Thomas Claburn via InformationWeek; Microsoft, Yahoo Unite Against Google Book Search:
A new coalition opposed to Google's Book Search settlement has been formed.
"The major areas of contention revolve around issues of privacy, exclusivity, and indemnification from liability. Critics of the settlement want Google to commit to: offering online readers the same privacy protection enjoyed by offline readers; an open registry system rather than one controlled by two publishing industry groups; and indemnification from copyright claims for those who want to scan orphaned works -- books for which the copyright holder cannot be found -- as Google has done.
In May, Google said that it planned "to build and support a digital book ecosystem to allow our partner publishers to make their books available for purchase from any Web-enabled device," showing that Google Book Search will become a platform for Google book sales. This presumably explains Amazon's reported decision to join the coalition opposing the settlement.
To Google, Microsoft's public opposition seems incongruous because the company shuttered its Live Book Search project last year "to focus on search verticals with high commercial intent, such as travel...
Google insiders have acknowledged being surprised by the breadth of the opposition to the Book Search settlement and the company has recently been more energetic about making its views known."
http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/google/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=219401064
Showing posts with label Amazon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amazon. Show all posts
Friday, August 21, 2009
Tech's Heavyweights Put Google's Books Deal In Crosshairs; Wall Street Journal, 8/21/09
Jessica E. Vascallero and Geoffrey A. Folwer via Wall Street Journal; Tech's Heavyweights Put Google's Books Deal In Crosshairs:
"Three technology heavyweights and some library associations are joining a coalition led by a prominent Silicon Valley lawyer to challenge Google Inc.'s settlement with authors and publishers.
Peter Brantley, a director at coalition co-founder Internet Archive said the group, whose members will be formally disclosed in the next couple of weeks, is being co-led by Gary Reback, a Silicon Valley lawyer involved in the Department of Justice's antitrust investigation against Microsoft Corp. last decade. Microsoft, Amazon.com Inc. and Yahoo Inc. have agreed to join the group. Mr. Reback did not reply to requests for comment.
Microsoft and Yahoo confirmed their participation. Amazon declined to comment.
The coalition is the latest sign that Google's rapid ascent has made it a prime target for competitors, just as Microsoft was reviled as the industry's bully in the 1990s.
Google defended the settlement, struck last October with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers. "The Google Books settlement is injecting more competition into the digital books space, so it's understandable why our competitors might fight hard to prevent more competition," a Google spokesman said in a statement...
Since last year, a broad group of authors, librarians, European publishers and privacy advocates have argued that the settlement gives Google an unfair copyright immunity in offering future services around digital books that would be tough for other businesses to match."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125080725309147713.html
"Three technology heavyweights and some library associations are joining a coalition led by a prominent Silicon Valley lawyer to challenge Google Inc.'s settlement with authors and publishers.
Peter Brantley, a director at coalition co-founder Internet Archive said the group, whose members will be formally disclosed in the next couple of weeks, is being co-led by Gary Reback, a Silicon Valley lawyer involved in the Department of Justice's antitrust investigation against Microsoft Corp. last decade. Microsoft, Amazon.com Inc. and Yahoo Inc. have agreed to join the group. Mr. Reback did not reply to requests for comment.
Microsoft and Yahoo confirmed their participation. Amazon declined to comment.
The coalition is the latest sign that Google's rapid ascent has made it a prime target for competitors, just as Microsoft was reviled as the industry's bully in the 1990s.
Google defended the settlement, struck last October with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers. "The Google Books settlement is injecting more competition into the digital books space, so it's understandable why our competitors might fight hard to prevent more competition," a Google spokesman said in a statement...
Since last year, a broad group of authors, librarians, European publishers and privacy advocates have argued that the settlement gives Google an unfair copyright immunity in offering future services around digital books that would be tough for other businesses to match."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125080725309147713.html
Google Rivals Will Oppose Book Settlement; New York Times, 8/21/09
Miguel Helft via New York Times; Google Rivals Will Oppose Book Settlement:
"Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo are planning to join a coalition of nonprofit groups, individuals and library associations to oppose a proposed class-action settlement giving Google the rights to commercialize digital copies of millions of books...
Gary L. Reback, an antitrust lawyer in Silicon Valley, who is acting as counsel to the coalition, said that Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo had all agreed to join the group, which is tentatively called the Open Book Alliance. The group, led by Mr. Reback and the Internet Archive, a nonprofit group that has been critical of the settlement, plans to make a case to the Justice Department that the arrangement is anticompetitive. Members of the alliance will most likely file objections with the court independently.
“This deal has enormous, far-reaching anticompetitive consequences that people are just beginning to wake up to,” said Mr. Reback, a lawyer with Carr & Ferrell, a firm in Palo Alto, Calif. In the 1990s, Mr. Reback helped persuade the Justice Department to file its landmark antitrust case against Microsoft.
Some library associations and groups representing authors are also planning to join the coalition, he said."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/technology/internet/21google.html?scp=2&sq=google%20book%20search&st=cse
"Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo are planning to join a coalition of nonprofit groups, individuals and library associations to oppose a proposed class-action settlement giving Google the rights to commercialize digital copies of millions of books...
Gary L. Reback, an antitrust lawyer in Silicon Valley, who is acting as counsel to the coalition, said that Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo had all agreed to join the group, which is tentatively called the Open Book Alliance. The group, led by Mr. Reback and the Internet Archive, a nonprofit group that has been critical of the settlement, plans to make a case to the Justice Department that the arrangement is anticompetitive. Members of the alliance will most likely file objections with the court independently.
“This deal has enormous, far-reaching anticompetitive consequences that people are just beginning to wake up to,” said Mr. Reback, a lawyer with Carr & Ferrell, a firm in Palo Alto, Calif. In the 1990s, Mr. Reback helped persuade the Justice Department to file its landmark antitrust case against Microsoft.
Some library associations and groups representing authors are also planning to join the coalition, he said."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/technology/internet/21google.html?scp=2&sq=google%20book%20search&st=cse
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Sony Plans to Adopt Common Format for E-Books; New York Times, 8/13/09
Brad Stone via New York Times; Sony Plans to Adopt Common Format for E-Books:
"On Thursday, Sony Electronics, which sells e-book devices under the Reader brand, plans to announce that by the end of the year it will sell digital books only in the ePub format, an open standard created by a group including publishers like Random House and HarperCollins.
