TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for the ‘Germany’ Category

By Paul Biba

According to boersenblatt.net the German mobile phone company, Vodaphone, will be introducing an “open platform” ereader at Cebit next March. The article says that Axel Springer has signed a letter of intent along with the Lower Media Group Madsack, which publishes the Hannoversche Allgmeine newspaper. Proceeds will be split 50/50 between the publishers and Vodaphone.

By Paul Biba

Got this email that I thought I should share with you:

Hi,

I think TeleRead missed this announcement at the Frankfurt Book Fair:

The German text is about the planned improvements of the German eBook portal libreka!, which is the official eBook shop of the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (federation of German publishers and book stores). The interesting part for non-Germans is the announcement of the release of a libreka! iPhone app in the beginning of November. With this app it will be possible to buy and read the eBooks sold at libreka!—which are EPUB with Adobe DRM. So this will be the first official iPhone eBook reader for EPUB with Adobe DRM.

Best regards,
Tobias Steinke

By Paul Biba

In another blast at Google from Europe, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor has said, in a video podcast before the opening of the Frankfurt Book Fair that :

“The German government has a clear position: copyrights have to be protected in the internet,” Merkel said, adding that there were “considerable dangers” for copyright protection in the internet.

Reuters adds the following sentence omitted by The Guardian: “That’s why we reject the scanning in of books without any copyright protection — like Google is doing. The government places a lot of weight on this position on copyrights to protect writers in Germany.”

You can read the full report at The Guardian or at the Reuters link above. In addition, as The Guardian and Reuters also mention, Google has been sued in France by an association of French publishers for violating their French copyrights in the digitization of their books. Substantial damages are requested.

No matter what we may think of the settlement, the international implications of the settlement are growing.

By Paul Biba

Here is a Google translation of part of an interview, published in Buchreport, about a new wireless ereader that Ronnie Vuin intends to introduce in the Frankfurt Book Fair. The original article, in German, is here.

Companies such as Sony or reach txtr this year to technological progress, the Amazon has already reached several years ago. How can we catch up with the market leader?

Technologically, the Kindle is not necessarily superior – it merely has more features than for example the recent Sony devices. This does not, however, is that Sony can not, what is Amazon, but rather the fact that features such as a cellular connection to make the product at the business level much more complex. Not least because of differences in national mobile markets are strong. Whether one wants to offer that, in the end depend above all on a market assessment. We at txtr wanted to make from the outset, Sony has the function so far seems to be regarded as less important. Amazon is a truly impressive range of digital books, at least in the U.S.. But again, that the respective national markets work quite differently, and who has in the United States ahead, you need not necessarily always be the best. Nobody is interested in a monopoly, and all the actors do well to ensure timely manner to ensure that competition is possible in this market.

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By Paul Biba

This is from The Register. Many other countries should be thanking the Germans, for the Settlement potentially infringes on their sovereignty as well.

The German government has come out in opposition to Google’s recent book settlement, declaring it would “irrevocably alter the landscape of international copyright law.”

Court papers filed in New York yesterday said the deal “runs afoul of the applicable German national laws, as well as European public initiatives to create non-commercial worldwide digital libraries.” …

According to AFP, German justice minister Brigitte Zypries told Handelsblatt business daily that she had filed a 25-page legal brief with the court in New York that is required to give the settlement the go ahead.

“We hope that the court strikes down the approval of the settlement in the class-action suit, or at least excludes our German authors and publishers from the so-called class, so the settlement has no impact on them,” she said.

Update: The full text of the German filing is as follows. Thanks to Resource Shelf for the link. You can find all the court pleadings here.

By Paul Biba

Is this a lot or a little?  According to Publishing Perspectives nobody really knows:

The GfK (Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung), a market research and consumer insight agency, recently announced that 65,000 e-books were sold in Germany in the first half of 2009. Boersenblatt editor Michael Roesler-Graichen analyzes the significance of this figure, stating that most industry insiders are agnostic as to whether this should be seen as a success or a failure.  The Google translation of the article is after the break.

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By Paul Biba

News from Germany courtesy of one of our readers – Johannes Haupt. He says:

Hey Paul,

some news from the german market: 65.000 ebooks sold here in the first half-year, according to an panel-study of the well-known gfk institute (http://www.gfk.com/). Average price of sale was arround 10 euro, most popular sectors were fictional ebooks and advisors. The Market got a massive impulse through the the local launch of Sony Reader PRS 505 in march so majority of the ebook sales occured in Q2.
Problem here is that most bestsellers are not avaible as ebooks. In addition price level is still way to high (often ebook=hardcover) and there’s an absence of really convenient devices.

http://www.lesen.net/ebooks/deutschland-65000-ebook-verkaeufe-im-1-halbjahr-894/

Bye
Johannes

By Paul Biba

Received an email from Mike Perry about an interview, in Germany, with the Minister of Justice:

My German contact passed me this link to a Welt Online interview with the German Minister of Justice:

I just wish German officials would quit talking about German or EU law. This is a U.S. dispute about U.S. copyrights, so what applies is our law. Other countries and foreign authors only come into play because we have treaty obligations with them that determine what our law can or cannot do. At best, German law might mean that German citizens can’t be forced into a U.S. class action without their knowledge or consent.

Thanks, Mike! It is really great when we get articles from our readers!

Update: One of our readers, George Alexander, just sent in a link to his site which has a “real” translation of the interview. George also has an article about the Google Book Settlement and how it is a losing proposition for non-US publishers and readers.

By Paul Biba

From AfterDawn:

Alexander Skipis, head of the German book publishers’ association, has announced that they publishers plan to launch a lawsuit campaign against file sharers.

Skipis said that they plan to sue “thousands” over copyright infringement and he even went as far as to call P2P file sharing “organized crime.” Taking a job at the government, Skipis added that politicians were ignoring the huge impact piracy is having on the book industry.

You can read more here.