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.
posted by David Rothman at 9:43 AM | permanent link

"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.
posted by David Rothman at 6:43 AM | permanent link

"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.
posted by David Rothman at 6:29 AM | permanent link

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.)
posted by David Rothman at 2:50 AM | permanent link

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?
posted by David Rothman at 1:49 AM | permanent link

"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!
posted by David Rothman at 4:17 PM | permanent link

"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.
posted by David Rothman at 5:22 AM | permanent link

EFF's Fred von Lohmann suggests a system under which ISPs would charge consumers a flat monthly fee to be paid to the recording studios and musicians, based on a Nielsen-style ratings approach.

TeleRead would allow more precise tracking of individual items than the von Lohmann plan--something to consider, given the low sales of individual books. Still, his proposal is far more clueful than the recording industry is, and it jibes well with the previous thoughts on this matter by Pamela Samuelson.

"The reality," he writes, "is that file-sharing is almost certainly going to remain a fact of campus life. The debate should be about getting artists and copyright owners fairly compensated, not about how many students should be expelled or how to install surveillance equipment on campus networks."

(ISP-related proposal spotted via blPlog.)
posted by David Rothman at 7:05 AM | permanent link

"'When told...that last year’s hit novel, Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated, sold about 100,000 copies in hardcover, one editor of a huge-circulation monthly gasped and said, 'If I only sold 100,000 magazines, I’d get fired.'" - Publishers, Open Your Books! We Know the Numbers Lie, the New York Observer.

The TeleRead take: Cyberbooks satirized the book industry's fear of e-books. Now that sales of p-books are so dismal, might publishers be a little more open-minded, especially since Net use is so heavy among the young?

Why not try to reach them where they go--online--and perhaps even have a file-swapping system with provisions to collect royalties from consumers directly or a national digital library fund?

That's what a TeleRead approach could mean beyond more conventional forms of distribution. Nice way for book publishers to avoid the hatred that the music industry is creating among young consumers.

Of course, a standard e-book format at the consumer level would help even the existing distribution system, and James Linden and I had a most encouraging talk in that regard with the OeBF yesterday. More details later this week.

(Observer item spotted via Librarian.net.)
posted by David Rothman at 6:15 AM | permanent link

"The Open eBook Forum (OeBF) is an association of hardware and software companies, publishers, authors, users, and related organizations, whose goal is to establish common specifications for electronic book systems that will benefit creators of content, makers of reading systems and, most importantly, consumers, helping to catalyze the adoption of electronic books and increase awareness and acceptance of the emerging electronic publishing industry. Over 85 companies and other organizations are currently members of the Open eBook Forum." - Open eBook Publication Structure Specification FAQ.

The TeleRead take: "Most importantly, consumers"? (Italics inserted above.) So why no consumer format after almost five years? Why VHS-vs.-Beta times ten? To OeBF's great credit, the group will be answering such questions for TeleRead XML expert James Linden and me, and we're appreciative. Stay tuned. The idea of these posts hasn't been to harm the OeBF--quite the contrary--but to encourage the group to return to the consumer-friendly vision originally expressed by Microsoft's Dick Brass and Steve Stone in 1998.
posted by David Rothman at 9:40 AM | permanent link

Don't believe that the Open eBook Forum was a Microsoft creation in '98? Check out the Whois listing, which, even today, shows the administrative address for openebook.org as "1 Microsoft Way, Redmond, Washington." Time for a little update? Meanwhile, the Inquirer says Elsevier, the publishing giant, may choose the Mobipocket .prc format over .lit from Microsoft. Poetic justice. Could one reason be that .lit won't run on Palms? Live by the proprietary sword, die by it. Microsoft, Adobe and the other OeBF members should stop the games and give us a universal consumer format, pronto. Hey, OeBF, your follies have just made the Yale LawMeme.
posted by David Rothman at 5:14 AM | permanent link

No standard e-book format for consumers after nearly five years. VHS-vs.-Beta times ten. That's the Open eBook Forum for you.

OeBF delays have cost publishers many millions of dollar in sales to readers put off by the format wars. Everyone has suffered, from Random House to self-publishers.

