TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

TeleRead calls for well-stocked national digital libraries in the United States and elsewhere. TeleRead's moderator is David Rothman (dr@teleread.org). For occasional highlights from this blog, join the TeleRead Mailing List.

TeleRead FAQ
TeleRead, dating back to the early 1990s, is an evolving proposal. Click here for the basics.

E-books and All That
TeleRead's links to
e-books online
eBook Community List
Electronic Book Web
Project Gutenberg
Distributed Proofreaders
GutenTalk forums and e-book collection
eBookWorm netcast
e-books.org
DLib
Blackmask Online
KnowBetter.com
PulpBits Ebooks
Read/Write Web
ePublishing Blog
mobileread.com
Tenebris
Open Source Novel Project
How TeleRead
could help
bloggers

Saturday, October 04, 2003:
Books burn in Cuba--but ALA's PCers are still wimping out

Cuba beats many nations in the number of books per capita, but maybe it would have still more if it didn't burn some. Fidel Castro's flunkies sentenced an independent librarian--collector of the incinerated books--last April to 20 years in prison. Embarrassingly, however, the American Librarian Association has refused to speak out against Cuban repression. ALA members would do well to complain to President Carla D. Hayden. A September 28 item from the Friends of Cuban Libraries leads me to think that ALA is in dire need of a few Winston Smiths:

The court papers published on the Internet detail a March 19 raid on the home of Julio Valdés, during which he was arrested and the contents of his library were cataloged and seized, along with medicines, photographic film, an audio cassette and radios. Among the "subversive" library materials cataloged in the trial proceedings were copies of "Cuba's Repressive Machinery" by Human Rights Watch, issues of TIME magazine, pamphlets on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Catholic periodicals, "Letters from Burma" by Aung San Suu Khi, and the text of speeches made by various persons during the European Parliament's ceremony awarding the Sakharov Prize, in absentia, to Cuban dissident leader Oswaldo Payá. The court condemned Julio Valdés for "accumulating books, magazines and pamphlets by counter-revolutionary authors in foreign countries, principally in Miami, Florida, United States of America, which exhort civil disobedience, twisting historical events and the achievements of illustrious thinkers and revolutionary patriots..." in order to "provoke the destruction of the political, social and economic order now existing in Cuba...."

After sentencing Julio Valdés to twenty year in prison, the presiding judges in his case also decreed: "As to the disposition of the photographic negatives, the audio cassette, medicines, books, magazines, pamphlets and the rest of the documents, they are to be destroyed by means of incineration because they lack usefulness."

Memo to the ALA: Stop being PC and join Amnesty International in standing up for freedom of expression in Cuba. I don't care if Valdés isn't a professional, Castro-blessed librarian. ALA's Banned Books Week ("Celebrate Your Freedom to Read") will lack full credibility if the organization continues to wimp out. This year's Week ended on September 27, a day before Friends of Cuban Libraries reported new details about Valdés case. "Banned Books"? And burning doesn't count? Just a quick airplane flight from our shores? Talk about hypocrisy. As columnist Charlotte Allen wrote, "It's always 1984 in Cuba"; and yet ALA is aggressively mute. Look, I can understand if Mark Rosenzweig, a Marxist librarian, sits on the ALA's Social Responsibility Round Table. But should he and his ilk be so influential in setting the tone for ALA? And shouldn't ALA biggies like ex-president Mitch Freedman worry more about freedom and less about the feelings of Cuban delegates to ALA gatherings?

The TeleRead take: This is one reason the TeleRead proposal envisions independent national libraries, not a single globally funded world collection, even though links ideally could exist from one library system to another. Despite outrages like the DMCA, no small abstraction to me, the U.S. still has more freedom of expression than the likes of Cuba. Let's nurture it and expand it.

In that vein, TeleRead would let independent bookstores and grassroots library organizations such as Project Gutenberg flourish rather than entrusting all to librarians. As a group, librarians strike me as nicer, more tolerant people than stockbrokers or whatever, but it would be sheer folly not to allow for the PCness that sometimes manifests itself within librarydom in the ugliest of ways.

(Valdés info found via LIS News.)
posted by David Rothman at 11:43 PM | permanent link

Legit buy-and-sell network for e-book readers?

E-bookdom would be far bigger than its pathetic $10-or-$11-milion-a-year self--a fraction of Tom Clancy's income!--if readers had more feeling of control. Legalized file-sharing with the ability of individuals to sell already-read titles, just as they can through Amazon, could go a long way. Here's a little inspiration from a Reuters piece headlined A "Social Networking" Music Service:

Srivats Sampath, the former CEO and founder of McAfee.com, has shared the first details of his new venture, Mercora, which early next year will launch a peer-to-peer music service featuring licensed content from major and independent labels...

