From ChuckB in LISNews:

The blogzine Living in China is reporting that the PRC has closed down three major PRC-based blog hosts and is blocking access to foreign blog hosts (e.g. Typepad) in what appears to be an attempt to stifle political discussion. Reactions from the Chinese blogosphere are noted, and Living in China is offering to host shut-down blogs temporarily.
posted by David Rothman at 9:52 PM | permanent link

From reader Mike Cane--commenting on Unlocked books may indeed be readable on Sony's E Ink machine:

When Sony released the first high-res (320x320) Clie in the United States, it came with something the Japan version didn't: the ability to play MP3s. The original Japan version was locked into Sony's DRMed audio format (I forget the acronym for it right now).

When we in the U.S. saw the Japan version, we all screamed bloody murder over its inability to play MP3s. Well, when Sony released it here in the US, it could play MP3s (not all bitrates, but still--no DRM audio!). They subsequently and shortly thereafter added non-DRM MP3 to the Japan version, too.

So, although Sony likes DRM, you have to consider that they are not in the ebook business here in the U.S. (don't know about Japan, but think not), so I think they'd allow non-DRMed files to be read.

What will make or break the machine is the screen and the amount/cost of "content" (hate that word, prefer "books!"). Well, maybe also its limited RAM! As well as price. The usual suspects.

* * *

The TeleRead take: Thanks, Mike. Given all of Sony's alliances, it's hard to say what'll happen, but at this point I'll be hopeful.
posted by David Rothman at 9:23 PM | permanent link

No, I haven't kept up with every recent change in the Adobe Reader, but if nothing else, the following passage from Free Culture illustrates the need for constant vigilance. - David Rothman.

When my e-book of Middlemarch says I have the permission to copy only ten text selections into the memory every ten days, what that really means is that the eBook Reader has enabled the publisher to control how I use the book on my computer, far beyond the control that the law would enable.

The control comes instead from the code—from the technology within which the e-book “lives.” Though the e-book says that these are permissions, they are not the sort of “permissions” that most of us deal with. When a teenager gets “permission” to stay out till midnight, she knows (unless she's Cinderella) that she can stay out till 2 A.M., but will suffer a punishment if she's caught. But when the Adobe eBook Reader says I have the permission to make ten copies of the text into the computer's memory, that means that after I've made ten copies, the computer will not make any more. The same with the printing restrictions: After ten pages, the eBook Reader will not print any more pages. It's the same with the silly restriction that says that you can't use the Read Aloud button to read my book aloud—it's not that the company will sue you if you do; instead, if you push the Read Aloud button with my book, the machine simply won't read aloud.

These are controls, not permissions. Imagine a world where the Marx Brothers sold word processing software that, when you tried to type “Warner Brothers,” erased “Brothers” from the sentence.

This is the future of copyright law: not so much copyright law as copyright code. The controls over access to content will not be controls that are ratified by courts; the controls over access to content will be controls that are coded by programmers. And whereas the controls that are built into the law are always to be checked by a judge, the controls that are built into the technology have no similar built-in check.

Reminder: Middlemarch, mentioned above, is a public-domain book.

Related: PDF is NOT 'Free Culture'-friendly--and the related DRM Mafia may even be anti-trust bait.
posted by David Rothman at 12:12 PM | permanent link

Larry Lessig's Free Culture actually exceeds my hopes, based on first impressions. Beyond that, the man is living up to his philosophy and giving away copies for free.

Still, I can understand the concern over the use of PDF as the only format for FC on the Lessig site. Really, Professor, oodles of volunteers would have been delighted to offer Microsoft Reader and other rival formats for posting on your own site without your being a "production company." A permanent link from your download page to BlackMask's multiformat options would be a good solution.

Granted, Microsoft Reader, Palm Digital Media's format and Adobe's are all (human)-reader-hostile to varying extents, as I see it. Even my own favorite proprietary format, Mobipocket, has nasty DRM-related annoyances. Granted, too, the Lessig preference at the personal level is for PDF. But the last thing we need is to treat PDF as an only choice, not when the software giant behind it can change PDF whenever desired and perhaps impose new or outrageous fees. The open PDF/A ballyhooed for archivists is a laugh, since it will affect just a minority of documents and does not come with all the capabilities that regular PDF does. What about the challenges of mere consumers, as opposed to, say, IRS or Defense, in dealing with format obsolescence? The same concept could apply to other e-book software firms, whether the messes happened from corporately imposed updates or from companies going out of business.