Sony will also scrap its proprietary anticopying software in favor of technology from the software maker Adobe that restricts how often e-books can be shared or copied.
After the change, books bought from Sony’s online store will be readable not just on its own device but on the growing constellation of other readers that support ePub...
“People need to remember, when they buy books that come with digital rights management, they don’t have the freedoms they normally would have with a book,” said Holmes Wilson, campaigns manger of the Free Software Foundation, which obtained the signatures of nearly 4,000 authors and tech pundits on a petition saying Amazon’s anticopying software was a “clear threat to the free exchange of ideas.”
Companies like Sony and Adobe do not want to abandon anticopying measures, fearing that piracy of books would run rampant. Rather, they want to push the e-book industry toward common standards to avoid a replay of Apple’s domination of the digital music business.
Early this decade, Apple sold music from its iTunes store that was protected by its own FairPlay software and could be played only on the iPod.
The result was what is known as “lock-in.” Apple built up extraordinary market power and leverage to dictate terms to the major music labels on matters like the price of digital songs. Then, as now, second-tier players banded together to promote the increased flexibility and choice that open standards gave to consumers."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/technology/internet/13reader.html?_r=1&hpw
"On Thursday, Sony Electronics, which sells e-book devices under the Reader brand, plans to announce that by the end of the year it will sell digital books only in the ePub format, an open standard created by a group including publishers like Random House and HarperCollins.
Sony will also scrap its proprietary anticopying software in favor of technology from the software maker Adobe that restricts how often e-books can be shared or copied.
After the change, books bought from Sony’s online store will be readable not just on its own device but on the growing constellation of other readers that support ePub...
“People need to remember, when they buy books that come with digital rights management, they don’t have the freedoms they normally would have with a book,” said Holmes Wilson, campaigns manger of the Free Software Foundation, which obtained the signatures of nearly 4,000 authors and tech pundits on a petition saying Amazon’s anticopying software was a “clear threat to the free exchange of ideas.”
Companies like Sony and Adobe do not want to abandon anticopying measures, fearing that piracy of books would run rampant. Rather, they want to push the e-book industry toward common standards to avoid a replay of Apple’s domination of the digital music business.
Early this decade, Apple sold music from its iTunes store that was protected by its own FairPlay software and could be played only on the iPod.
The result was what is known as “lock-in.” Apple built up extraordinary market power and leverage to dictate terms to the major music labels on matters like the price of digital songs. Then, as now, second-tier players banded together to promote the increased flexibility and choice that open standards gave to consumers."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/technology/internet/13reader.html?_r=1&hpw
Thursday, August 6, 2009
New Entry in E-Books a Paper Tiger; New York Times, 8/6/09
David Pogue via New York Times; New Entry in E-Books a Paper Tiger:
"You get five free out-of-copyright books to start you off (“Dracula,” “Sense and Sensibility” and so on)...
Besides, if you want free, out-of-copyright books, you can get them on the Kindle, too. They await at Gutenberg.org and other free sites...
And remember, you can never lend, resell or pass on an A or B e-book. You’re buying into proprietary, copy-protected formats — which can have its downsides. Last month, for example, Amazon erased “1984” and “Animal Farm” from its customers’ Kindles by remote control, having discovered a problem with the rights. Amazon refunded the price, but the sense of violation many customers felt was a disturbing wake-up call...
Buying a “free” book entails a 1-cent charge on your credit card, which is refunded at checkout (huh?)...
Barnes & Noble’s e-book initiative has some bright spots: the iPhone and Windows apps are mostly excellent, the concept of free access to public-domain books is sound and being able to read your e-books on your laptop is a no-brainer.
But over all, this is a 1.0 effort — which, incidentally, the company acknowledges. It vows to address the shortcomings."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/technology/personaltech/06pogue.html?_r=1&hpw
"You get five free out-of-copyright books to start you off (“Dracula,” “Sense and Sensibility” and so on)...
Besides, if you want free, out-of-copyright books, you can get them on the Kindle, too. They await at Gutenberg.org and other free sites...
And remember, you can never lend, resell or pass on an A or B e-book. You’re buying into proprietary, copy-protected formats — which can have its downsides. Last month, for example, Amazon erased “1984” and “Animal Farm” from its customers’ Kindles by remote control, having discovered a problem with the rights. Amazon refunded the price, but the sense of violation many customers felt was a disturbing wake-up call...
Buying a “free” book entails a 1-cent charge on your credit card, which is refunded at checkout (huh?)...
Barnes & Noble’s e-book initiative has some bright spots: the iPhone and Windows apps are mostly excellent, the concept of free access to public-domain books is sound and being able to read your e-books on your laptop is a no-brainer.
But over all, this is a 1.0 effort — which, incidentally, the company acknowledges. It vows to address the shortcomings."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/technology/personaltech/06pogue.html?_r=1&hpw
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
New petition demands an end to Kindle DRM, faces long odds; Ars Technica, 8/4/09
Nate Anderson via Ars Technica; New petition demands an end to Kindle DRM, faces long odds:
"It was that decision to link the Kindle hardware and store with a new DRM scheme that led the Free Software Foundation (FSF) to add the Kindle to its "Defective by Design" anti-DRM campaign.
The group has now launched a petition asking Amazon to "remove all DRM, including any ability to control or access the user's library, from the Kindle... Whatever Amazon's reasons for imposing this control may be, they are not as important as the public's freedom to use books without interference or supervision."
The Foundation took particular exception to two decisions that Amazon made. First was the company's decision to address publisher concerns about the Kindle's text-to-speech feature by giving book publishers a way to disable the automated reading of their titles. Second was Amazon's almost unimaginably bad decision to remove already purchased books from customers' devices—and not just any books, but the George Orwell titles 1984 and Animal Farm...
These issues are certainly troubling, and the FSF is right to call Amazon to account for them. But to most consumers, the bigger concern about DRM is vendor lock-in...
The shift to electronic books provides obvious advantages in convenience and portability (every Ars staffer who owns a Kindle swears by it), but those books can only be read on devices that support Kindle DRM. Just as with music, people run the risk of making a significant investment into a product that they cannot resell and which may well become obsolete or unreadable in a decade—or whenever they decide to switch e-reader brands. "
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/08/new-petition-demands-an-end-to-kindle-drm.ars
"It was that decision to link the Kindle hardware and store with a new DRM scheme that led the Free Software Foundation (FSF) to add the Kindle to its "Defective by Design" anti-DRM campaign.