Mercora will take the model developed by the file-sharing networks and apply the latest rights management to create a marketplace in which members will buy and sell music within a community of music fans. Sampath introduced the company and the plans for the service at this week's Digital Hollywood conference in Los Angeles, calling Mercora a "social networking" music service.

OK, e-bookers, get it? E-books are and should be a social experience even more than ordinary books since they can be shared so easily. The industry should exploit this, not fight it. If the DRM isn't too oppressive, Mercora could be a winner, and it'll be interesting to see if an equivalent pops up within our business or whether Mercora itself branches into e-books.
posted by David Rothman at 5:45 PM | permanent link

Microsoft eyes BIOS deal--raising DRM threat

"A deal with BIOS maker Phoenix Technologies would allow the operating system to directly control hardware. It also raises concerns over who controls the software in PCs. Microsoft has expanded its relationship with BIOS maker Phoenix Technologies in a deal designed to more closely integrate the basic building blocks of the PC with the Windows operating system." - ZD Net UK, Oct. 3.

The TeleRead take: Earlier yesterday I warned against "Big Broism at the hardware/firmware level" as a potential Linux-thwarter. Looks as if a reference from Slashdot may fit: "the bios-ain't-done-till-linux-won't-run dept." Yoo-hoo, U.S. Justice Department? You still awake? Maybe the EU can rouse you back into action. Be interesting if the Dems pick up on the monopoly issue, which has not gone away--just revived itself in new forms.
posted by David Rothman at 4:20 AM | permanent link

Friday, October 03, 2003:
Psst! PDF file-creation for cheapsakes--and some good Adobe news on the PDA front

Yes, PDF for e-books still sucks. But if you must create PDF files for work or whatever, think about the new Open Office Suite 1.1, which is free and include a PDF export feature and even Flash translation for graphics. I have not tested the PDF feature out and don't know how it would work for, gasp, e-books. Will welcome reports from readers.

Speaking of Adobe, I learned via the eBook Community list that Adobe is picking up Small Screen Rendering tech from the creators of the Opera browser. Result? PDF supposedly might not be as much a hassle on PDA screens. That still won't win me over, given Adobe's other problems, but would appear to be an improvement.

Update, 3:15 a.m., Oct. 4: Tested Open Office's PDF export on The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism, by Upton Sinclair, author of The Jungle. Seemed to work fine when read in Adobe Reader 6.0 on my desktop. Click here for the PDF. You may need to wait. The file is almost two megs. Right now the book is crudely formatted, so please don't blame Adobe for the lack of directional quotes or true dashes--or for the other barbarities
posted by David Rothman at 11:44 PM | permanent link

Lynn Dimick on the Palm Digital Media fuss

Earlier I suggested that PalmGear stop censoring Palm Digital Media and instead do a separate store for folks with "conservative" tastes in reading. I also advocated family-chosen filters in a TeleRead library context. Here's the take of my frequent correspondent Lynn Dimick, an anti-censorship guy in California who prefers the term "God-obeying." Thanks for your thoughts, Lynn! - David Rothman

You said: "TeleRead's own approach to these issues would be a system designed from the start to allow family-customized filtering--with filters available from a number of sources. Some parents might actually want their children to read good books on sensitive topics, and it would be a shame if conservatives prevented this from happening."

I resent the political tones that the use of the term "conservative" implies in this message. I think a more appropriate term might be "God-obeying" or "God-loving" or even perhaps a more neutral "God-fearing."

Having said that, I must admit that I am quite conservative in most aspects of my life. But that does not exclude me from recognizing that there are times when I should not try to force my views on others (except around the office water cooler). The irony of your blog entry is that I find your filtering suggestion to be more draconian than anything that I would suggest.

As long as PDM is competing (carrying the same mainstream titles) and a traditional B&M, then why not follow their pattern? PDM does. It is a true virtual bookstore (with better hours.) The model is to separate the books into genre and let the buyer beware. Perusing a category in PDM is very comparable to walking through a stack of books. If I am uncomfortable or disinterested in a particular aisle I don't go there.

The one situation that I think filtering might be appropriate is in the preview option at PDM. However, a quick perusal at PDM shows that the previews are deliberately non-titillating as they are often only the foreword. The reality is that PDM is probably one of the mildest (and most expensive) ways to find erotica on the Internet.