TeleRead's Web log will continue its analysis of the OeBF debacle and also suggest some solutions, in no particular order. The OeBF has attracted some very bright and well-meaning people even if they come with clashing interests. How to get humans and formats in harmony or at least reduce the conflicts?

The good news is that the OeBF's work has been far from wasted. Formats such as Mobipocket, not just Microsoft Reader, the starting point in some ways, already offer Open eBook features galore.

Alas, however, this isn't enough for the world to enjoy the consumer-level compatibility that Microsoft executives Dick Bass and Steve Stone promised in 1998 when they unveiled their vision for the e-books and the OeBF.

Today we address, among other format-related problems, a Catch 22 about which too many e-book techies are complacent. Major publishers are insisting on Digital Rights Management to protect their e-books. And yet when they rely on proprietary encryption to safeguard books using the Open eBook Publishing Structure, the OeB format is no longer "open."

What to do? Below, slightly edited, is a recent message from Jon Noring, co-founder of Windspun Technologies, to the eBook Community list. Noring, himself active in the OeBF, is list moderator. After his comments, we'll offer a TeleRead perspective. Time for some open-mindedness from OeBF, especially when the group holds its annual meeting May 29 in Los Angeles?

* * *

The wrapper for a native OEBPS Publication can certainly include DRM, and all the components can be based on "truly open standards" (as in published, non-proprietary, freely usable, maintained by non-profit organizations representing a broad range of industry stakeholders). For example, the rights control language can be based on XrML, which OeBF is now considering. The encryption algorithms can be based on some open standard.

Interestingly, the recent decompiling of the LIT format illustrates nicely how an OEBPS Publication wrapper may work. If you look at the LIT format, LIT simply wraps (just like a zip file--LIT uses a well-known compression algorithm) a multi-file set which is a slightly digested OEBPS Publication. Technically speaking (ignoring legal/financial hurdles), it is now possible for anyone to build a LIT rendering system for any platform. Reading LIT on Linux? On Mac? On BeOS? On ZippyOS? It is certainly possible to do (whether it makes sense to do so, or if Microsoft will let you, is another issue, but irrelevant to the discussion at hand).

Regarding the DRM topic, the subtle fallout of the LIT decompilation, which hopefully publishers should realize by now, is that 1) security by obscurity does not work, and 2) it is likely impossible to design an ebook format to be read on non-proprietary hardware/OS platforms which is completely immune to cracking.

These two observations have the net effect of virtually removing (albeit not completely) one argument against native OEBPS as a distribution format: that because it (including a DRM-capable wrapper) is based on "truly open standards," it will not be able to provide a level of protection anywhere near that of "proprietary" standards such as LIT and PDF. That is, both Microsoft and Adobe will find it more difficult to argue to publishers that their proprietary format solutions for ebook distribution are substantially "safer" than the truly open-standards approach. Obviously, right now Microsoft and Adobe cannot tell publishers that their e-book formats are truly safe because they aren't.

So how about the OEBPS 1.2 alternative? No, it would not be perfect. It's still in its infancy, and certainly can be improved. I have my own laundry list of items which need fixing and improving. However, as it stands now, OEBPS is essentially ready for primetime. If one adds MathML and SVG capability to OEBPS, we have a quite powerful e-book distribution format which should adequately represent nearly all ink-on-paper books published today (OEBPS by itself is also very good, but MathML and SVG add a lot of advanced capabilities--SVG is a pretty good replacement for both PDF and Flash). The ball is now in the court of those who design OEBPS presentation systems to take advantage of these advanced capabilities.

* * *

The TeleRead take: Jon Noring's comments nicely jibe with TeleRead's advocacy of open standards. While Korean-style viewers, accommodating many formats, could be a good interum solution and probably more, a standard e-book format is the real way to go. Notice Jon's observation that his approach would "adequately represent nearly all ink-on-paper books published today"? Future versions of the format, obviously, could be far, far more than "adequate." But let's get started now.

The Noring approach is especially sensible about encryption. Full protection of content is impossible. Meanwhile, how about all the millions lost in the formats war amid the accompanying reliance on encryption systems based on proprietary technology? We're talking about far more money than from potential piracy losses. So why not a rational open-standards approach to encryption--which, by the way, would also mean that the algorithms could be subjected to more intensive review by many programmers with different perspectives, as opposed to those benefiting just from the feedback of corporate colleagues? Such a plan could at least discourage casual piracy--while, hopefully, also providing for protection systems to allow for fair use. Forget about perfected encryption systems. Remember, paper books have no protection systems in places, and scanning and page-flipping techniques will get better and better. Worse, anything that can be displayed on screen or printed is vulnerable in the end to pirates.