Member of the DRM Mafia

Meanwhile Adobe is a member in good standing of the DRM Mafia, a major reason why one-book publishers directly using OverDrive's Content Reserve distribution operation must pay $300 a year even if they don't sell a single copy. Talk about Locked Culture and diversity threats in action!

Consider a different vision--one suppressed by the DRM dons at Adobe and the rest. Even after five or six years, the Open eBook Forum has yet to give us a true, ready-to-use Universal Consumer Format to aid nontechie consumers even though it would be tantalizingly easy to do. The reason? The OeBF's real owners--Adobe, Palm Digital Media and OverDrive, the latter founded by OeBF President Steve Potash--would not want to see their legacy tech jeopardized. Horror of horrors, open standards would let small software companies create rival products based on the same UCF and offering low-cost, standardized DRM. Shudder, competition among creators of e-book-reading software could even be based on ease of use and other trifles, as opposed to marketing budgets or which titles happened to be locked up in certain formats. Readers could simply shop for John Grisham rather than Palm Grisham or Adobe Grisham. Maybe e-books could actually take off in this new competitive climate and bring in global revenue of far more than the present $20 million a year. Oh, the horrors!

There are other reasons, too, to support a UCF, especially one that would be XML based and offer leaner files and greater ease of reading on portable devices than Adobe does. Also, a UCF in time could offer printing capabilities as good as or better than Adobe's. But the need for competition ranks right up there, too, as a reason for a UCF; and once again we return to the area of anti-trust, especially timely now that the EU has Microsoft in its sights.

I'm not a lawyer, but as a civilian I do wonder if, at least by European standards, the OeBF's failure to do the obvious might not be restraint of trade. Time for the EU to force the stubborn software bullies to stop overcharging publishers, especially smaller ones, who, per title at OverDrive, must pay up to 50 times more in storage fees than the biggest ones will? That's the kind of abuse that a UCF without overpriced DRM could help end. Remember, DRM costs were among the major factors that OverDrive cited in justifying the horrendous storage fees imposed on the minnows of the e-book world.

More on the anti-trust question

Clearly, then, it wouldn't hurt for legal activists at Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Columbia and other schools to check out the DRM Mafia, the DRM-oriented OverDrive and the OeBF for possible anti-trust violations by both American standards or the less restrictive European ones. The EU anti-trusters say they will respond at times even to anonymous complaints and newspaper clips. If Washington wants globalization, let's see it in action in Europe--with us as the target, if the anti-trust authorities in the U.S. itself won't take up this case. Please note that I'm against unnecessary intrusion by government into the private sector. But here, there is need for an anti-trust investigation. Article 85 of the European Economic Community Treaty might be extremely relevant in Europe; and Article 86 is also of interest. Article 85 deals with such matters as "prevention, restriction or distortion of competition within the common market." As paraphrased in a PDFed EC document of possible use for those filing anti-trust complaints, Article 86 bans abuses such as "imposition of unfair prices, production or marketing restrictions, discrimination between customers and tying provisions in contracts."

To sum up, one hopes that Prof. Lessig, so clueful about so much, will come around on the format issue in a Free Culture context and add other formats to FC page directly or through conspicuous, permanent links on the download page. And if people at Stanford and other top law schools can investigate the possible anti-trust issues of DRM and the Tower of eBabel, then so much the better.

Related: Adobe Reader in action--as depicted by Larry Lessig.
posted by David Rothman at 9:11 AM | permanent link

The new tools are to appear later this year on an MSN search engine. So--when will Google finally do a Feedster act and beat Microsoft to the punch in the blog area?
posted by David Rothman at 9:04 AM | permanent link

One of the biggest frustrations of the lack of a Universal Consumer Format is that the diligent techie volunteers at the Open eBook Forum have come so close. Add the wrapper to house the various files, do the DRM and the rest. Then you're tantalizingly close to letting people read e-books without having to clutter up their handhelds and desktops with software for every bleepin' proprietary format.