Personally I would set up a separate e-book selling division to focus on that particular genre. In that way the filtering is much more subtle.
posted by David Rothman at 11:09 PM | permanent link

Great promo opp turned into 'fiasco' - Microsoft fan

Nope, it isn't outlaw crackers who probably are among the fiercest opponent of Microsoft-style DRM. Instead we're talking about good, steady, law-abiding customers who over their lives have probably spent thousands on the company's products for themselves and perhaps their employers. Here's a just-received note from a professional in the Southern U.S. who prefers to remain anonymous:

I'm pretty much a Microsoft zealot. Everything computer-related that I have professionally and at home is MS based, and legal. The frustration of dealing with the Reader activations just so I can get a "free" book has really opened my eyes to the absurdity of DRM. Microsoft has really hurt themselves and the authors by exposing a lot of people to the frustrations of Reader. What should have been a great promotional opportunity has turned into a fiasco.

Exactly! Why can't Microsoft and Adobe see the obvious--that the name of the game is to make money, not control users? Then perhaps e-books would be more than a $10-million-year business, and, as a platform for them, the Tablet PC would be faring better.
posted by David Rothman at 10:54 PM | permanent link

Microsoft freebies delayed: Convert Lit reaction? Legal wars ahead?

"This week’s free Microsoft Reader eBook titles are not currently available," according to a note just posted on the company's Web site today from the Microsoft Reader Team. "Please check back with us in a few days. We regret this inconvenience. Thank you for your continued interest in Microsoft Reader."

Could this be a reaction to Convert Lit 1.5? If so, and if the past repeats itself, there might yet be another delay after the inevitable 1.6 debuts. Maybe it's time for Microsoft to think more strategically and end its DRM jihad against consumers, so that Dan Jackson's crack program is no longer necessary.

Granted, Bill Gates & friends could go to the trouble of an international lawsuit against Jackson in the U.K.--or threaten linkers in the States--but perhaps Redmond has learned from the dive that Adobe's reputation took when this would-be Microsoft encouraged prosecutors to go after a Russian programmer who had visited DMCA Land.

A legal offensive against Jackson, moreover, would be bad not just for Microsoft but for America. Our thuggish business ways, as inflicted on the rest of the planet through high-powered lobbyists and trade-agreement demands, are squandering goodwill that Washington could better use on such trifles as the Iraq issue. Yes, intellectual proprety is important. But we need our laws to be more in line with the way the inhabitants of Planet Earth actually use e-books and other copyrighted items. Methinks that Microsoft's business people--the real villains, I suspect, rather than the programmers--live on Pluto.

Bottom line? Microsoft should do something, and do it fast, to make its DRM friendlier to honest readers who have the outrageous idea of backing up their supposed purchases. No genius required. Microsoft should immediately follow Palm's lead and base its DRM on credit card numbers rather than on machines. That would be at least some progress.

Meanwhile, for those irked by the freebie delay, may I remind everyone of the issues at stake here? If we want to be book-owners, not book-renters, then we should all be grateful to Dan Jackson and hope that the U.K. courts and politicians will not brook any legal maneuvers against him. In the case of linkers, especially those who like me don't even own a copy of Convert Lit 1.5, there is the pesky question of free speech vs. Soviet-and-Tory-style laws like the DMCA. I myself live in Virginia, the land of Thomas Jefferson and Patrick "Liberty or Death" Henry. If Microsoft creates legal problems for Jackson, me or any other linkers, though, I'll know who the 20th-century Tories are. May London stand up to Washington, D.C., and a certain corporate entity in Washington State; may the Red Coats this time around be the heroes, if it must come to that. Let's hope, though, that Gates and our well-bought politicians will be smarter than to act like American King Georges.
posted by David Rothman at 4:13 PM | permanent link

This guy won't buy Microsoft Reader books unless he can crack 'em

The Convert Lit quote of the week comes from a visitor to a board at Blackmask who says he buys "DRM-infested .lit format books" only because the crack program is available. "My e-books are backed up on multiple CDRs and I expect to enjoy them again in the future too on any type of computing device that's available then." That means a conversion to good ole ASCII. If one isn't possible, then "the smaller indie publishers will get even more of my money because they understand consumers don't want DRM. I vote with my pocketbook!"

The TeleRead take: Great advice! Unless or until Microsoft shapes up, trust Redmond as little as possible with your books or other content. There is nothing bizarre about insisting on the permanence of your purchases; yes, sorry, I'm old-fashioned and prefer think of a nonlibrary book as a purchase, not a rental. Your personal library, your memories, your knowledge, should belong to you forever. This is why I so far have yet to buy a single Microsoft-format book even though I do read public domain works in .lit.