The group has now launched a petition asking Amazon to "remove all DRM, including any ability to control or access the user's library, from the Kindle... Whatever Amazon's reasons for imposing this control may be, they are not as important as the public's freedom to use books without interference or supervision."
The Foundation took particular exception to two decisions that Amazon made. First was the company's decision to address publisher concerns about the Kindle's text-to-speech feature by giving book publishers a way to disable the automated reading of their titles. Second was Amazon's almost unimaginably bad decision to remove already purchased books from customers' devices—and not just any books, but the George Orwell titles 1984 and Animal Farm...
These issues are certainly troubling, and the FSF is right to call Amazon to account for them. But to most consumers, the bigger concern about DRM is vendor lock-in...
The shift to electronic books provides obvious advantages in convenience and portability (every Ars staffer who owns a Kindle swears by it), but those books can only be read on devices that support Kindle DRM. Just as with music, people run the risk of making a significant investment into a product that they cannot resell and which may well become obsolete or unreadable in a decade—or whenever they decide to switch e-reader brands. "
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/08/new-petition-demands-an-end-to-kindle-drm.ars
Sony to Cut E-Book Prices and Offer New Readers; New York Times, 8/5/09
Brad Stone and Motoko Rich via New York Times; Sony to Cut E-Book Prices and Offer New Readers:
"Sony’s price cut on digital books and the new devices may not be enough to help it catch up to Amazon. One significant drawback to Sony’s new devices is that, unlike the Kindle, they cannot connect wirelessly to an e-book store. Owners of Sony Readers must plug their devices into a computer to buy and download books.
The new Readers also cannot access magazines or newspapers, and Sony has yet to develop a version of its reading software for other devices like the iPhone. Mr. Haber from Sony said that the company was working on developing all of these features."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/technology/personaltech/05sony.html?_r=1&hpw
"Sony’s price cut on digital books and the new devices may not be enough to help it catch up to Amazon. One significant drawback to Sony’s new devices is that, unlike the Kindle, they cannot connect wirelessly to an e-book store. Owners of Sony Readers must plug their devices into a computer to buy and download books.
The new Readers also cannot access magazines or newspapers, and Sony has yet to develop a version of its reading software for other devices like the iPhone. Mr. Haber from Sony said that the company was working on developing all of these features."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/technology/personaltech/05sony.html?_r=1&hpw
Sunday, August 2, 2009
My Kindle ate my homework: lawsuit filed over 1984 deletion; Ars Technica, 7/31/09
John Timmer via Ars Technica; My Kindle ate my homework: lawsuit filed over 1984 deletion:
A suit filed on Amazon's home turf claims that the company's recent deletion of e-books from consumers' Kindles violates its contract with users and constitutes computer fraud.
"Amazon attracted a lot of unwanted attention when it used its Kindle e-book reader's always-on network connection to delete copies of works by George Orwell that had been sold without a proper license. The company has since apologized to its users and promised that it will never happen again, but those steps aren't enough for some. A lawsuit has been filed in Seattle that seeks class action status for Kindle owners and Orwell readers, alleging that Amazon has done everything from committing computer fraud to eating a high school student's homework.
One of the plaintiffs, Justin Gawronski, has a compelling story about his experience with Amazon's memory hole. Apparently, he was reading his copy of 1984 as a summer assignment for school, and had been using one of the Kindle's selling points—the ability to attach notes to specific parts of the e-book text—to prepare for his return to school. Since he was actively reading the work when Amazon pulled the plug, he actually got to watch the work vanish from his screen. He's left with a file of notes that are divorced from the text that they reference. A second plaintiff is named, but he just seems to have gotten poor customer service when he complained about the deletion.
But the firm that filed the suit clearly expects that these two individuals are hardly alone, and it seeks class-action status, with three different degrees of harm. The first is simply Kindle owners, who have allegedly seen their device's resale value drop due to Amazon's actions. The second is those that lost a copy of a digital work, and the final class are those, like Gawronski, that have put effort into annotating a work, only to see the underlying text vanish."
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/07/my-kindle-ate-my-homework-lawsuit-filed-over-1984-deletion.ars
A suit filed on Amazon's home turf claims that the company's recent deletion of e-books from consumers' Kindles violates its contract with users and constitutes computer fraud.
"Amazon attracted a lot of unwanted attention when it used its Kindle e-book reader's always-on network connection to delete copies of works by George Orwell that had been sold without a proper license. The company has since apologized to its users and promised that it will never happen again, but those steps aren't enough for some. A lawsuit has been filed in Seattle that seeks class action status for Kindle owners and Orwell readers, alleging that Amazon has done everything from committing computer fraud to eating a high school student's homework.
One of the plaintiffs, Justin Gawronski, has a compelling story about his experience with Amazon's memory hole. Apparently, he was reading his copy of 1984 as a summer assignment for school, and had been using one of the Kindle's selling points—the ability to attach notes to specific parts of the e-book text—to prepare for his return to school. Since he was actively reading the work when Amazon pulled the plug, he actually got to watch the work vanish from his screen. He's left with a file of notes that are divorced from the text that they reference. A second plaintiff is named, but he just seems to have gotten poor customer service when he complained about the deletion.
But the firm that filed the suit clearly expects that these two individuals are hardly alone, and it seeks class-action status, with three different degrees of harm. The first is simply Kindle owners, who have allegedly seen their device's resale value drop due to Amazon's actions. The second is those that lost a copy of a digital work, and the final class are those, like Gawronski, that have put effort into annotating a work, only to see the underlying text vanish."
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/07/my-kindle-ate-my-homework-lawsuit-filed-over-1984-deletion.ars
Friday, July 31, 2009
Amazon sued over Kindle deletion of Orwell books; Yahoo News, 7/31/09
Tim Klass, AP Writer, via Yahoo News; Amazon sued over Kindle deletion of Orwell books:
"A high school student is suing Amazon.com Inc. for deleting an e-book he purchased for the Kindle reader, saying his electronic notes were bollixed, too.
Amazon CEO Jeffrey P. Bezos has apologized to Kindle customers for remotely removing copies of the George Orwell novels "1984" and "Animal Farm" from their e-reader devices. The company did so after learning the electronic editions were pirated, and it gave buyers automatic refunds. But Amazon did it without prior notice.