With the right mechanisms in place, however, readers could endlessly swap files while authors and publishers received fair compensation based on a privacy-respecting tracking mechanism (perhaps using concepts similar to those for anonymous digital cash). Payments could come from a national digital library fund, local schools and libraries and consumers directly (since we couldn't afford to cover all books). Simply put, this TeleRead-style approach could reduce the incentive for piracy while allowing good publishers to do quite well, thank you.
posted by David Rothman at 2:47 AM | permanent link

"The National Geographic Society plans to appeal a jury verdict in a landmark case pitting the magazine publisher against a freelance photographer who claimed his work was improperly included in a CD-ROM. In late March, a jury in Miami ruled that National Geographic failed to properly compensate the photographer, Jerry Greenberg, for photos of his included on a CD-ROM that contained every issue of the magazine published in its 108-year history. The dispute centered on the question of whether archiving work on microfilm and microfiche is different from releasing it on CD-ROM. In appealing the case, the magazine wants courts to recognize new technology." - Wired News.
posted by Jerry Justianto at 9:31 PM | permanent link

Cory Doctorow has a piece in Business 2.0 on the risk of the Bells crushing "open wireless" and competition from independents--the very kind of uppity stuff that could help rescue broadband. He's hoping that free-access experiments can survive and thwart the gougers.

So how do e-books fit in with Wi-Fi? Cory's piece doesn't explore that angle, but cheap or free "always-on" broadband could be a great way to spread around e-books in certain low-income neighbors. Not to mention the obvious: the middle class at home, parks or Starbucks. Downloading speed is just one issue. If a connection is always on, that means that links inside e-books could be much more useful.

But back to the economics. Coincidentally a new study from Pew has found that 17 percent of nonInternet users were once users. And cost is among the reasons why they've unplugged--and made themselves harder for e-book publishers to reach in the future.

Ideally, lawyers for both publishers and librarians can take just a little time off from the copyright wars to monitor Wi-Fi-related developments and the general issue of access as it would affect the demand for e-books. In this vein, let's note one bright side of AOL Time Warner's efforts to divest itself of its book arm. Without Time Warner Books being in bed with a giant ISP that's chummy with Bells and cable companies, including its own, perhaps the TW execs will care a little more about Net access issues--or at least in the future, as e-books grow in importance.
posted by David Rothman at 4:50 AM | permanent link

TeleRead has been gung ho on the glories of stable links in a well-stocked nationa digital system. You'd think that ALA, too, would be like-minded. And maybe they will be in the context of library policy. Meanwhile, however, as reported by Ex Libris, ALA has infuriated wired librarians by come up with a new Web site that renders thousands of existing links inoperative. Time for ALA to set a better example for publishers?
posted by David Rothman at 4:39 AM | permanent link

Fictionwise, one of the smarter e-book sellers on the Net, has announced the availability of a book called All the Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning's Napster. Needless to say, due to the requirements of the usual suspects, Fictionwise must offer the title only in "secure Microsoft Reader or secure Mobipocket format."

The TeleRead take: In one of our forthcoming articles on the Open eBook Forum--the laundry list of suggestions for OeBF--we'll have more to say on the question of e-book security. Turns out that the smaller publishers have been much more sensible on this issue than the larger houses. By the way, right now it look as if the list may not appear until next week.

(Fictionwise item found via Pocket PC eBooks Watch.)
posted by David Rothman at 4:22 AM | permanent link

"I found a great piece about an MIT student and his XBox hacking over at news.com. Apparently he can't get his how-to book published do to fears with DMCA. I hope he at least can get it publish in China or Russia where people have some freedoms left. ;)." - Via SlashDot, April 16.