While we're more or less in the same territory, I commend the EFF for trying to get the Trusted Computing proposal altered to reduce the control of content owners over your hard disk and other forms of storage. Big Bro is alive and well today in corporate suites. I just hope that the involvement of IBM and other biggies with Lindux, not to mention the threat of Big Broism at the hardware/firmware level, won't close off that escape route. I myself can hardly wait for Linux machines to run the apps I need, one of which, ideally, will be an open-standards e-book reader without a Microsoft-cumbersome form of DRM.

A reminder: I'm anti-theft and believe that as a nation we're not spending enough money for content. Just remember what "content" means--words, images and sounds, as opposed to overpriced DRM and obscene salaries for parasitic Hollywood executives.
posted by David Rothman at 7:47 AM | permanent link

Memo to PalmGear: Stop the censorship, start a conservative store!

Will Palm Digital Media's popular bookstore slip under PalmGear's oppressive new ownership of PDM? An item from Publishers Weekly:

The sale of Palm Digital Media, the e-book retail Web site of the maker of Palm handheld devices, to PalmGear, a company that sells other Palm OS applications, in early September has led to the departure of PDM’s founding managers and spurred concern that the new owner is arbitarily removing or concealing titles that deal with sex or are aimed at gay and lesbian readers.

Before being acquired by Palm in 2001, PDM was known as Peanut Press and specialized in selling trade e-books in a digital format that would run on the Palm OS. But the acquisition of the firm by the Franklin, TN-based PalmGear has spurred the departure of Jeff Strobel, the founder and director; technical director David Pasco (who will leave later this week); and Mike Segroves, former director of business development.

The TeleRead take: Let's hope that the new owners of PDM can understand the need for a wide selection of titles serving a variety of tastes. Instead of censoring PDM, PalmGear should start a store aimed at a more conservative readership in political and religious senses and play up titles such as those from Regnery Publishing or Crown Forum, Ann Coulter's publisher.

TeleRead's own approach to these issues would be a system designed from the start to allow family-customized filtering--with filters available from a number of sources. Some parents might actually want their children to read good books on sensitive topics, and it would be a shame if conservatives prevented this from happening.

In the other direction, let's face it: the p-book industry and public libraries often have a pro-liberal bias. Some balance, please!

Additional thoughts: The PalmGear/PDM clash shows the need to accommodate different tastes and let readers browse in the cyber surroundings that they find most comfortable.

Under TeleRead, the main catalogue could be repositioned by specialty bookstores to agument their offerings, including subscription plans. National Digital Library Fund royalties would go to TeleRead authors the same as if their books were being accessed through a library site or by file-sharing (with royalty tracking in place in all cases).

Yes, the bookstores would be free to play up their own offerings rather than TeleRead books, and perhaps, too, they could collect small commissions from the Fund.

In cyberspace, not just the real world, there could be synergies between bookstores and libraries.

(Found via eBookAd.)
posted by David Rothman at 2:09 AM | permanent link

Thursday, October 02, 2003:
Project Gramophone list via RSS

Yahoo groups are available via RSS. Here's the feed for Project Gramophone's list--you might need to use a password at some point. (Thanks, James.)
posted by David Rothman at 6:18 AM | permanent link

Microsoft Reader cracked again

When will Chief Software Architect Bill Gates learn? Won't Microsoft ever get e-books right?

Dan Jackson Software has just released Version 1.5 of Convert Lit. Now, despite Microsoft's latest security "fix," you can exercise your fair use rights and make backups without jumping though DRM hoops. "This version," Dan Jackson deadpans about the new Convert Lit, "rectifies the incompatibility problem caused by the requirement of reactivating Microsoft Reader." Jackson is thoroughly unAmerican, a Brit in the UK with the accompanying 'tude about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Hint to Chief Architect Gates: Isn't it just possible that the cracking would be less likely or at least less common if you followed the wise lead of Palm Digital Media and based your "protection" on credit card numbers rather than associating it with machines? After several cracks, isn't it a little tiresome to keep playing your DRM games with Reader?

I myself have never bothered with the past two Reader "fixes" and have yet to pay for a Microsoft-"guarded" title. Might change my mind but so far I've limited my Readering either to promo freebies or public domain material converted to the Microsoft format. No ideology. Just practicality. Microsoft's DRM is just too much trouble, especially for someone who'd rather buy books to keep without worrying about backup hassles and the rest. Sorry, but more generous machine limits won't win me over. The damn system is too bloody cumbersome.

