on the topic of Internet bullying.” Under the “Who you’ll meet,” Wired said, “Pussies,” and under “What’s annoying,” the magazine said, “Dare to call them pussies, and they’ll gang up on you mercilessly.” So cyberbullying isn’t a problem among schoolchildren and, yes, in adult life, too? It’s one reason why the TeleBlog maintains an anti-troll policy.

I hope that StopCyberbullying draws an apology from Wired—ideally followed by a thoughtful feature story on the cyberbully problem, which, yes, ultimately could show up in interactive e-books, including comics and other genres favored by many young people.

No, there ought not to be a law against beautiful people sites, or Mensa sites for that matter, but I wonder if in a sense the very existence of BeautifulPeople.net is at least a subtle form of cyberbullying.

By Jon Noring

Over four years ago I published an eBookWeb article entitled “OEBPS: The Universal Consumer eBook Format?”

Unfortunately, due to eBookWeb going defunct (a casualty of the “E-book Dark Ages” that resulted after the dotcom collapse), that article has essentially disappeared from the Internet.

So I am reposting the eBookWeb article here, not only for preservation purposes, but because its themes are stil very relevant today as will be briefly explained in this foreword.

DeLorean jokes

When I wrote that article, e-books were considered a lot like the DeLorean automobile — weird and impractical — the butt of many jokes. The DeLorean even played a prominently silly role in the movie trilogy Back To The Future.

But times have changed! Just as Google News is full of articles about an entrepreneur reviving the gull-wing-doored, stainless steel automobile to an enthusiastic public, so too e-books are finally being noticed and bought by an enthusiastic public. E-book sales are growing at a fast rate.

My 2003 article had three, closely related themes:

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By David Rothman

Sounds a little paradoxical, no? Use PDF to help popularize FBReader, the open source program that runs so well on Nokia handhelds like the 770 and N800, as well as other machines such as the Pepper Pad, shown here.

But if Dr. Ellen Hage wants a PDF for her convenient reference, perhaps others will, too. So here it is. Hope that helps, Ellen, whether or not you’ll do an actual printout! Meanwhile remember, TeleBlog folks will be refining the original post and doing a Wiki version. We’ll welcome volunteers! No need to be a big FBReader guru. Nikolay Pultsin, the program’s developer, will advise the project.

Related: Ellen’s newbie-oriented tips on Project Gutenberg and other sources of e-books—plus her comments on using pub domain e-books in some college lit classes. What if your text is different from the p-verson the professor prefers?

Tweaked at 12:57 p.m.—to reflect Ellen’s printout/nonprintout situation.

By David Rothman

Don’t be scared if you’re an e-book newcomer and have shied away from a Linux handheld.

The menus on the affordable Nokia 770s aren’t that hard to puzzle out, for example, if you spend a little time at it. And good e-reading software is available, FBReader, which is open source.

Missing until now: Handy customization instructions

The missing ingredient up to now has been a set of handy customization instructions for FBReader newcomers, many of whom might want to modify their respective key layouts to turn Nokias or other devices into much better e-reading machines.

Below, I’ll share some FBReader basics for the sharp-screened Nokia 770, the newer Nokia N800 and other machines—including Alan Wallcraft’s tips on changing the actions tied to various buttons on your handheld. Click here if you want to go directly to the ten tips and skip the preliminaries.

Nope, this FBReader guide isn’t perfect (we’ll eventually add screen shots and update the obsolete one above), but a fancier version is on the way with help from Alan, Joseph Gray, Robert Nagle and none other than the gifted developer of the program, Nikolay Pultsin, whose Google-based e-mail list I’d recommend your joining. What’s more, our current tips and forthcoming FBReader wiki will help owners of Pepper Pads and perhaps those of the E Ink-based iLiad, along with certain other small machines. Update, Aug. 30: I’ve just added Joseph Gray’s “Installation” and “Getting Started” sections—after the original Rothman-Wallcraft post. Despite some unavoidable redundancy, his Wiki sections are very much worth reading even though they’re just drafts.

The benefits of the Nokia-FBReader duo

Once you’re all set up, it’ll be a snap to use your Nokia or similar machine to download e-books from Manybooks.net, Project Gutenberg and the rest—not to mention non-encrypted books from reader-friendly publishers like Drollerie Press and Baen and stores such as Fictionwise, which offers thousands of books without DRM.

If you live in the States, you can even use the Nokia/FBReader duo to enjoy free books by Kurt Vonnegut, William Styron and other authors, via the ad-supported Wowio service, which also offers comics. Just use the free Mobipocket Desktop to convert Wowio’s PDF books to an FBR-readable Mobi format (please note that Desktop is Windows-only).

Meanwhile your new Linux-based gizmo will avoid directly relying on Microsoft, a DRM bastion, whose software has its share of security vulnerabilities. Linux handhelds like the Nokia are safer than, say, the Windows CE variety. I love my CE-based DT 375, now once again on sale from uBid for $155, not bad for a Web tablet with an eight-inch display, far bigger than the Nokia 770’s screen of about four inches; but security isn’t one of Microsoft’s fortes. Besides, in small part for ideological reasons, hackers love to crack machines with Microsoft operating systems. (more…)

By Prof. Richard Bellaver

Moderator’s note: Some of the giants of p-publishing rejected Prof. Richard Bellaver’s requests to allow small numbers of books to be digitized for his valuable K-12 experiments—even though he was willing to pay. So what happens? The Ball State University professor is going elsewhere for his content. Lesson here for the big boys? Also see link at the end of this post. – D.R.

By Prof. Richard Bellaver

The bane of my existence in the world of handheld computers has been lack of e-book content. You just might have read about my weeping because publishers won’t provide content for me to use with elementary students. Well, no more! I am now working with Learning A-Z. They are providing the research project with free access to two of their websites: Reading A-Z and RAZ-Kids—both are on-line reading programs.