The TeleRead take: Time for a little consistency? Hollywood moguls love to invoke the First Amendment to defend violent, sex-filled movies--but not when it comes to freedom to program and discuss security measures. What's especially infuriating is that a publisher's fear of the DMCA cost the student a book contract.
posted by David Rothman at 3:50 AM | permanent link

"Would-be buyers of eBooks on Amazon are today presented with the option of downloading the Microsoft or Adobe reader software. But what if the reader wants to buy an eBook that can be perused with any software on any device from a desktop PC to a handheld reader? That is the goal of OeBPS, which, according to the eBook Forum, 'enables publishers to create a single electronic representation of a publication that can be easily transformed into other formats and presented on many devices.'" - ADTmag.com, April 9.

The TeleRead take: Useful article! Time for other publications to remind the Open eBook Fourm of its goal? Device-specific software could address such issues as, "How to make the same file work on both a hand-held and a large-screen desktop system?" Oh, and a universal format at the consumer level isn't enough. It should have a full feature-set.

posted by David Rothman at 2:01 PM | permanent link

"The Clevnet library network launched 'e-books' at 10 a.m. yesterday. The Cleveland library and Clevnet have become one of the first public systems in the country to make popular titles available as e-books. Clevnet has spent $50,000 on the system so far, powered by digital media company OverDrive Inc., based in Valley View. Patrons download an item in the electronic catalog by clicking on the e-book icon. Users will need specific software to view the e-books--Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader for personal computers, or Palm eBook Reader for hand-held devices. The software can be downloaded for free." - Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 8.

The TeleRead take: Glad to see Lawrence Block and some other major names available in e-format from the Cleveland library and others using OverDrive. But the range of choices is still a long way from that at a bookstore or a paper library. Hardly a TeleRead.

What's more, one wonders how much the Cleveland system is paying Adobe for A Christmas Carol in a proprietary format. Hopefully very little for this out-of-copyright work! I doubt that Adobe had much to do with its writing. Also, will readers be able to print out Dickens?

I notice, too, that the library system has restrictions on how many readers can check out an e-book at once. It is outrageous, outrageous, outrageous that there should be a "waiting list" for a public-domain text like A Christmas Carol. Needless to say, TeleRead would not impose checkout restrictions even for copyrighted works.

Meanwhile, if you're reading this in Cleveland and can't get the Dickens classic immediately, you can bypass the stupid "wait" restriction and download the book from Project Gutenberg in ASCII form or from AuthorsDirectory.com in very readable HTML. Why should libraries let the private sector play Scrooge?

Granted, the Adobe version of A Christmas Carol might offer illustrations, which public domain versions typically do not. But there's no reason why a TeleRead-style collection couldn't reproduce old art from early editions of the classics.

Still, the Cleveland project represents some progress--since library offerings in e-form often exclude best-sellers, due to the limitations imposed by publishers. Better that this project exist than that Cleveland wait until the creation of a well-stocked national digital library system without the Scroogish restrictions imposed on readers. We're all in favor of a better Here and Now.

But, please, let's hope that librarians and others will fight for a more reader-friendly approach, and that publishers themselves will understand the need for a true solution at the national level.

Put yourself in the place of a schoolchild whose classmates want the same book. Is the Cleveland system really the best? Aren't books mean to be shared--ideally simultaneously--and discussed? TeleRead-style file-sharing capabilities would be a better approach. Yes, TeleRead would include provisions for fair compensation of publishers from a national digital library fund--and privacy-protected tracking of access counts to make this possible. - David Rothman (with thanks to Jerry Justiano for spotting this item).
posted by Jerry Justianto at 12:13 PM | permanent link

Adobe today is unveiling a new version of Acrobat Reader, 6.0, that you can use to read electronic books.

The new approach makes sense. TeleRead for years has argued that e-books should not be in a world by themselves.

Meanwhile, we love the related CNET headline, which, even though the context is completely different, nicely sums up an e-book scene and its domination by the usual suspects: "Adobe divides to conquer." Nice description of balkanized formats--a situation that the big boys love! Just remember. When it comes to implementing the Open eBook standards, some companies are more equal than others. Time for a true universal consumer format, rather than a situation worse than Beta-vs.-VHS?

Back to Adobe. It will be interesting to see if the all-in-one strategy grabs market share not only from Microsoft but also from outfits such as PalmDigital. Remember, Acrobat can run on Palm machines.
posted by David Rothman at 6:12 AM | permanent link