Oct 28 2012
DMCA Exceptions for 2012 through 2015
Intro On October 26, 2012, the Register of the Federal Copyright Office issued the triennial exemptions to the DMCA law. (PDF here) Every three years, the Register of the Copyright opens a proceeding whereby it accepts public arguments as to why certain anti circumvention processes should be allowed. It’s a flawed system but the only(…)
Oct 21 2012
2012 Holiday Gift Guide
I did my holiday gift guide in November of last year, but I heard that many people start shopping in October. Sarah and I did our Holiday Book Buying Guide in the last podcast and thus I thought I would blog about the 2013 Holiday Gift Guide today. You have 64 days until Christmas. *throws(…)
Oct 7 2012
REVIEW: Kindle Paperwhite
I’ve been reading mostly on my iPhone and iPad having sold my Kindle 3G on Craigslist this past spring. I just wasn’t using it enough. But when the Kindle Paperwhite went on sale, I had to buy one. There are two versions of the Kindle Paperwhite – one with wifi and one with 3G. I(…)
Sep 23 2012
How independent booksellers failed to recognize the buying power of the mass market reader
Warning: The following contains generalizations. I realize that not all indie bookstores are the same and that some are very welcoming to romance readers. A week or so ago, an independent bookseller tweeted on a message that (and I am going to paraphrase a bit so it is a little harder to track down(…)
Sep 16 2012
Ebook prices are rising…and falling but the consumer’s in the driver’s seat
Within days of Judge Cote approving the settlement in the price fixing case, HarperCollins abandoned agency pricing and retailers started discounting. To Mike Shatzkin, industry consultant (here); Michael Cader, publisher of PublishersMarketplace (here, registration required); Rich Adin (here); and so on, the fall of agency pricing is leading to increased ebook prices. Given the hue(…)
Sep 9 2012
Ownership in a Digital Society, Part 2
Introduction About a day after I posted part one of this two part series, news broke that Bruce Willis was planning to sue Apple over the right to bequeath his extensive iTunes library to his daughters. The news turned out to be a hoax but for a short while it shined a light on a(…)
Sep 7 2012
Judge Cote’s rules in favor of settlement in DOJ’s price fixing case
Introduction As I posted yesterday, Judge Cote approved the settlement between the DOJ and Simon & Schuster; Hachette; and HarperCollins. The decision which can be read in its entirety here was rendered without delay because, as Judge Cote wrote on the last page of her decision “E-books consumers should not be forced to wait until(…)
Sep 7 2012
Amazon launches two new Fires and one new Kindle
The Kindle Fires include Kindle Fire HD in 8.9″ ($499/$299) and 7″ ($199) and a regular Kindle Fire in 7″ ($199). The new Kindle is called a Paperwhite. The tablets come with a new feature called “Kindle Free Time” that allows you to make profiles for members in your family, set daily screen limits, and give(…)
Sep 2 2012
Ownership in the Digital Age, Part 1
In federal district court in the Second Circuit, New York’s Southern District, Capital Records is suing ReDigi Inc. ReDigi’s business is the resale of legitimately purchased digital music. Capital Records argues that a digital file resale creates a secondary, unauthorized copy that violates intellectual property rights of the rights owner. ReDigi argues correctly that Capital(…)
Aug 12 2012
Authors Guild v. Google (Whether scanning and showing book text is fair use)
Introduction In 2004, Google undertook an ambitious project to scan and preserve every printed piece of material in the world. This eventually caused great consternation with copyright holders and led to The Authors Guild filing a lawsuit, among others, alleging that Google’s scanning and subsequent book text index was an impermissible infringement on copyright. The(…)
Aug 5 2012
Google Nexus 7 Review
A few weeks ago Google released their first entry into the increasingly crowded Android tablet arena, the Nexus 7. The 7-inch Nexus 7 competes with the likes of the Kindle Fire, Nook Tablet, Galaxy Tab 2 and others, as well as older spec’d devices like the Kobo Vox and Nook Color. Google’s Nexus line are(…)
Jul 24 2012
Tuesday News: Department of Justice Publishes Comments to Proposed Settlement and Responds
Introduction Yesterday, the Department of Justice released 868 comments made in support and in protest of the proposed settlement. You can find both the comments and the response here at the DOJ site. This is nothing compared to the number of 30,000+ comments that the Microsoft settlement with the DOJ generated. (A side note. The(…)
Jul 22 2012
Privacy and eReading Part 2: Amazon, BN, Kobo & Sony
The following is a summary of the data collected by Amazon, BN, Kobo, and Sony. According to the EFF charts compiled in 2010, the safest way to read is to download books to Adobe Digital Editions because ADE does not track your reading habits. Your purchasing data, however, is still compiled by the various(…)
Jul 15 2012
Privacy and eReading Part 1: Overview
Based on the Wall Street Journal article, I thought I would explore the extent of companies’ spying on digital readers. Data mining and predictive analysis has become an important component of marketing. In The Power off Habit Charles Duhigg shares the story of how Target built a data model that predicted when a woman was(…)
Jul 9 2012
REVIEW: The Hunter and the Hunted by Kelley Armstrong
Dear Ms. Armstrong, Bitten was one of the first urban fantasy novels I read from the current subgenre that sprung up during the last decade. I loved Elena, Clay, and the world you introduced. When you expanded the Otherworld setting beyond the werewolves, I had mixed feelings. I have a weak spot for the pack.(…)
Jul 8 2012
REVIEW: Asus Transformer TF300
In my new capacity as a freelance editor, I’ve discovered that I do three types of reading. One is just…reading like a reader. I prefer to do this in paper or on my phone. I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 phone, which replaced a second generation iPhone. I read on both phones, using Mantano for(…)
Jul 1 2012
Price Fixing Lawsuits Against Publishers Summarized with Timeline of Events
Intro: In April, the DOJ filed suit against five of the big 6 publishers alleging an illegal price fixing conspiracy with Apple that increased prices of digital books. Three publishers have agreed to a settlement which has yet to be approved by the court. Penguin, Macmillan and Apple are proceeding forth with the suit against(…)
Jul 1 2012
Using Belvedere to auto add purchases to Calibre
This is a follow on to Jane’s post on automating the adding of books to Calibre in Mac OS, but this time for Windows users. There is a neat little program called Belvedere from Lifehacker which is kind of a knock off of the Hazel program Jane mentioned for Mac’s. Belvedere is an automated file manager that(…)
Jun 24 2012
Using Automator with Calibre to Automate Tasks
I saw a post the other day about using Hazel + Calibre to automatically import your Kindle files into Calibre. While the user did this to automatically strip the DRM from the books, the tutorial is smart for any one who wants to create an ongoing catalog of their purchases. It was the first time(…)
Jun 17 2012
Agency pricing and MFNs are like peas and carrots or why the DOJ settlement won’t disallow discounting
Retail price maintenance v. Agency pricing The retail price maintenance (“RPM”) instituted by five of the big 6 publishers is commonly known as Agency Pricing. It is a pricing model wherein the producer of a widget, like the publisher of a book, gets to control the price. For nearly 100 years, RPM was considered per(…)
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