The pseudonymous NetWorker, a rather high-profile technical type in e-book circles, has chewed me out for not emphasizing how close we are to nirvana. In fact, it's to the point that a UCF from the OeBF essentially exists by techie rules since it's trivial to do a wrapper and the rest. And I appreciate his perspective that the problem isn't lack of a UCF but the OeBF's failure to promote it as such.

Still, to me, nothing will matter until a true UCF is out there, ready to go and in use. A UCF by any definition will hardly be catnip to the format-stymied nontechies if it isn't in use with all the trimming necessary for Jane Book Buyer to enjoy it just like a standard CD or the old LP records. Oh, and the "Jane" isn't just a concession to PCisms. Romances and other female-oriented books are a fast-growing category within e-bookdom. Here's to the idea of a Harlequin Romance or a Deborah Smith romance, not a Microsoft Romance or Palm Digital Media Romance--which all too often is how book buyers must think. Talk about the toxicity of the eBabel for e-book sales!

Meanwhile I'll continue to link to Jon Noring's UCF article even though he notes that some details are a tad out of date, what with him and other OeBF experts having refined their ideas. For the moment the powers in the OeBF remain pretty deaf to the need for a genuine, consumer-ready UCF. But at least a little hope has come with news from Lee Fyock--of Palm Digital Media--saying that Palm eBook Studio can now "read a .opf file and pick up the spine/manifest and Dublin Core metadata." PDM is still flouting the spirit and intent of the OEBPS specification, but at least it can import some of the content of an OEBPS Publication and massage it in a proprietary way.

PDM's small but encouraging step

NetWorker, the tech guy mentioned earlier, says: "This capability is currently undocumented, but in my mind it is the most significant information that has appeared on the eBook Community list in the past year. This is clear evidence that Palm Digital Media recognizes the importance of the OEBPS, and is one more small step to the complete acceptance of OEBPS as a uniform consumer e-book format." Well, fingers crossed! Oh, and if people want to follow NetWorker's example and say "uniform" rather than "universal," that's fine with me. I myself can see many formats coexisting, while the UCF justifies itself economically. Smart publishers will be sick and tired of having to cope with the Tower of eBabel, and in the end right will be might.

But back to the issue of building a truly finished UCF--and what it should be able to do. One of the key capabilities, as Jon Noring has pointed out, should be ways to display virtually all typographical possibilities that arise in p-books. Wouldn't it be great, for example, to be able to see rivers of text flowing in just the right places amid the illustrations in a colorful electronic edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland? SVG technology could make this happen--even on small portable devices, perhaps powered by Linux--and I would recommend a new item just out in OS News headlined SVG and its Path into the Linux Desktop. This is an XML-standards-based technology. It can work well with proprietary products, too, not just the nonproprietary variety--which, ironically, may be one reason why even Adobe, one of the biggest trogs in the format wars, is now offering an SVG plug-in and pushing SVG as the "future of Web graphics."

The glories of SVG

SVG lets the same graphic nicely scale up and down--without the usual image deterioration--for use on anything from a tiny mobile phone screen to a display the size of a big-screen TV. It is platform-independent. Adobe's SVG Viewer is multiplatform including RedHat Linux and Solaris, as well as MacOS X and, of course, Windows.

With its animation capabilities, SVG could even be a Flash Killer. Imagine all the possibilities for animations in e-books, whether for education or entertainment or maybe kids' books mixing both. Needless to say, like Adobe, Macromedia is watching this technology very carefully. SVG, moreover, could also replace PowerPoint for slide presentations.

Besides SVG, MathML is another standard to consider for use with a UCF. MathML does what it says and allows you to reproduce math equations with more accuracy and less fuss than you would without this wrinkle. You can get the latest free MathML plug-in for Internet Explorer 6 from Design Science. Also check out the MathML demo suite from Design Science.

Together, as Jon sees it, "XML+CSS+MathML+SVG will pretty much handle over 98 percent of what PDF provides for online viewing." No wonder the OeBF, dominated by Microsoft, Adobe and Palm Digital Media, so far seems to be about as comfortable with the idea of the aforementioned combination as the Redmond boys are with Linux.

