"An international treaty to give broadcasters the right to control who may record, transmit, or distribute their signals is reaching a crucial stage of negotiation by the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva. The current draft (PDF) incorporates many proposals, but the main ones most countries agree on give broadcasters 50 years' worth of legal control over the recording, retransmission, and reproduction of their broadcast signals. These rights are separate from those of the owners of the actual content being broadcast." - Wired.

The TeleRead take: Oh, great. This is just what we need for the public domain and fair use. Whenever I see the initals "WIPO," I think "wipe out"--as in to "wipe out" individual rights. The frustrating thing is that WIPO's actions will harm the developing countries that control so many of the organization's votes. Do you really think that Hollywood is itching to buy and distribute that many Sudanese movies? Dr. Kamil Idris, the WIPO director shown above, hails from Sudan, for which one survey listed 0 screenwriters and 4 novelists. Needless to say, WIPO won't be that great for us here in the States, either. Why is Senator and vice presidential candidate John Edwards so resolutely silent on copyright despite his seat on the Senate Judiciary Committe and the threat to individual rights and to affordability of content? Campaign donations? And what about other politicians, including Ralph Nader? I don't know why Ralph's silent on DMCAism--just that his famous courage may have its limits.
posted by David Rothman at 2:23 PM | permanent link

In Distrusted systems in the Inquirer, writer Wendy M. Grossman tells why the Europeans are so rational in their fear of the acquisition of ContentGuard by Microsoft and Time Warner.

"It's not just another case of 'Oh, let's Get Microsoft,'" she writes. "What few outside of the digital rights management arena have realized yet is that ContentGuard holds very significant patents that could have a very broad impact if the use of digital rights management takes off."

ContentGuard's patents, she says, are "impressive. They cover using markup languages to attach machine-readable rights to content; they cover incorporating charging mechanisms. In fact, they cover much of what we'd describe as digital rights management."

Lurking in the background, of course, is one of the great hazards of DRM, the replacement of ordinary copyright law with contract law that does not provide sufficiently for fair use.

Related: Microsoft, Time Warner Face In-Depth EU Probe on ContentGuard from Bloomberg.
posted by David Rothman at 1:47 AM | permanent link

Link.

* * *

The TeleRead take: To be exact, the CNET article says sales were $3.23 million for the first quarter of '04. That's just a speck of the amount for paper books and still embarrassingly miniscule despite the 28 percent rise from the same period in '03. Less use of obnoxious DRM has helped. But the real explanations could be lowered prices of PDAs and some improvements in the typical users' LCDs. I do agree with Cory's skepticism of DRM. The avoidance of Draconian flavors of DRM, along with the popularization of OpenReader, could help immensely. While mild DRM may be appropriate in some cases, "protection" normally is toxic to sales.

(Thanks, Alev.)
posted by David Rothman at 2:09 PM | permanent link

Don't think that cell phones will be important to e-books? Just take a look at the latest from PalmOne. A forthcoming Treo, apparently called the Ace/650, has 320X320 res instead of the mediocre 160x160 on the 600.

While it's hardly a perfect e-book machine--I much prefer 320X480--it's a step in the right direction. Would be fun to try the new Trep with Mobipocket.

The "great news, according to Mike Cane, is the mix of high-res, bluetooth, a new keyboard backlighting system, a built-in video recorder and the 1.3-megapixel camera.

And the "bad"? "Total incompatibility with all accessories" except for the universal headset. Not even the cradle and charger will work.

For more: The Next Thing In Treo Is Outted, from PDABuzz.

Related: During a chatcast yesterday, George Kersher, chairman of the Open eBook Forum, noted the potential of cell phones for e-books.
posted by David Rothman at 4:51 AM | permanent link

Will bloggers pay for promotion and other services to elevate their profiles? That's among the details in The devil you don’t know: The unexpected future of Open Access publishing, an Open Monday article by publishing expert Joseph J. Esposito. He is a traditionalist and warns that open access could prove costly to authors and their institutions. We're pro-OA but would agree with him on the need to consider the negatives as well. The obvious reponse: Good research will eventually find an audience, especially as others link to it. (Via eBookAd.)
posted by David Rothman at 2:47 AM | permanent link

Today's accessibility chatcast featuring George Kersher is now available as a large WMA file from the Opal-Online archive. Just click here.

I was delighted to hear him talk about a maximum amount of mainstreaming of content from books and other media. Exactly! The blind and others with special needs should be able to download the latest e-books and other goodies without waits. I also like the idea of the DAISY standards he's been pushing over the years. Imagine the same book available as text, as synthesized speech, as a dramatic performance from a human reader, as braille--as, you name it! Oh, the wonders of XML and the navigation techniques that Kersher and collegues have been working on.

The sponsor of the chatcasts is the Mid-Illinois Talking Books Center, and the moderator is Tom Peters.

Related: Paperback Digital launches new 'e-book' line (via eBook Ad).

posted by David Rothman at 1:13 PM | permanent link

Little shopping-mall libraries, a cool idea in use in Seattle and other cities, could be just the ticket to help popularize one of the most compact forms of information technology--electronic books. Besides, this is great example of public libraries going where new users can discover them. (Found via LISNews and Alev.)

posted by David Rothman at 9:02 AM | permanent link

Just a reminder: David Faucheux, the author of the Blind Chance blog hosted on the TeleRead site and praised by Audio Blogger, will moderate an audio chatcast at 7 p.m. CDT August 31, Tuesday, on the topic of historical fiction.

As any follower of David's audio blog can vouch, he is unfailingly articulate--and knowledgeable in his book reviews. David is a big fan of Gary Jenning's novels and now has a new enthusiasm, My Antonia, topic of another another forthcoming presentation from the Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center--Audio Chatcast Central.

This is "good read" territory. No need for stuffy academic discussion. Dive right in and join David and share your own finds in the historical fiction category. While the chatcasts are sponsored with the blind and visually impaired in mind, anyone can join in. Tom Peters, host of MITBC's Meting of the Minds and eBookWorm, will participate in David's discussion.

Meanwhile, on Aug. 26, this Thursday, from 3 to 4 CDT, the featured guest on eBookWorm "will be George Kersher, Senior Officer for Accessible Information at Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic, Secretary General of the DAISY Consortium, Co-Chair of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), a division of the W3C, and Chairperson of the Open eBook Forum."
posted by David Rothman at 1:18 AM | permanent link

We've been praising blogs for education--such as for essays to help show that students have digested e-books--but a New York Times piece makes an especialy strong case.

(Thanks to Rick Barry.)

posted by David Rothman at 6:55 AM | permanent link

Tomorrow's chatcast on Willa Cather's My Antonia has been postponed so that Prof. Susan J. Rosowski from the Cather Project at the University of Nebraska can participate with a panel. Nebraska is prime Cather territory, the setting of Antonia, and we're terribly excited. Details, including the new date in September, will be on the way.

Sponsor is the Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center, and you can e-mail the MITBC's Lori Bell to learn the new date ASAP. While the seminar is for the blind and visually impaired, MITBC welcomes all to its "Meting of the Minds" net.audio seminars (yes, that's the right spelling--a play on "mete," as in "to distribute"). Tom Peters is moderator. See an earlier item.

Details: Prof. Rosowski tells me that, yes, as I suggested in the earlier item, F. Scott Fitzgerald paid much attention to Antonia while he was conceiving The Great Gatsby.
posted by David Rothman at 9:15 AM | permanent link