The lawsuit seeking class-action status was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Seattle on behalf of Justin D. Gawronski, 17, a student at Eisenhower High School in Shelby Township, Mich., as well as Antoine J. Bruguier, an adult reader in Milpitas, Calif."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090731/ap_on_en_ot/us_tec_amazon_kindle_lawsuit
"A high school student is suing Amazon.com Inc. for deleting an e-book he purchased for the Kindle reader, saying his electronic notes were bollixed, too.
Amazon CEO Jeffrey P. Bezos has apologized to Kindle customers for remotely removing copies of the George Orwell novels "1984" and "Animal Farm" from their e-reader devices. The company did so after learning the electronic editions were pirated, and it gave buyers automatic refunds. But Amazon did it without prior notice.
The lawsuit seeking class-action status was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Seattle on behalf of Justin D. Gawronski, 17, a student at Eisenhower High School in Shelby Township, Mich., as well as Antoine J. Bruguier, an adult reader in Milpitas, Calif."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090731/ap_on_en_ot/us_tec_amazon_kindle_lawsuit
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
A New Page; New Yorker, 8/3/09
Nicholson Baker via New Yorker; A New Page: Can the Kindle really improve on the book?:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/03/090803fa_fact_baker
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/03/090803fa_fact_baker
Monday, July 27, 2009
Amazon Faces a Fight Over Its E-Books; New York Times, 7/27/09
Brad Stone via New York Times; Amazon Faces a Fight Over Its E-Books:
"A growing number of civil libertarians and customer advocates wants Amazon to fundamentally alter its method for selling Kindle books, lest it be forced to one day change or recall books, perhaps by a judge ruling in a defamation case — or by a government deciding a particular work is politically damaging or embarrassing.
“As long as Amazon maintains control of the device it will have this ability to remove books and that means they will be tempted to use it or they will be forced to it,” said Holmes Wilson, campaigns manager of the Free Software Foundation.
The foundation, based in Boston, is soliciting signatures from librarians, publishers and major authors and public intellectuals. This week it plans to present a petition to Amazon asking it to give up control over the books people load on their Kindles, and to reconsider its use of the software called digital rights management, or D.R.M. The software allows the company to maintain strict control over the copies of electronic books on its reader and also prevents other companies from selling material for the device.
Two years after Amazon first introduced the Kindle and lighted a fire under the e-books market, there is increasing awareness of how traditional libraries of paper and ink differ from those made of bits and bytes. The D.R.M. in Amazon’s Kindle books, backed up by license agreements with copyright holders, prevents customers from copying or reselling Kindle books — the legal right of “first sale” that is guaranteed to owners of regular books.
D.R.M. has created a new dynamic between consumers and the vendors of digital media like books and movies. People do not so much own, but rent this media. And the rental agreement can be breached by the manufacturer at any time, sometime with little or no notice.
People are also worried that the very architecture of network-connected devices like the Kindle, TiVo or iPod give tech companies unprecedented control over digital media and by extension, the free exchange of ideas.
Once upon a time, retailers sold customers a product and then walked away after the transaction. Today’s specialized devices often keep an umbilical cord to their vendor, loading updates and offering convenient ways to make purchases. These devices also limit the extent to which people can load independent software and customize their experiences.
Such tethered systems provide significant advantages to the consumer. Companies can keep their own records of what people buy and restore the content if it is inadvertently lost. Device software can be kept up to date, and vendors can track what people buy and make personalized recommendations for new material they might like.
Randal C. Picker, a law professor at the University of Chicago, says he thinks Amazon was right to delete the improperly sold versions of “1984” and argues such systems can also allow companies to better enforce copyright laws. He notes that the harm to the Orwell book buyers was minimal, since their money was refunded after copies were deleted from their Kindles.
“Because copyright infringement was poor and lax in the offline world, it should also be that way in the online world? I don’t understand that logic,” Mr. Picker said. “The whole point of moving online is that it creates new opportunities.”
But critics say that any device capable of interfering with how its owner uses media is potentially dangerous. “I worry that systems like these tethered appliances are gifts to regulators,” said Jonathan Zittrain, a professor at Harvard Law School and author of the book, “The Future of the Internet — and How to Stop It.” Mr. Zittrain predicts that governments in some parts of the world will want to use it “like a line item veto for content,” removing objectionable sentences or chapters in some books.
“It could happen first in jurisdictions like the United Kingdom, where there isn’t as rich a First Amendment tradition and where libel suits happen much more frequently,” he said.
Whether or not people are bothered by these possibilities may in part be a function of their age, as a new generation grows up with an implicit understanding of the rules around these networked devices and learns to live with them.
“I’d like to live in a perfect world where I own this content and can do whatever I want with it,” said Justin Gawronski, a high school student whose copy of “1984” was erased by Amazon, but who recently declined when a lawyer asked him to join a class-action lawsuit over the incident. Mr. Gawronski said, “This is probably going to happen again and we just have to learn to live with it.”"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/technology/companies/27amazon.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=e-books&st=cse
"A growing number of civil libertarians and customer advocates wants Amazon to fundamentally alter its method for selling Kindle books, lest it be forced to one day change or recall books, perhaps by a judge ruling in a defamation case — or by a government deciding a particular work is politically damaging or embarrassing.
“As long as Amazon maintains control of the device it will have this ability to remove books and that means they will be tempted to use it or they will be forced to it,” said Holmes Wilson, campaigns manager of the Free Software Foundation.
The foundation, based in Boston, is soliciting signatures from librarians, publishers and major authors and public intellectuals. This week it plans to present a petition to Amazon asking it to give up control over the books people load on their Kindles, and to reconsider its use of the software called digital rights management, or D.R.M. The software allows the company to maintain strict control over the copies of electronic books on its reader and also prevents other companies from selling material for the device.
Two years after Amazon first introduced the Kindle and lighted a fire under the e-books market, there is increasing awareness of how traditional libraries of paper and ink differ from those made of bits and bytes. The D.R.M. in Amazon’s Kindle books, backed up by license agreements with copyright holders, prevents customers from copying or reselling Kindle books — the legal right of “first sale” that is guaranteed to owners of regular books.
D.R.M. has created a new dynamic between consumers and the vendors of digital media like books and movies. People do not so much own, but rent this media. And the rental agreement can be breached by the manufacturer at any time, sometime with little or no notice.