Detail: OPF or .opf, short for an OEBPS Package Document File, is the "nerve center" of an OEBPS Publication, which includes one or more document files and optionally such extras as style sheets, images and multimedia. OEBPS is an OeBF-recommended specification and means Open eBook Publication Structure.
posted by David Rothman at 11:13 AM | permanent link

"San Jose Public Library's successful launch of its online electronic book service puts it in good--and popular--company. The Sunnyvale Library began offering a similar service--where patrons can check out, download and read eBooks on their computers or PDAs--almost two years ago, notes John Pilger, that city's communications officer. 'Is it a popular service?'' he asks rhetorically. 'During Fiscal Year 02-03, we circulated some 7,500 eBooks. In the first nine months of the current FY, we have already circulated 7,459, a sharp increase over last year.' Clearly an idea whose time has come." - San Jose Mercury News.

The TeleRead take: And remember, that's before the Liebrie-style machines reach K-mart. What's more, Sunnyvale relies on netLibrary, which offers a selection far more limited than a TeleRead-style approach would.

Detail: While Sunnyvale is off to a nice start, keep in mind that success is relative. I'd love to see how the e-book circulation figures compared to those for p-books.

(Librie item spotted via eBookAd.)

posted by David Rothman at 10:19 AM | permanent link

If you like what you've heard of Larry Lessig's book Free Culture, consider buying it.

But you can also download free copies off the Net--for example, at BlackMask, where David Moynihan is serving up copies in seven formats, including my favorite proprietary one, Mobipocket.

He also reports on a Lessig appearance at the National Press Club in DC.
posted by David Rothman at 8:16 PM | permanent link

While 82-year-old Jack Valenti has lived in fear of the Net--seeing it less as an opportunity than as a pirate's Xerox machine--other older people are racing to embrace it. The New York Times carries a fine story today headlined For Some Internet Users, It's Better Late Than Never.

The e-book angle: Sooner or later, if the e-book industry can stop overpricing its goods and rid itself of the complexities created by screwy DRM schemes and the Tower of eBabel, the elderly might discover e-books in a major way. Remember, readers can vary the sizes and styles of the type--in some cases making digital books easier to read than the paper variety.

Needless to say, a TeleRead-style national digital library system would be a good way to serve both the young and elderly at once--given the economies of spreading around titles of appeal to a variety of ages. Here's one goal on which the PTA and the AARP could both team up.

Meanwhile, with a cheapie PDA to download files from Project Gutenberg and other public domain sites, even the poorest pensioners can now enjoy free classics. Or they can sample more modern titles via a subscription to the KnowBetter.com library. Among the offerings--highly recommended: The Sunset Gang. Older people, especially those with vision problems, might also enjoy book-related netcasts and chat sessions via Audio Avenue.
posted by David Rothman at 4:27 AM | permanent link

"The seven studios now spend an average of $64 million to make each movie and another $39 million to market it, Valenti said yesterday, a 15 percent hike from 2002." - March 24 Washington Post reporting the forthcoming retirement of Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association of America.

The TeleRead take: Maybe Hollywood should worry less about the Internet and more about reining in its costs--perhaps one reason why it's so eager to overprice its merchandise, movie-goers be damned. Talk about reasons for piracy! I'm anti-piracy, but perhaps the very worst is committed in Hollywood's executive suites on behalf of Valenti's overpaid clients.

Helped shape Clinton copyright policy

In a fairer world, Jack Valenti, 82 and showing it in his fear of the Net, would have been irrelevant to e-books. But his vision, or lack thereof, permeated Clinton administration copyright policy--helping to give us such wonders as the DMCA and, of course, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.

Valenti and his ilk will leave a legacy--many thousands of young Netfolks who, without so many DC sellouts by their elders, might harbor less contempt toward government and more openness toward the social programs of the kind that Valenti's late boss LBJ championed while in the White House. And now to think that if a California court decision goes against Hollywood, the Bono Act might end up retired, too! Fitting. Jack, I'm still a liberal after all these years, but you and your crowd didn't make it easier.