You can bet I've got company. Commercial e-books haven't taken off despite all the ballyhoo about high growth rates, and Microsoft is among the villains. It’s more interested in promoting its DRM religion than in helping its publisher partners make a profit. Remember, e-books are just part of Microsoft's plans for (continued) world domination.

This latest episode of Keystone Cop-level ineptness from Microsoft--whose security incompetence has resulted in billions of dollars in costs to businesses and consumers--is yet another argument for a Universal Consumer Format with a less burdensome DRM Lite.

Meanwhile I feel sorry for book publishers, even the big ones. Simon & Schuster, Random House and the rest should order the Open eBook Forum to give us the consumer-level standards that a 1998 Microsoft press release promised from the OeBF. Mr. Gates, I take this personally. I was just a few feet from Microsoft e-book booster Dick Brass at the National Institute of Standards and Technology when he talked about a standards nirvana for e-books; and I'd like to think that Dick and his colleague Steve Stone have kept the faith and have simply been sold out by their rivals within Microsoft.

Both Microsoft and the OeBF should stop being laughingstocks and live up to the old promises from Dick and Steve. Yes, Microsoft's latest debacle is also the OeBF's debacle, and publishers need to think long and hard about the group and its goals or lack thereof. I myself call it The Proprietary Format Promoters' Forum.

Wait. Maybe some people should howl even louder then the book publishers in the OeBF. Microsoft shareholders. Forget about the lock Microsoft has on the software industry and don't take anything for granted. No, Microsoft isn't about to go out of business. But the Reader farce suggests a mix of ineptness and blindness to the way people really use e-books and perhaps DRM in general. Simply put, a more enlightened approach to e-book DRM would make Microsoft more money.

Gasp, publishers and Microsoft alike might even be better off without any DRM in most cases (I can see its uses in file-sharing as an aid to royalty-tracking, as long as it isn't oppressive). Think of all the extra Tablet PCs and operating systems that could be sold if e-books really took off. If nothing else, by wising up about DRM's negatives and about the need for consumer e-book standards, which can't really happen with proprietary protection schemes in place, Microsoft could wreak havoc on rival Adobe's plans for e-books. But so far Chief Architect Gates would rather keep the DRM faith.

All in all, Microsoft reminds me, a capitalist, of the old Soviet Union where the Communist religion triumphed over commonsense the same way the DRM religion has in Redmond. The banning of copying machines for mass use was just one example of the economic disruption that the Communist faith brought about, hastening its self-inflicted downfall. Microsoft's DRMism just might be the same thing to Redmond, and perhaps it's time for Chief Architect Gates to rethink plenty else in addition to e-books in particular. Reader's bungled DRM, with its direct and indirect costs to consumers and publishers alike, is the ultimate exemplification of friction-filled capitalism.

Update, 7:35 a.m., EST: Thanks to Steve Breen, author of the GEB eBook Librarian, for spotting Convert Lit 1.5 on the Jackson site. He e-mailed me, and now that I've gotten permission to mention Steve, I want to give him credit.
posted by David Rothman at 1:43 AM | permanent link

Wednesday, October 01, 2003:
Adobe CEO out of touch on e-books--but at least he kinda knows that PDF sucks

Guess who kinda thinks that PDF sucks? None other than Bruce Chizen, president and CEO of Adobe Systems. In a CNET interview, he didn't say "sucks" outright, but he sure conceded that his software for e-books and other documents isn't a user's dream.

Q. Adobe Reader seems to be one of those software programs everybody knows but doesn't necessarily love. Is it going to get better in areas like loading times?

A. One of the challenges we've had with the Adobe Reader is that we've tried to accommodate more and more capabilities--the ability to handle more dynamic content such as moving images, still images and slide shows and to incorporate XML data--and we haven't been as efficient as we probably could have been and would like to be. You'll see that addressed in the next release of Acrobat and Adobe Reader. The goal right now is to significantly reduce the launch time.

Notice? Chizen didn't just say "reduce"--he said significantly reduce. Adobe's general sluggishness on handhelds is one reason I won't clutter up the limited memory space on my PDA with his product. In fact, I'd rather not have to mess with a bunch of reader programs. The best solution would be a Universal Consumer Format requiring just one reader. Talk about simplifying the technology for consumers to boost e-book sales!

During the interview, CNET asked why Barnes & Noble failed at e-books, and I found Chizen's answer to be disconcerting in its clueless:

It's the device. I've said this all along: Until there is a device that has a similar value to what a book has, the e-book market will continue to be nascent. Today, to get a good e-book experience, you have to spend hundreds of dollars on a reading device, one that can only be read in certain environments because of lighting conditions, a device that has to be re-energized quite often, because the power consumption isn't there yet and a device that isn't very durable. You can't drop it on the floor and expect it to continue to work.