People are also worried that the very architecture of network-connected devices like the Kindle, TiVo or iPod give tech companies unprecedented control over digital media and by extension, the free exchange of ideas.
Once upon a time, retailers sold customers a product and then walked away after the transaction. Today’s specialized devices often keep an umbilical cord to their vendor, loading updates and offering convenient ways to make purchases. These devices also limit the extent to which people can load independent software and customize their experiences.
Such tethered systems provide significant advantages to the consumer. Companies can keep their own records of what people buy and restore the content if it is inadvertently lost. Device software can be kept up to date, and vendors can track what people buy and make personalized recommendations for new material they might like.
Randal C. Picker, a law professor at the University of Chicago, says he thinks Amazon was right to delete the improperly sold versions of “1984” and argues such systems can also allow companies to better enforce copyright laws. He notes that the harm to the Orwell book buyers was minimal, since their money was refunded after copies were deleted from their Kindles.
“Because copyright infringement was poor and lax in the offline world, it should also be that way in the online world? I don’t understand that logic,” Mr. Picker said. “The whole point of moving online is that it creates new opportunities.”
But critics say that any device capable of interfering with how its owner uses media is potentially dangerous. “I worry that systems like these tethered appliances are gifts to regulators,” said Jonathan Zittrain, a professor at Harvard Law School and author of the book, “The Future of the Internet — and How to Stop It.” Mr. Zittrain predicts that governments in some parts of the world will want to use it “like a line item veto for content,” removing objectionable sentences or chapters in some books.
“It could happen first in jurisdictions like the United Kingdom, where there isn’t as rich a First Amendment tradition and where libel suits happen much more frequently,” he said.
Whether or not people are bothered by these possibilities may in part be a function of their age, as a new generation grows up with an implicit understanding of the rules around these networked devices and learns to live with them.
“I’d like to live in a perfect world where I own this content and can do whatever I want with it,” said Justin Gawronski, a high school student whose copy of “1984” was erased by Amazon, but who recently declined when a lawyer asked him to join a class-action lawsuit over the incident. Mr. Gawronski said, “This is probably going to happen again and we just have to learn to live with it.”"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/technology/companies/27amazon.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=e-books&st=cse
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Amazon Chief Says Erasing Orwell Books Was ‘Stupid’; New York Times Bits Blog, 7/23/09
Vindu Goel via New York Times Bits Blog; Amazon Chief Says Erasing Orwell Books Was ‘Stupid’:
"On Thursday, Amazon’s chief executive, Jeffrey P. Bezos, posted a statement on a customer forum, publicly apologizing for his company’s handling of the situation:
“This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of ‘1984′ and other novels on Kindle. Our ’solution’ to the problem was stupid, thoughtless and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.”
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/amazon-chief-says-erasing-orwell-books-was-stupid/?hp
"On Thursday, Amazon’s chief executive, Jeffrey P. Bezos, posted a statement on a customer forum, publicly apologizing for his company’s handling of the situation:
“This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of ‘1984′ and other novels on Kindle. Our ’solution’ to the problem was stupid, thoughtless and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.”
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/amazon-chief-says-erasing-orwell-books-was-stupid/?hp
Why did Big Brother remove paid-for content from Amazon's Kindles?; Guardian, 7/22/09
Bobbie Johnson via Guardian; Why did Big Brother remove paid-for content from Amazon's Kindles?: Kindle users were left seething when Amazon removed paid-for content from their devices, while the Popfly and GeoCities services are to close. How did we lose control of the digital products we use?:
""Amazon offered a product, which I legally purchased, and had in my possession until their electronic burglar stole it from me," said another affected user. "Amazon has no right to go into my Kindle's memory and delete something without my knowledge or permission."
Why were people so offended? Customers weren't really angry about the gadget, or the legality of the booksin question – they were furious with the sleight of hand Amazon performed by secretly removing them from their machines. They were aggrieved because they thought they had bought the books when in fact, it turned out, they were merely renting them.
"We have long been concerned that digital rights management is essentially tricking people," says Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the campaign group based in San Francisco. "It's creating a situation where people think they've purchased something – in the way you might purchase a pair of shoes, for example. But from the perspective of the seller, and often from the perspective of the law, it's quite a lot less."
Digital wrongs
No wonder Amazon customers were so annoyed: it's as if they walked into a bookshop to pick up a new best-seller, only to discover later that the shop was actually a library and they had to give it back.
In the past, arguments over these sorts of issues have focused heavily on the use of digital rights management (DRM), the copy protection software that makes it difficult to rip DVDs to your computer, for example, even for personal use.
But the Kindle debacle is more than just book-banning or copyright infringement. There is something even more pernicious going on: not only do these systems restrict your ability to do what you want with your media – they also change the basic DNA of the thing you're purchasing.
So what exactly are we buying into these days?
"If you think of a book as a piece of data, the idea that you own it but then it can be zapped or taken away at any time – I think that's extremely counter-intuitive," says Jonathan Zittrain, professor of internet law at Harvard Law School, who has been watching the situation closely. "Yet it's the way the architecture can work, unless we build in protections."
In his 2008 book The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, Zittrain warned that devices to store data and code are increasingly becoming information appliances that are controlled by the manufacturer, not the user – precisely the situation the Kindle has presented...
Ed Felten, professor of computer science at Princeton University, says the problem is a "lack of transparency".
"If customers had known this sort of thing were possible, they would have spoken up against it," he wrote on his blog, Freedom to Tinker."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jul/22/kindle-amazon-digital-rights
""Amazon offered a product, which I legally purchased, and had in my possession until their electronic burglar stole it from me," said another affected user. "Amazon has no right to go into my Kindle's memory and delete something without my knowledge or permission."
Why were people so offended? Customers weren't really angry about the gadget, or the legality of the booksin question – they were furious with the sleight of hand Amazon performed by secretly removing them from their machines. They were aggrieved because they thought they had bought the books when in fact, it turned out, they were merely renting them.
"We have long been concerned that digital rights management is essentially tricking people," says Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the campaign group based in San Francisco. "It's creating a situation where people think they've purchased something – in the way you might purchase a pair of shoes, for example. But from the perspective of the seller, and often from the perspective of the law, it's quite a lot less."