I subscribed to Reading A-Z earlier this year and downloaded several leveled books to be used by third and fourth graders. I had to go through a messy conversion process to load them onto my ancient REB 1200 devices. I now have access to 600 titles and a smooth conversion source that will save my students many hours in loading the devices.

E-books as motivators for struggling readers

We will clean up the present content and add a few titles this year as we look to prove that the use of handheld computers can aid education in the use of dictionaries. Next year we will do much more rigorous testing with many more titles and with more students involved, to demonstrate that e-books motivate struggling readers.

The folks at Learning A-Z understand the significance of advancing the art of computer learning. I wish I could say as much for the rest of the publishing industry.

Related: The Platform: Giving Book Readers What They Want, by Peter Osnos, a media fellow for the Century Foundation and a founder of the Caravan Project. He warns that readers will bypass retailers and other content-providers that try to resist digitization efforts.

By David Rothman

How do you say ouch in cow talk? One big loud moo? Whatever the word, Gateway, Inc. must be uttering it now.

Famous for cowhide images in its ads, Gateway once was more than Holstein-sized in the PC industry—having zoomed to billions of dollars in annual sales after a start on an Iowa farm near Sioux City. The photo is of ex-Gateway CEO Ted Waitt as a 35-year-old billionaire.

Alas, however, technology and the marketplace changed, and now Gateway is selling out for $710 million to Acer, which, if corporate acquisitions run their normal course, will eventually wipe out Gateway as a separate entity.

E-book angle

So what’s the e-book angle?

While Gateways may have used some proprietary components—users can fill me in on this—the basic hardware and apps were probably more or less standardized. Customers will not feel the pain they would have if Gateway had been the equivalent of the old Rocket eBook hardware and they had had an investment in countless books in the special format. (more…)

By David Rothman

Coming later today: FBReader tips—plus a lesson that e-bookers can learn from Gateway’s last moo (yes, I’ll explain for the unfamiliar).

By a TeleBlog Contributor

At least 40 percent of TeleBlog readers live outside the United States, and many of our U.S. fans are frequent international flyers, not just frequent readers.

Beyond Paul Biba’s love of e-books, then, his creds as a globetrotter should enrich the TeleBlog in highly relevant ways

45+ countries

For the past 40 years, our newest contributor has been a corporate lawyer with a specialty in international transactions.

In that regard, Paul has visited over 45 countries, and long plane flights got him interested in e-books and their ability to help him travel with a minimal amount of baggage. He started with computer gadgetry in the days when using a Radio Shack TRS-80 and an acoustic cup modem at 300 baud was pretty exciting stuff. Currently he is House Counsel for a GPS software company in Princeton, NJ.

Paul’s e-reading history

Paul began reading e-books on a HP Jornada Pocket PC and has since used a variety of Pocket PCs, smartphones and Nokia 770 and 800 internet tablets, and he is now experimenting with a Sony Reader and hoping for an e-book reader for the iPhone. He has 281 e-books in his library at Fictionwise, plus a fair number at eReader and Mobipocket. Paul is also iPhone editor for the Palm Addict blog and a moderator at the GPSPassion website, as well as a name familiar to MobileRead readers.

Everywhere he travels virtually, he goes out of his way to help newbies, and we hope he won’t shy away from writing on topics of special interest to newcomers.

Awesome e-bookshelf in quality, not just quantity

On top of everything else, Paul was the lead interviewee of an upbeat but realistic New York Times article on e-books. (more…)

By David Rothman

No substitute exists for reading e- or p-books to your child. Talk about bonding and knowledge!

Still, if you’re looking for animated picture books for your son or daughter to augment other learning activities, you might check out TumbleBooks—the topic of a review in Web Worker Daily. Family subscriptions are $30 a year, and some public libraries offer the books for free. Here’s an excerpt from Dian Schaffhauser’s WWD piece:

Child engrossed

“This online collection of lightly animated, talking picture books keeps my five-year-old engrossed long enough for me to get through that client call without interruption. (more…)

By David Rothman

OK, here’s the reason Nick Bogaty’s leaving as exec director at the IDPF.

Bill McCoy at Adobe has hired Nick, effective next month, “to lead our digital publishing business development.” From Bill’s blog:

“While Nick understandably decided to seek new challenges after an almost six year stint at the helm of IDPF, his passion for promoting the broader adoption of digital publishing was clearly unabated, so I’m delighted that he’s chosen to come on board and play a key role in advancing Adobe’s contributions.”

Best of luck to Nick and Bill. I hope they’ll both give serious consideration to actual implementation of social DRM (a possibility Bill’s talked up) and the epub1/epub2 logo idea, both of which could help grow Adobe along with the rest of the e-book industry.

By David Rothman

The International Digital Publishing Forum, the e-book trade association, is looking for a new executive director, ideally New York-based. See posting at paidContent.org. Starting date is “immediately.” No, I don’t know the reasons for the departure or forthcoming departure of Nick Bogaty (still listed on the IDPF site as director). Best of luck to Nick in the future!

Here’s the Number One qualification I’d look for, beyond the expected organizational and technical skills: a genuine love of e-books.

E-book-lover as next exec director?

The IDPF should find out if and how often the candidates read digital books. Here’s to the cause of usability! What’s more, with first-hand experiences, the exec director will be better able to discuss the pros and cons of the technology, which actually includes nonbooks as well. Some publishing or writing background, too, as I see it, would be good.

Cover letter and resume are to go to job@openebook.org. Okay, for RSS-reading TeleBloggers, here’s the notice in full… (more…)