Feb 22 2013
Friday News: Hachette’s Forever and Forever Imprint announces major expansion; Apple iWatch coming; Copyright dispute bans Germans from viewing German meteor video
Germans can’t see meteorite YouTube videos due to copyright dispute – Last week a meteorite fell in Russia. Apparently there are hundreds of citizens who have dash cams and many recorded some amazing video of the meteor’s fall into our atmosphere. In one video, the radio is playing and a German rights group is demanding money every time the video plays. Google has responded by just turning off the video for Germans. Oh Copyright. You are so crazy. Ars Technica
With Apple iWatch patent, slap bracelets have their biggest moment since the ’90s – Last year, Apple discontinued the square iPod Nano which many people were using as a watch. The reason was unknown at the time but soon after the launch of the new Nano (which looked like a slimmed down iPod), rumors started that Apple was developing its own watch, particularly after the excitement the Android Pebble has raised.
I think you can now mark that rumor confirmed as Apple has filed a patent for “bi-stable spring with flexible display.” The abstract says “A wearable accessory device is disclosed. The wearable accessory device includes a flexible display coupled to a bi-stable spring. Coupling the display to the bi-stable spring allows the accessory device to be easily worn in a number of convenient locations. “ Quartz
Grand Central Publishing announces major expansion of FOREVER imprint. Yesterday, Grand Central sent out a press release announcing that it would be expanding the number of titles Forever and Forever Yours (the digital first imprint) from 64 titles a year to 120 titles in 2013 and 190 titles in 2014. I’ve included the entire press release in the spoiler code so you can read it if you so desire.
This is a huge increase but I’ve heard that the major expansion will take place under the Forever Yours digital only arm. It may be that authors may be published with digital first arm and print to be determined at a later date based on the success of the digital.
No word on the pricing of the digital first books. Forever and Forever Yours plans to hire new staff to meet the increased output goals. The press release (in the spoiler banner) identifies several self published authors Forever has acquired which may signal the way forward.
UPDATED: I received an update on the upcoming publishing schedule for Forever/Forever Yours
- We’ve got 14 historicals in Forever (print) coming out in 2013 and 16 in 2014.The # in 2014 will be going up.
- In 2013 (July onward), we’re looking at roughly 4-6 print books a month, 7 Forever yours digital titles a month.
- In 2014, we’re looking at roughly 6 Forever print books a month, 10 Forever Yours digital titles a month.
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Feb 22, 2013 @ 04:29:49
Because if you want to listen to a song, you’d play a YouTube clip with that has a fraction of the song with bad sound quality, chatter, and a sonic boom.
I liked the sound. In many, you hear the people talking. “What is that?” “Are we being bombed?” etc. Perhaps the collection is edited, but it’s striking that you don’t hear a single swear or prayer. Since editing would require someone who wanted to censor, understood Russian and was listening, I kind of doubt they were edited. Imagine Americans or worse yet, Brits, seeing that meteor on the way to work in some grungy industrial wasteland.
Feb 22, 2013 @ 08:59:50
Only somewhat related, but The Daily Show had a hilarious segment about the meteorite and all the dash cams in Russia. http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-february-19-2013/how-i-meteored-your-motherland
Feb 22, 2013 @ 09:09:19
I’m surprised this is making waves now – German youtube viewers haven’t been able to watch Youtube music videos for years, since YT and the GEMA, which is THE music copyright organisation in Germany, haven’t agreed on fees. For example, Taylor Swift might release a music video of her newest song, only released in the US on youtube. Because the publisher who sell her CDs in Germany hasn’t released the video yet (it might be released a month or two later, or whenever the appropriate song arrives in our charts and is officially released in Germany) a viewer with a German IP address will see a black picture with a sad smiley that says roughly: Unfortunately the music content hasn’t been licensed by Gema in Germany.
By now I know that if I want to watch a new music video (or a video that has music licensed in Germany) I see if I can view it somewhere other than Youtube. Some other services aren’t as careful with their IP screening.
Feb 22, 2013 @ 11:10:17
@Brie: Oh my goodness! I haven’t laughed that much in a long time. Thanks for the link.
Feb 23, 2013 @ 11:50:31
Effing georestrictions strike again. Went to watch the Jon Stewart clip, it’s only available in the US. Went to the Canadian site. After a great deal of non-intuitive dicking around, FINALLY found the episode with the meteors, by which time my sense of humour was pretty much done for the morning.