Digital wrongs
No wonder Amazon customers were so annoyed: it's as if they walked into a bookshop to pick up a new best-seller, only to discover later that the shop was actually a library and they had to give it back.
In the past, arguments over these sorts of issues have focused heavily on the use of digital rights management (DRM), the copy protection software that makes it difficult to rip DVDs to your computer, for example, even for personal use.
But the Kindle debacle is more than just book-banning or copyright infringement. There is something even more pernicious going on: not only do these systems restrict your ability to do what you want with your media – they also change the basic DNA of the thing you're purchasing.
So what exactly are we buying into these days?
"If you think of a book as a piece of data, the idea that you own it but then it can be zapped or taken away at any time – I think that's extremely counter-intuitive," says Jonathan Zittrain, professor of internet law at Harvard Law School, who has been watching the situation closely. "Yet it's the way the architecture can work, unless we build in protections."
In his 2008 book The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, Zittrain warned that devices to store data and code are increasingly becoming information appliances that are controlled by the manufacturer, not the user – precisely the situation the Kindle has presented...
Ed Felten, professor of computer science at Princeton University, says the problem is a "lack of transparency".
"If customers had known this sort of thing were possible, they would have spoken up against it," he wrote on his blog, Freedom to Tinker."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jul/22/kindle-amazon-digital-rights
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
'U' teams with Amazon to make 400,000 rare books available; Michigan Daily, 7/21/09
AP via Michigan Daily; 'U' teams with Amazon to make 400,000 rare books available:
"The University of Michigan said Tuesday it is teaming up with Amazon.com Inc. to offer reprints of 400,000 rare, out-of-print and out-of-copyright books from its library. Seattle-based Amazon's BookSurge unit will print the books on demand in soft cover editions at prices from $10 to $45...
The books in the Michigan-Amazon deal do not have copyright protection and are in the public domain, so no royalty payments go to the author or original publisher...
"Public and university libraries are seeing the benefits of print-on-demand as an economic and environmentally conscious way to support their missions of preserving and making rare or out-of-copyright material broadly available to the public," [BookSurge spokeswoman Amanda] Wilson said.
University of Michigan libraries Dean Paul Courant said the arrangement means "books unavailable for a century or more will be able to go back into print, one copy at a time.""
http://www.michigandaily.com/content/2009-07-20/u-teams-amazon-make-400000-rare-books-available
"The University of Michigan said Tuesday it is teaming up with Amazon.com Inc. to offer reprints of 400,000 rare, out-of-print and out-of-copyright books from its library. Seattle-based Amazon's BookSurge unit will print the books on demand in soft cover editions at prices from $10 to $45...
The books in the Michigan-Amazon deal do not have copyright protection and are in the public domain, so no royalty payments go to the author or original publisher...
"Public and university libraries are seeing the benefits of print-on-demand as an economic and environmentally conscious way to support their missions of preserving and making rare or out-of-copyright material broadly available to the public," [BookSurge spokeswoman Amanda] Wilson said.
University of Michigan libraries Dean Paul Courant said the arrangement means "books unavailable for a century or more will be able to go back into print, one copy at a time.""
http://www.michigandaily.com/content/2009-07-20/u-teams-amazon-make-400000-rare-books-available
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Amazon Kindle users surprised by 'Big Brother' move; Guardian, 7/17/09
Bobbie Johnson via Guardian; Amazon Kindle users surprised by 'Big Brother' move:
"It is not the first time that Amazon has removed titles that were produced in breach of copyright and sold illegally through its store. Examples include pirated copies of Twilight books by Stephanie Meyer, Harry Potter books and the works of novelist Ayn Rand.
Although the work of Orwell - who died in 1950 - has entered the public domain in some countries, it is not yet free of copyright restrictions in the United States or Europe.
Although Amazon is believed to be in negotiations with a number of European mobile manufacturers to support the Kindle, the device has only gone in sale in the US. This means that any copy produced for it would need to have been officially licensed by the Orwell Estate - which has been careful to protect its rights in the past."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jul/17/amazon-kindle-1984
"It is not the first time that Amazon has removed titles that were produced in breach of copyright and sold illegally through its store. Examples include pirated copies of Twilight books by Stephanie Meyer, Harry Potter books and the works of novelist Ayn Rand.
Although the work of Orwell - who died in 1950 - has entered the public domain in some countries, it is not yet free of copyright restrictions in the United States or Europe.
Although Amazon is believed to be in negotiations with a number of European mobile manufacturers to support the Kindle, the device has only gone in sale in the US. This means that any copy produced for it would need to have been officially licensed by the Orwell Estate - which has been careful to protect its rights in the past."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jul/17/amazon-kindle-1984
Why Amazon went Big Brother on some Kindle e-books; Ars Technica, 7/17/09
Ken Fisher via Ars Technica; Why Amazon went Big Brother on some Kindle e-books:
"As it turns out, the books in question were being sold by Amazon despite being unauthorized copies. The works weren't legit. It was all copywrong. In other words, Amazon was selling bad books. Hot letters. Pilfered paragraphs.
MobileReference, the publisher in question, formats and sells public domain books on Amazon. The only problem is that George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 are not yet in the public domain, at least not in the US. According to Amazon's statement to Ars Technica, "These books were added to our catalog using our self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books." When the publisher informed Amazon of this, Amazon moved to rectify the situation. The two books are no longer listed on MobleReference's website, either.
But does Amazon's Terms of Service even allow for this kind of “rectification”? Peter Kafka examined the ToS and believes that there is no backing for this move. The ToS makes it sound as if all sales are final:
Upon your payment of the applicable fees set by Amazon, Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Device or as authorized by Amazon as part of the Service and solely for your personal, non-commercial use. Digital Content will be deemed licensed to you by Amazon under this Agreement unless otherwise expressly provided by Amazon.
One possible loophole would be in the licensing: Amazon cannot license to you something for which it has no rights to license. Also, we suspect that some indemnification clauses in the third party contracts also put the publisher, not Amazon, on the hook for possible infringement problems."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/amazon-sold-pirated-books-raided-some-kindles.ars
"As it turns out, the books in question were being sold by Amazon despite being unauthorized copies. The works weren't legit. It was all copywrong. In other words, Amazon was selling bad books. Hot letters. Pilfered paragraphs.