Related: George Romero's Night of the Living Dead in PD; on Archive.org, via Copyfight, which can't resist the inevitable comparison: "In an era where copyrights seem to come back from the dead to inhibit the creativity of the living, it's not without some sense of irony that one of the first 'modern' cult films to enter the PD is about zombies who come back from the dead and eat the brains of the living." No Valenti jokes, please.
posted by David Rothman at 3:03 AM | permanent link

From NewsScan, based on a subscriber-only article in the Wall Street Journal of March 23:

The market for e-books has yet to heat up, but a startup called Waterfront Media is betting that by adding interactive tools such as a shopping-list generator, a meal planner and a message board, consumers will find the electronic versions of self-help books more useful than old-style hard copy.

Waterfront partners with publishers that specialize in advice and personal-help books to create an authoritative Web site, which it then markets through online advertising. The partner receives a portion of the subscription fees, creating an additional revenue stream for the book publishers. Waterfront's biggest success is with the South Beach Diet--a modified version of the Atkins diet that has topped the bestseller list for months.

The company's Web site makes up the bulk of its 300,000 paid subscribers, who get a six-week version of the diet and access to a "beach buddies" service that pairs up dieters with similar weight-loss goals. Other Waterfront partnerships include Tyndale House, which publishes the best-selling "Left Behind" novels, financial expert Jean Chatzky, fitness guru Denise Austin and New Age doctor Andrew Weil, and has several new projects in the works.

* * *

The TeleRead take: Also see Safari: A successful subscription model for some e-books. I like where Safari is headed, and now Waterfront is in there with its own wrinkles such as the interactive tools and the buddies and the rest. Instead of gouging small publishers, maybe it's time for OverDrive to help them come up with new business models and itself experiment with new approaches. Not so coincidentally I notice that many of OverDrive's books at its eBook Express store are in the self-help vein.
posted by David Rothman at 6:44 PM | permanent link

Walt Crawford's Cites and Insights warns against DRM zealotry that could be a nightmare for TV viewers--in fact, anyone who cares about fair use. Some of the same mischief theoretically could be carried over to e-books. PDF format or not, read this and sign the EFF petition. (Via the Shifted Librarian.)
posted by David Rothman at 12:04 PM | permanent link

From Tom Peters' new site for Tap Information Services:

A revised and expanded version of the Project HAL (Handheld, Accessible Libraries) report is now online. Major additions to this version include reviews of two additional devices (Plextalk PTR1 from Plextor, and Soul DMP-206b from Soulmate Audiobooks) and the inclusion of feedback and suggestions from actual users of some of the seven devices reviewed.

Related: Full InfoEyes Virtual Reference Service for the Visually Impaired Goes Live (via The Shifted Librarian).
posted by David Rothman at 10:27 AM | permanent link

The headline in the Montreal Gazette tells the story well: Versaware a casualty of Internet crash. Company went out of business in 2001, so software is no longer available to download on the Web. A Gazette reader complains of no longer being able to read the e-books he downloaded from an outfit called Xoom, which in turn relied on coding from Versaware. Both companies are apparently kaput after hard times or at least are very hard to find.

Would-be Microsofts and proprietary formats: Dangerous mix

Could similar disasters eventually happen to customers of Palm Digital Media or other e-book-related companies? Remember how invincible Gemstar's e-book operation once looked? Just wait until Microsoft wakes up from hibernation and really cares about e-books again. Readers trusting PDM and similar firms could well be the losers, not just the software people foolish enough to think they can beat Microsoft at its own proprietary game. With proprietary formats and DRM, you may well be renting a book, not buying it. Even if the software still exists, the hardware to read it from may not. It will be derelict of the e-book industry not to come up with a Universal Consumer Format (and if elements of the e-book files can be separately archived, then so much the better).

Still boycotting

So far I have yet to "buy" e-books in proprietary formats. The best way to be an e-book booster is to vote with your wallet and let the industry know that you won't put up with obvious consumer abuse. Many people grasp this instinctively. While e-book sales are growing rapidly, they're still a pathetic speck of p-book sales. When will the Open eBook Forum understand? People either want to borrow books from libraries or own them for real.

Advice for librarians: Do experiment with e-books but don't overdo it. Beware of gambling too much money on proprietay formats--at least not without assurances that your investments will be protected with replacements. Of course, that might play into the hands of outfits like OverDrive. OD is a major DRM-related vendor that juggles around four formats and perhaps will say, "Look, we're here to protect you"--when OverDrive itself is part of the problem.

