Oct 12 2012
Friday News: Huge win for fair use; ComiXology to accept self published comics; New ebook app has security concerns
Image via Big Stock Photo
Author’s Guild v Hathi Trust: A Win for Copyright’s Public Interest Purpose – Nancy Sims has a really fantastic write up of the Hathi Trust Fair Use win from yesterday. Hathi Trust is a consortium of five majority universities who built a digital library of over 10 million books, over 76% that are still in copyright. This digital library was built, in part, by Google’s scanning efforts that are being sued separately. The Authors’ Guild and others sued Hathi Trust for copyright violation, bringing up many of the same claims that they use toward Google including security violations and fair use.
Yesterday, Judge Baer ruled in favor of the Hathi Trust, finding that as a matter of law, defendants’ actions were all considered fair use. Judge Baer is a federal judge with the Southern District of NY where the Google Book search is set. They are not exactly comparable as Google is a commercial entity and the Hathi Trust is a consortium of higher education and some of the pro Hathi Trust findings are based on a specific educational exception to the copyright law. HOWEVER, some of the findings are explicitly applicable to the Google Books case and suggests that the court (same jurisdiction) would find in favor of fair use for Google. Copyright Librarian
The 10 Best McDonald’s Meals You Won’t Find in the U.S. – By Sulome Anderson – I’m not sure what kind of site Foreign Policy is despite its serious name because I was directed to this piece via digg and noticed that one of its more popular posts was on the meme of the hot Syrian soldier. But I did enjoy the rundown of the deliciousness that is McDonald’s in other countries. An all vegetarian McDonalds? Why can’t we have those in the US? Foreign Policy
Excelsior! ComiXology begins accepting self-published comics (exclusive) – Genre fiction is enjoying a self publishing explosion and now comics are getting into the mix. Generally, so long as the submission is of “print-quality”, ComiXology says it will allow the self published items into the digital store to be sold next to the Marvel and DC Comics. ComiXology will take 50% off the net revenue.
Steinberger said the company has a small team of reviewers in place, each of whom are well versed in independent comics. The company plans on notifying creators about the status of their submissions soon after they’ve been reviewed. Eventually the company would like to provide some form of feedback for submissions that didn’t get approved for sale in the store, and what they might do differently in the future. I’m guessing this is closer to Apple’s App Store approval process and less like editorial oversight. VentureBeat
BookShout pulls users’ Kindle, Nook books onto other platforms – BookShout is like iTunes match except for books. iTunes match works like this. iTunes scans your music harddrive and places a copy of that song in the cloud so that you can access it at anytime. You pay a yearly $24.99 fee for this service. (http://www.apple.com/itunes/itunes-match/) BookShout uses your credentials from BN and Amazon, scans your account and then serves up their own copy of that book in their cloud which you access through the BookShout app. BookShout is working with mainstream publishers to provide this service. BookShout will also sell books directly. As one of the commenters noted, by handing BookShout your username and password to Amazon or B&N, BookShout also has access to your entire purchasing account, your credit card information, and your personal documents. For Amazon, that can include the music you purchased, the gifts you sent, as well as highlights and so forth. Essentially you are giving BookShout permission to rifle through your Amazon account. No thanks. paidContent
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos admits Kindles are sold at cost – Bezos told a BBC interviewer that the Kindle devices are sold at cost. CNET points out, in comparison, Apple “reportedly makes around a 40 percent margin on its WiFi-based iPad, which is priced higher than a similarly configured and less feature-rich Amazon Kindle.” Internet & Media – CNET News
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Oct 12, 2012 @ 07:10:31
That’s just crazy. The advantage is for ME to be able to “social read”? For real?
I can’t believe that after giving the account info, the blogger couldn’t even get any books via BookShout. What’s the point of the app except to take your user ID & password?
Oct 12, 2012 @ 10:56:06
Hey, McDonald’s…why don’t you run monthly “around-the-world” specials here? I seldom eat fast food but I’d stand in line to try that spicy paneer!
Oct 12, 2012 @ 15:32:39
@Lada: The spicy paneer is pretty good. It took McDonald’s years to enter the Indian market because it wasn’t willing to alter its recipes, and obviously it couldn’t use beef in hamburgers. Then, when it changed its worldwide approach, it came in with lambburgers instead of hamburgers and just went from there. There are a number of pretty good vegetarian options.
McDonald’s in India and in other developing countries is a destination place to eat, more like a treat (especially given the prices compared to local street food) than a fast-food experience.
Oct 12, 2012 @ 19:28:57
As someone in the foreign policy field, Foreign Policy magazine is a well-respected magazine, although it frequently accompanies its more analytic articles with fun puff pieces like the McDonald’s piece. As for McDonald’s, I wish they would incorporate their international practices in their American chain. The food is usually better prepared and healthier abroad because McDonald’s must meet other countries’ food preparation requirements and cultural restrictions. If they can make their food with fewer calories and more vegetables, why oh why don’t they? Cheap production is no longer a valid excuse considering they do it in other countries and still make a hefty profit.
Oct 13, 2012 @ 07:34:08
It’s funny: for all of the talk about how homogenizing McDonalds is, they’ve actually made a number of brilliant, local marketing moves. I agree- I’d love to see that ported to the US, and actually some of it has. McCafe was started in APAC- New Zealand?- and it’s been doing well here.
Foreign Affairs is my periodical of choice. Sadly, no articles like this.