I do believe that as devices become less expensive, more durable, more powerful, with better displays, you will see e-readers--whether it's for books, magazines or industry documentation--that take off. But I think that we're a couple years away from that. The value proposition of a book is still pretty darn good.

Well, "it's the device" only to an extent. B&N failed because prices were too high and the e-books weren't as convenient to download and use as they should have been, thanks to onerous Digital Rights Management. A lesson for Adobe, not just B&N?

As for hardware, yes, it could be better, but it isn't as if it's unusable right now. I can read hour after hour on either my REB 1100 or my Dell Axim, both of which can accommodate different lighting conditions just fine. And batteries? A nonissue in my case. The REB 1100 can go many days between charges, even with several hours a day of reading. And costs? Well, I got mine for $70 used and my wife's for $100 or so. Equivalent new units in six months may well sell for the same. I will concede that e-book machine could be more durable, but that could rapidly change in the near future with the rise of e-ink or similar technologies.

But what about the general "value" of e-books compared to p-books! Excellent if you go for the Project Gutenberg variety. I don't see how much better you can do than "free." Too bad so many Adobe books from big publishers are consumer gouges. No wonder Chizen still thinks that paper books are good values. Gotta hand it to him in the candor department.

Deep down Bruce Chizen is probably a well-intentioned Good Guy in many ways despite the horrors his company inflicted on a Russian programmer, and I respect his honesty in admitting the very real flaws of PDF for e-books; but based on his comments, I'm not sure how well he understands his reader product and market. Perhaps Shayna can enlighten him about e-books.

Related: Adobe on being a government informant, from java.blogs Day's Entries.

(Chizen interview found via eBookAd.)
posted by David Rothman at 3:38 AM | permanent link

An eight-year-old's take on e-books

I laugh when teachers wonder if kids will adapt to e-books. The adults are really asking, "Can I adapt?"

Below is an eight-year-old's take on the medium--to be exact, the thoughts of Shayna, programmer Steve Breen's daughter in Texas.

Like Carly and me, she is gung-ho on the REB 1100.

Steve, author of the GEB eBook Librarian, interviewed Shayna himself, and I'll reproduce her words in full. Alas, her friends aren't reading e-books yet, but when they do, I suspect they'll share her enthusiasm. For another example of e-books in action among the young, see E-Books in Urban Education: Useful Lessons from the South Side of Chicago.

* * *

Q. Do you like to read?

A. Yes, I do

Q. What kind of books do you like?

A. Fantasy books like Harry Potter and other books with wizards.

[Time for Potter to appear in authorized e-books! - DR]

Q. What do you like about e-books?

A. I like that you can take them anywhere, and it doesn't matter if it's day or night--you can read them anytime

Q. What do you like about paper books more than e-books?

A. Paper books are usually less expensive. I can go in with $10 and come out with two books. But with e-books it's different.

[TeleRead, needless to say, could help address that issue! - DR]

Q. What do you like about e-books more than paper books?

A. I like e-books more than paper books because I can read at night or at day, but with a paper book I can only read during the day or when I have a light. But with an e-book I can go into a dark closet and still be able to read it.

Q. Do you think your friends would read e-books and like them as much as you do?

A. Probably not because my friends sorta think it sorta weird because it's not really a book--it's just a computer with hundreds of books on it.

[Hmm. Methinks Shayna's friends could be smarter than she gives 'em credit for! They need to try out the hardware just as she has. - DR]

Q. What do your friends say when you read e-books?

A. When I told my friends that I have five books on one e-book, they said they thought that was weird because that doesn't make sense since it's just one book, how can you have so many books on it?

Q. Would you like to check out books onto an e-book instead of going to a library and checking out a paper book?

A. Well, that's a complicated question... Well, see it's sorta like when you go to the library it's easier to go 'cause it's not like everytime you pass an e-book library because public libraries are a little more popular because everyone knows about them.

[Just wait until public libraries go online with free e-book in a truly major way, complete with child-friendly catalogues! Meanwhile there's the International Children's Library - DR]

Q. Do you think in the future all your class books will be e-books or regular paper books?

A. Maybe other schools, but my school will probably stick with paper books 'cause they are more old fashioned.

Q. Do you know anybody else at your school who reads e-books?

A. Not at my school!!!

Q. How much do you think an e-book should cost compare a paper book?

A. I think that a paper book would be the least expensive because it is not on a computer and because they have been doing paper books for a very long time and eBooks are sorta new so that would make eBooks a little more expensive.