MobileReference, the publisher in question, formats and sells public domain books on Amazon. The only problem is that George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 are not yet in the public domain, at least not in the US. According to Amazon's statement to Ars Technica, "These books were added to our catalog using our self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books." When the publisher informed Amazon of this, Amazon moved to rectify the situation. The two books are no longer listed on MobleReference's website, either.
But does Amazon's Terms of Service even allow for this kind of “rectification”? Peter Kafka examined the ToS and believes that there is no backing for this move. The ToS makes it sound as if all sales are final:
Upon your payment of the applicable fees set by Amazon, Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Device or as authorized by Amazon as part of the Service and solely for your personal, non-commercial use. Digital Content will be deemed licensed to you by Amazon under this Agreement unless otherwise expressly provided by Amazon.
One possible loophole would be in the licensing: Amazon cannot license to you something for which it has no rights to license. Also, we suspect that some indemnification clauses in the third party contracts also put the publisher, not Amazon, on the hook for possible infringement problems."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/amazon-sold-pirated-books-raided-some-kindles.ars
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle; New York Times, 7/17/09
Brad Stone via New York Times; Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle:
"Amazon’s published terms of service agreement for the Kindle does not appear to give the company the right to delete purchases after they have been made. It says Amazon grants customers the right to keep a “permanent copy of the applicable digital content.”
Retailers of physical goods cannot, of course, force their way into a customer’s home to take back a purchase, no matter how bootlegged it turns out to be. Yet Amazon appears to maintain a unique tether to the digital content it sells for the Kindle.
“It illustrates how few rights you have when you buy an e-book from Amazon,” said Bruce Schneier, chief security technology officer for British Telecom and an expert on computer security and commerce. “As a Kindle owner, I’m frustrated. I can’t lend people books and I can’t sell books that I’ve already read, and now it turns out that I can’t even count on still having my books tomorrow.”
Justin Gawronski, a 17-year-old from the Detroit area, was reading “1984” on his Kindle for a summer assignment and lost all his notes and annotations when the file vanished. “They didn’t just take a book back, they stole my work,” he said.
On the Internet, of course, there is no such thing as a memory hole. While the copyright on “1984” will not expire until 2044 in the United States, it has already expired in other countries, including Canada, Australia and Russia. Web sites in those countries offer digital copies of the book free to all comers."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html?_r=1
"Amazon’s published terms of service agreement for the Kindle does not appear to give the company the right to delete purchases after they have been made. It says Amazon grants customers the right to keep a “permanent copy of the applicable digital content.”
Retailers of physical goods cannot, of course, force their way into a customer’s home to take back a purchase, no matter how bootlegged it turns out to be. Yet Amazon appears to maintain a unique tether to the digital content it sells for the Kindle.
“It illustrates how few rights you have when you buy an e-book from Amazon,” said Bruce Schneier, chief security technology officer for British Telecom and an expert on computer security and commerce. “As a Kindle owner, I’m frustrated. I can’t lend people books and I can’t sell books that I’ve already read, and now it turns out that I can’t even count on still having my books tomorrow.”
Justin Gawronski, a 17-year-old from the Detroit area, was reading “1984” on his Kindle for a summer assignment and lost all his notes and annotations when the file vanished. “They didn’t just take a book back, they stole my work,” he said.
On the Internet, of course, there is no such thing as a memory hole. While the copyright on “1984” will not expire until 2044 in the United States, it has already expired in other countries, including Canada, Australia and Russia. Web sites in those countries offer digital copies of the book free to all comers."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html?_r=1
Some E-Books Are More Equal Than Others; New York Times, 7/17/09
Pogue's Posts via New York Times; Some E-Books Are More Equal Than Others:
"This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for—thought they owned.
But no, apparently the publisher changed its mind about offering an electronic edition, and apparently Amazon, whose business lives and dies by publisher happiness, caved. It electronically deleted all books by this author from people’s Kindles and credited their accounts for the price.
This is ugly for all kinds of reasons. Amazon says that this sort of thing is “rare,” but that it can happen at all is unsettling; we’ve been taught to believe that e-books are, you know, just like books, only better. Already, we’ve learned that they’re not really like books, in that once we’re finished reading them, we can’t resell or even donate them. But now we learn that all sales may not even be final.
As one of my readers noted, it’s like Barnes & Noble sneaking into our homes in the middle of the night, taking some books that we’ve been reading off our nightstands, and leaving us a check on the coffee table.
You want to know the best part? The juicy, plump, dripping irony?
The author who was the victim of this Big Brotherish plot was none other than George Orwell. And the books were “1984” and “Animal Farm.
Scary."
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/some-e-books-are-more-equal-than-others/
"This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for—thought they owned.
But no, apparently the publisher changed its mind about offering an electronic edition, and apparently Amazon, whose business lives and dies by publisher happiness, caved. It electronically deleted all books by this author from people’s Kindles and credited their accounts for the price.
This is ugly for all kinds of reasons. Amazon says that this sort of thing is “rare,” but that it can happen at all is unsettling; we’ve been taught to believe that e-books are, you know, just like books, only better. Already, we’ve learned that they’re not really like books, in that once we’re finished reading them, we can’t resell or even donate them. But now we learn that all sales may not even be final.
As one of my readers noted, it’s like Barnes & Noble sneaking into our homes in the middle of the night, taking some books that we’ve been reading off our nightstands, and leaving us a check on the coffee table.
You want to know the best part? The juicy, plump, dripping irony?
The author who was the victim of this Big Brotherish plot was none other than George Orwell. And the books were “1984” and “Animal Farm.
Scary."
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/some-e-books-are-more-equal-than-others/
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Authors throw the book at pirates; Sydney Morning Herald, 6/8/09
Sydney Morning Herald; Authors throw the book at pirates:
"FEEL like reading Australian author Colleen McCullough's Thorn Birds, but don't want to pay for a copy?
Then just hop onto a site like Wattpad.com and the book is available free as an electronic download. While this might be a bonus for readers, it is a disaster for authors, who get no royalties from the downloads.
Like the music industry, which has fought and partly won the battle over free music downloads from sites like Kazaa and Limewire, the publishing industry is about to face a similar struggle with piracy as electronic books become a reality.
The copies of McCullough's works were the most flagrant breaches of copyright the Herald found on sites set up to allow file sharing. But other Australian authors' work are also available.
David Malouf's 1985 work Five Stories from the Antipodes is available in Russian from Scribd. And for a month, John Birmingham's science fiction work Weapons of Choice, the first in the Axis of Time trilogy, was available from the Suvudu Free Library.