Detail: A Xoom.com exists but apparently not as the same company. As for Versaware, some kind of site seems to be trying to come up, but won't display in either Internet Explorer or Netscape. A whois says that Versaware.com is owned by a company called The HolmesGroup. That site, in turn, does not mention e-books, just small appliances; apparently it just wanted the name "Versaware."

Noticed: The LawMeme at Yale, where they apparently like their books to last, has just blogged the above. Hey, Ernie, thanks for caring about this pathetically stunted industry!
posted by David Rothman at 9:20 AM | permanent link

As reported in Library Journal, the 200 librarians at the just-ended OeBF library conference "unanimously agreed that public libraries are the paramount forum for the future success of e-books." Yes. Would that enough library and e-book people had heeded our 1992 Computerworld article with somewhat similar thoughts. Problem is, the OeBF isn't carrying this to the next level. Teaming up ideally with the ALA and Association of American Publishers, the OeBF should be lobbying for a well-stocked national digital library system blended in with local libraries and schools. I'd love to work with the OeBF on this if only it could clean up the embarrassing messes in DRM, formats and distribution.
posted by David Rothman at 1:30 AM | permanent link

"Many librarians recounted that when they made the initial investment in e-books they wrongfully assumed that technology types would be the main audience, so they concentrated on sf, but the best circulators have been in romance. Others complained about the plethora of platforms and begged publishers to devise standards to simplify purchasing and downloading." - Library Journal on the Open eBook Forum's library conference.

The TeleRead take: To the considerable credit of OverDrive, the company founded by OeBF President Steve Potash, it has worked with the Cleveland Public Library and other library systems to drag e-books out of the sci-fi and reference ghettos. I just wish Steve would get the format and DRM things right--and the distribution thing, too.

(Tower of Babel via Peter Bruegel the Elder. Wonder how he'd have painted the OeBF version.)
posted by David Rothman at 12:41 AM | permanent link

Good luck to members of the access community trying to cope with the horrors of Adobe for the vision-impaired and others. Still, this approach strikes me as rather Rube Goldbergish--needlessly complicated. Far better just to go for a leaner, XMLish format like the National File Format that Congress wants schools and libraries to use--a kissing cousin of the product-level format from the Open eBook Forum. (More at PDFzone.com.)
posted by David Rothman at 12:27 AM | permanent link

"IBM has signed an exclusive three-year agreement with Vital Source Technologies (VST) to preload more than 2,000 classics of western civilization on ThinkPad notebooks and ThinkCentre desktops for education customers. In addition, K-12 schools, colleges and universities can work with IBM and Raleigh-based VST to preload textbooks and other customized content." - LocalTechWire.com.

The TeleRead take: Great! Just so this isn't a repeat of a Palm-style gouge perped against a Tennessee school. I'd be curious to know how much Vital Source Technologies charges for products based on public domain books. Apparently the Personal Portable Library does respond to voice queries, permits "organizing resources" and allows annotation, but then again the latter is a standard feature of such products as Mobipocket. Still, if the price is right, which means next to nothing, I can see value. Project Gutenberg, downloads from ManyBooks.net or a 15,000-book disk from BlackMask, of course, just might be a better solution for cash-strapped schools.
posted by David Rothman at 11:52 PM | permanent link

From a press release from Digital Containers, seller of "SuperDRM"

The central concept of "Tracking Electronic Content" is that access to electronic content can be tracked as it passes from user to user, whether they use the Internet, peer-to-peer networks, e-mail or physical media. The tracking function is accomplished by sending and receiving notification information as each successive user accesses or attempts to access the electronic content. The notification information can include any of the following:

--The user's name, email address or credit card number

--Demographic data collected from the user interactively

--System or network identification information derived from the user's computer.

(Found via eBookAd.)

posted by David Rothman at 11:46 PM | permanent link

Now here's something to make Sonny Bono turn over in his grave. What if a court case forced Congress to have to pass the much-hated Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act all over again with certain tweaks--or maybe go with a compromise possibility such as the Public Domain Enhancement Act? Just might happen if a California case filed by Stanford Law Prof. Larry Lessig flies. The case is Kahle vs. Ashcroft--with the lead plaintiff being Brewster Kahle, the Internet Archive guy, shown here amid his beloved servers.