[Hey, Shayna, e-books actually could cost a lot less than paper books under a TeleRead-style approach. You wouldn't have to worry about the cost of ink and paper, and distribution expenses would be low. In fact, in as many cases as possible, the library rather than readers would pay the writers and publishers--so that you could enjoy oodles of books for free. Even without TeleRead, e-books should cost less than paper books. - DR]

Q. Shayna, do you have anything else to say about e-books?

A. I think that e-books are really cool! First, you can take them anywhere. Second, when you get bored and it's dark time you go sit down and you can still read them without hurting your eyes.

Q. Thank you, Shayna!

A. No, thank you for interviewing me.
posted by David Rothman at 1:56 AM | permanent link

Tuesday, September 30, 2003:
Copyright zealots: Look what happened to telemarketers

At the start the weirdos were the public-spirited. How dare anyone demand that Washington stop calls from brokers and siding sales reps from disrupting families at dinner! The special interests trotted out the standard economic arguments, and the pols fell in line, encouraged undoubtedly by campaign donations.

But guess what? Votes in the end mattered more than money. Even George Bush, hardly the nation's leading consumerist, has joined the stampede to rein in the telemarketers. A lesson for the RIAA and other zealots in the wake of Brianna vs. the real Sopranos?
posted by David Rothman at 4:40 AM | permanent link

Project Gramophone: No music for U.S. surfers?

Project Gramophone may have to set up shop outside the U.S. and keep Americans from downloading lush music that is part of our own national identity.

Started by my friend Jon Noring, Gramophone is a focused initiative to preserve old recordings by putting them on the Web the way Project Gutenberg has uploaded thousands of literary classics for rich and poor alike. Gramophone "would archive sound recordings made up through the 1920's or 1930's and sometimes more recently, depending on various factors."

Problem is, it may not be that simple for Jon and rest of us in Gramophone to make the Roaring '20s and the rest come to life on your Net-connected computer.

Along with others on the Project Gramophone list, Jon has been conscientiously researching the laws. Now he worries that Project Gramophone may not even be able to share its music with people in the United States, his own country. Yes, you read it right. Surfers in, say, Australia or Japan might be able to enjoy Gramophone's music, but not schoolchildren in Harlem or Anacostia, which is all the more unfortunate, given the importance of minorities on the American music scene.

Simply put, it's high time that America changed its laws to make the online preservation of early audio recordings less of a legal challenge and give us a true public domain in recorded music. For all practical purposes, one doesn't exist now--even for recordings made before 1923, which is commonly the dividing line for those determining if books can go on the Net for free.

Remember, we're talking about decades-old recordings, not illegal swaps of Britney Spears cuts. Worsening the problem are vanity laws at the state level, lovingly crafted by industry lobbyists of yore. Of course, one hopes that recording companies will cooperate with Jon despite their past and present ability to buy vanity legislation from cash-hungry pols at all levels. He is the old MP3 not.

Here's part of his candid reading of the situation--a list of "requirements for the launch of PrGr" under current law:

1) PrGr must not actively solicit source material nor transfers from anyone in the U.S. It must not accept transfers unless it knows where the transfers were done and where the transfers were sent from--the transfers must not have been done in, nor sent from, the U.S. Those who did the transfers from original master pressings must authorize their release to PrGr.

2) If PrGr does its own transfers (which I believe it should using state-of-the-art equipment), the transfers must be done in the country where PrGr has its base of operations. (PrGr would accept "walks-ins" of course, with no questions asked where the records came from, so long as they were not actively solicited from the U.S.--the key for maximum legal protection is knowing and restricting where the transfers are done and by whom.)

3) For at least the first few years of PrGr's existence, the material transferred initially should meet a voluntary 70 year "term," so for PrGr operations in 2003, PrGr would only transfer pre-1933 material (see #4 right below), in 2004 it would be pre-1934 material, in 2005 pre-1935 material, etc. Even if PrGr is legally allowed to transfer a lot of post-pre-WWII recordings, it is best to focus in the first few years on the pre-WWII recordings, especially the rarer pre-Swing recordings.

4) If the country of PrGr operation determines copyright of sound recordings based on release/publication date (and not on when the recording was fixed), then PrGr must base what it transfers (see #3 right above) on when the recording was actually released/published. Unissued alternate takes would not be put online since they are obviously under copyright protection. (Thus, it is important to fully understand the law in the host country regarding the term of the copyright of sound recordings, including on what basis the term is calculated from: when it was fixed or when it was published/released.)