Birmingham's agent in the US, Russell Galen, at Scovil Chickak Galen, said he believed the free download had been authorised by the publisher as a marketing tool for his new novel Without Warning, recently released in hard cover.
But for many authors, the morphing of these sites from file sharing sites into fully digital bookshops/libraries is just one more issue they must confront in the rapidly evolving world of digital books...
Amazon's approach to the e-book market is very much "a walled garden" similar to the early days of the Apple iTunes store. Amazon controls books available for purchase from its electronic bookstore. It only publishes books for which publishers give permission, it sets the price and they can only be downloaded to a Kindle or on an iPhone using Kindle software.
Google has announced it would begin selling electronic versions of new books online later this year, in a direct challenge to Amazon.
Google sent shockwaves through the industry in 2005 when it announced plans to scan millions of books through its Google Book search service. This allows people to browse and search millions of texts in libraries around the world.
Google has limited full downloads to books out of copyright, and only snippets are available from copyrighted books, but it has led to a brawl over who has the right to digitise a book: the author? The traditional publisher? Or anyone?
After all, books are available in libraries. Why not in a digital library? On the other hand shouldn't the author have control over digital publication of his or her work, because once it is on the internet it can be copied at the click of a mouse? Last October Google reached a settlement with authors and publishers who filed a class action alleging copyright infringement over the Google Book project, in effect acknowledging that authors had copyright.
Under the settlement Google agreed to establish an independent "Book Rights Registry" which will provide revenue from sales and advertising to authors and publishers who agree to digitise their books. Publishers and authors are now in the process of opting in or out of the Google settlement.
The executive director of the Australian Society of Authors, Jeremy Fisher, said the Google settlement was an important acknowledgement that authors owned the copyright. But there is still seething resentment about the way Google has gone about digitising copyright material without permission.
Ms Capel, McCullough's agent, said she had not yet opted in on behalf of her clients because it is a bit like "paying a burglar to get your stuff back"...
The Australian Society of Authors provides advice for writers on how to seek redress if their works are digitised without authorisation. In the US there are take-down laws that can be activated and similarly in Australia, Mr Fisher said.
"Other countries though are more problematic. We have had success in having unauthorised works taken down, but it takes time."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/books/authors-throw-the-book-at-pirates/2009/06/07/1244313033953.html
"FEEL like reading Australian author Colleen McCullough's Thorn Birds, but don't want to pay for a copy?
Then just hop onto a site like Wattpad.com and the book is available free as an electronic download. While this might be a bonus for readers, it is a disaster for authors, who get no royalties from the downloads.
Like the music industry, which has fought and partly won the battle over free music downloads from sites like Kazaa and Limewire, the publishing industry is about to face a similar struggle with piracy as electronic books become a reality.
The copies of McCullough's works were the most flagrant breaches of copyright the Herald found on sites set up to allow file sharing. But other Australian authors' work are also available.
David Malouf's 1985 work Five Stories from the Antipodes is available in Russian from Scribd. And for a month, John Birmingham's science fiction work Weapons of Choice, the first in the Axis of Time trilogy, was available from the Suvudu Free Library.
Birmingham's agent in the US, Russell Galen, at Scovil Chickak Galen, said he believed the free download had been authorised by the publisher as a marketing tool for his new novel Without Warning, recently released in hard cover.
But for many authors, the morphing of these sites from file sharing sites into fully digital bookshops/libraries is just one more issue they must confront in the rapidly evolving world of digital books...
Amazon's approach to the e-book market is very much "a walled garden" similar to the early days of the Apple iTunes store. Amazon controls books available for purchase from its electronic bookstore. It only publishes books for which publishers give permission, it sets the price and they can only be downloaded to a Kindle or on an iPhone using Kindle software.
Google has announced it would begin selling electronic versions of new books online later this year, in a direct challenge to Amazon.
Google sent shockwaves through the industry in 2005 when it announced plans to scan millions of books through its Google Book search service. This allows people to browse and search millions of texts in libraries around the world.
Google has limited full downloads to books out of copyright, and only snippets are available from copyrighted books, but it has led to a brawl over who has the right to digitise a book: the author? The traditional publisher? Or anyone?
After all, books are available in libraries. Why not in a digital library? On the other hand shouldn't the author have control over digital publication of his or her work, because once it is on the internet it can be copied at the click of a mouse? Last October Google reached a settlement with authors and publishers who filed a class action alleging copyright infringement over the Google Book project, in effect acknowledging that authors had copyright.
Under the settlement Google agreed to establish an independent "Book Rights Registry" which will provide revenue from sales and advertising to authors and publishers who agree to digitise their books. Publishers and authors are now in the process of opting in or out of the Google settlement.
The executive director of the Australian Society of Authors, Jeremy Fisher, said the Google settlement was an important acknowledgement that authors owned the copyright. But there is still seething resentment about the way Google has gone about digitising copyright material without permission.
Ms Capel, McCullough's agent, said she had not yet opted in on behalf of her clients because it is a bit like "paying a burglar to get your stuff back"...
The Australian Society of Authors provides advice for writers on how to seek redress if their works are digitised without authorisation. In the US there are take-down laws that can be activated and similarly in Australia, Mr Fisher said.
"Other countries though are more problematic. We have had success in having unauthorised works taken down, but it takes time."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/books/authors-throw-the-book-at-pirates/2009/06/07/1244313033953.html
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Copyfraud: Poisoning the public domain; The Register, 6/26/09
Charles Eicher via The Register; Copyfraud: Poisoning the public domain: How web giants are stealing the future of knowledge:
"The public domain is the greatest resource in human history: eventually all knowledge will become part of it. Its riches serve all mankind, but it faces a new threat. Vast libraries of public domain works are being plundered by claims of "copyright". It's called copyfraud - and we'll discover how large corporations like Google, Yahoo, and Amazon have structured their businesses to assist it and profit from it."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/26/copyfraud/
"The public domain is the greatest resource in human history: eventually all knowledge will become part of it. Its riches serve all mankind, but it faces a new threat. Vast libraries of public domain works are being plundered by claims of "copyright". It's called copyfraud - and we'll discover how large corporations like Google, Yahoo, and Amazon have structured their businesses to assist it and profit from it."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/26/copyfraud/
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