More details in the Lessig blog and at Stanford's Cyberlaw Clinic. Adding to the fun, Project Gutenberg's Greg Newby says PG will probably do a friend of the court routine. (Spotted via Jon Noring's post to a Gutenberg volunteer list.)

Related: Washington Post review of Larry Lessig's new book, Free Culture. Key point from reviewer Christopher Lehman: "...the arcane ins and outs of today's copyright battles now mask a much deeper cultural struggle in which the stakes have grown unthinkably high."
posted by David Rothman at 10:21 PM | permanent link

Proprietary fanatics, whether in e-books or other areas, would do well to check out 12 Reasons for Growth of Open Source, quoting Marc Andreessen of Netscape fame. (LinuxWorld via Slashdot.)
posted by David Rothman at 10:59 AM | permanent link

Salon has just published The confessions of a semi-successful author and You can save the endangered midlist author. A worthy cause, but I don't see that much hope under the present publishing system--and not just because of the fixation on best-sellers.

Point is, young people today spend just six hours a week on book-reading, given all the alternatives such as video games--and what they do read is often on the screen rather than on paper. In fact, over-all, book sales just are not what they should be. If people of all ages are to be tempted to enjoy books, prices need to come down, and as many titles as possible should be free to readers (with proper compensation for writers and publishers). That would be a TeleRead-style future.

A better way

This same promise of e-books is also why we'll continue our campaign against the outrageous gouges that OverDrive is imposing on publishers and, indirectly, writers. Just when the new technology could eliminate excessive charges by middlemen, greedsters such as Microsoft are at it--with OverDrive defending the status quo. Time for OverDrive to value writers and publishers over software conglomerates rather than letting its DRM partners prevail.

Related: OverDrive exec unwittingly shows DRM's threat to diversity of content--and the need for a Universal Consumer Format and an anti-trust investigation. Most affected? One-e-book publishing houses--in other words, the self-published in many cases, including authors who, despite their literary merits, can no longer find a home at the usual places. OverDrive wants to bill them $300 a year just for storage-related charges.
posted by David Rothman at 9:34 AM | permanent link

Young students in an Indiana study loved e-books and understood what they read in them. So says a news release below. Also see an earlier TeleRead item on the Indiana experiment as well as E-Books in Urban Schools: Lessons from Chicago's South Side.

eBooks have found a home at Muncie’s Huffer Memorial Children’s Center.

The United Way-sponsored childcare center was given 15 electronic books as part of a study organized by Richard Bellaver, associate director of Ball State University’s Center for Information and Communication Sciences.

The intent of the study was to see if children would favor eBooks over their traditional hard-bound counterparts. Also studied was how well children retained information gained from eBooks versus traditional books.

Seeing the children gather around the eBooks answers the first question. They pick up the devices, which are smaller than a laptop computer but bigger than a personal digital assistant, and quickly locate their favorite stories with a couple of taps with a stylus.

Some of the children enjoy reading one of the 17 stories — downloaded from Web sites providing free literature for eBooks — stored on each electronic device. Others use the electronic dictionary while completing their homework. Many like using the stylus to peck at the typewriter or scribble on the electronic drawing board.

“I like the pictures in ‘The Three Little Pigs,’” said Carl Lewis Jr., age 7.

In regards to comprehension, Bellaver found that test scores taken after reading eBooks compared to those taken after completing traditional books were nearly identical. In six tests taken over six weeks, there was only a one-point difference, he said.

The eBooks also provide a viable alternative to heavy backpacks filled with textbooks, Bellaver added.

“Overweight backpacks are causing back problems, so there is a need for a lighter medium such as eBooks,” he said. “From our study, we’ve learned that children like eBooks and that they are durable enough to go back and forth between home and school.”

Bellaver and graduate student Matt Ramey made frequent trips to Huffer Memorial during the study, which was funded by the Center for Media Design. Bringing the eBooks to Huffer Memorial was orchestrated in part by Community Tech Link, a program of United Way of Delaware County.
posted by David Rothman at 10:54 AM | permanent link