5) The PrGr online web site must make it plain that anyone residing in the U.S. may not download anything from the site, including mentioning that RIAA has threatened to, and may attempt to, determine those on U.S. soil who are trying to access the recordings and file legal action against them. I'd make sure this statement is very boldly presented on the home Web page with no editorial comment whatsoever--here's no need to make an additional editorial comment since just stating it in big bold letters is an editorial statement all to itself.

While Jon won't make editorial comments on the proposed home page, I'll speak up here for myself and not at all for Project Gramophone. The RIAA and friends are to old music what the worst of the U.S. efforts were in Vietnam, with a burn-this-village-to-save it mentality. We're not just talking about the legal risks to basic preservation through widespread replication on the Net. Just how valuable will the old music be to humanity if it vanishes from the mass consciousness because the big money isn't it it for profit-minded conglomerates? Thanks to the greed and control-mindedness of the music industry, however, no small part of our audio heritage may be lost or restricted to the elite (including the collectors of the master recordings, who, under the current laws, exercise far more far control than they should). I'd love for the RIAA types, if approached by Jon, to disprove my skepticism.

If industry-created barriers can't be overcome, Project Gramophone just may have to start up in Canada--assuming that the tentacles of the American recording industry don't reach far enough into the courts and legislative branch of our neighbors to the north.

If, however, the industry behaved decently toward Project Gramophone, Jon would reciprocate. His goal is to help the public, not torment the recording companies. Jon thinks one good step would be to lessen the mostly theoretical liabilities--from hard-to-find heirs of long-dead musicians--that might result if companies donated recordings to Gramophone-style groups or released them to the public domain. Another step, I suspect, might be to give the corporations new tax breaks.

Memo to Howard Dean and other presidential candidates: Care to take a stand? Or are you too worried about your mother's milk from Hollywood campaign donors?

Suggestion for Larry Lessig: Why not speak up and energize your troops for Jon Noring? This is a posterboy illustration of the need for more enlightened copyright law and related legislation. Ideally you can encourage Gov. Dean, Gen. Clark and the rest to take a stand.

Reminder to the RIAA and its members: You haven't exactly scored a major PR coup with your threats against a 12-year-old. Helping Jon would be one way to show a new sensitivity to the commonweal.
posted by David Rothman at 12:29 AM | permanent link

Monday, September 29, 2003:
Canada has fewer library books per capita than Cuba--and America is far from stellar

Not sure what to make of these UNESCO stats found at NationMaster.com. Canada, with 227 library books per 1,000 people and a rank of 42, is far below the top five countries of Georgia (15,400), Monaco (9,910), Liechtenstien (5,100), San Marino (3,858) and Iceland (3,007). I'll delete the reminder of this paragraph since I have more current info.

Librarians: Anyone out there care to add some context? How much do the numbers suggest we're book-starved, and how much do they suggest we're simply library book-starved? If we're to address the famous "savage inequalities" of our schools and libraries, then we don't want to be starved in either way.

Of course, the sheer numbers of books aren't enough. Age and relevance can matter, too.

The TeleRead take: If the numbers say what I think, then we in North America may have room for acquisition of many more library books. And e-books could help keep costs down.

Update, 3:45 p.m.: According to a library site in Kanas mentioned by a helpful reader, the number of books per capita in the States in 1996 was just 2.8. That would be equivalent to 2,800 books per 1,000 or, it would appear, better than Canada or Cuba--but far behind Georgia, with 15.4 library books per person. Not a stellar performance, even if you allow for growth since '96!

I'm in the middle of work-related deadlines but hope to get more up-to-date info from the Public Library Association.

posted by David Rothman at 12:37 PM | permanent link

Spiffy new search page for Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg has has a spiffy new page to let you search or browse by author or title.
posted by David Rothman at 11:59 AM | permanent link

Good news for e-books: Tablet PC sales improving

Tablets PCs are like e-books--exotic to the typical consumer, but still an area of growth. And a new Reuters story says sales are improving; and that's good news for digital publishers. Here are stats from Alan Promisel, an IDC analyst:

Promisel said that his firm predicts that in 2003, a total of 500,000 tablet PCs will be sold around the globe, which represents about 1 percent of the total portable PC market.

But, by 2007, IDC forecasts that the tablet PC could account for well over 20 percent of the portable market.

Remember, those are Tablet PC sales alone. Let's hope that Linux-related sales can take off, too. Keep in mind all the system overhead on PC machines--not to mention the fact that Linux is a safer, more stable operating system.

posted by David Rothman at 11:39 AM | permanent link

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