Tuesday News: Will smartphones become the dominant ebook reader?; Nook App launches into 32 countries with limited content; Beastie Boys in a copyright dispute
Publishing Newsbirth control / copyright infringement / Fair Use / Nook / Smartphone15 Comments
Are big smartphones the future of e-books? – Nokia makes the argument that more people will be reading on larger smartphones (or phablets apparently as some people call them). Previous studies show that readers between the ages of 18 and 24 are using their smartphones as readers more than other devices. There are rumors that Apple is developing a larger smartphone to compete with the Samsung Galaxy Note and the larger Windows 8 devices like the Nokia sells. Nokia Conversations
B&N Launches New Nook Windows 8 App – Now Available in 32 Countries – If you have Windows 8, you can now buy books via a Barnes & Noble Nook App. Don’t get excited about the content though. Nate gives the rundown:
Of course, just because the Nook Store is available in a country doesn’t mean that the selection is any good. The newly expanded Nook Store still only offers a limited selection in some languages; for example there are fewer than 600 titles in Polish, and another 600 in Finnish. And while there are around 40 thousand titles in German, the Italian language catalog is limited to only 19,000 titles. The Digital Reader
Beastie Boys Fight Online Video Parody of ‘Girls’ – A reader sent this to me and asked what I thought. Based on the Campbell v. Aucff Rose case, I think Goldie Box has a good case for parody. It has filed a petition for declaratory action asking the court to find Goldie Box’s use falls under fair use. The original lyrics are very misgoynistic Girls to do the dishes Girls to clean up my room Girls to do the laundry Girls and in the bathroom.
Goldie Box’s lyrics are all about girls being scientists and engineers and inventors, not servants of boys. Per the US Supreme Court case of Campbell v. Auciff Rose, the commercial speech aspect is only one factor. The Goldie Box rendition is not likely to reduce the market for the original song. Whether a new work of art was created sufficiently different that the original is likely going to be key. NYTimes.com
New Warning: Morning-After Pill Doesn’t Work for Women Over 176 Pounds | This is incredibly disturbing but apparently the Plan B pill does not work for women who weigh over 176 pounds and loses it effectiveness for women who weigh more than 165 pounds. Mother Jones
Thanks for pointing out Campbell v. Aucff Rose. I was leaning the other way before I read it.
And no- I will not utter “phablet”.
Off to tell everyone about the Morning After Pill- awful.
I got a smartphone recently (I was resistant for a while but it didn’t cost anything to upgrade and I didn’t buy a data plan; why bother? I can use my home router to log on when I’m at home and if I’m out, everywhere has wifi) and I’m delighted with the book reading capabilities. I was in line to renew my license plates and for the hell of it used the wifi of the pub next door, logged onto my Dropbox, and downloaded a book. I didn’t need to, but it was fun :-)
If I’m at home, I read a paper book or my Kobo, but if I go out, I leave my Kobo at home now and read on my phone.
I have a Windows Phone, and I find it ridiculous that there isn’t a Nook app. (I have a Windows 7 phone, not an 8, so still no app for me.) It drives me crazy, especially considering that Microsoft invested a bunch of money in Nook. I have a NST, but I also like to read on my phone, and the lack of an app has been the single most important reason that half of my purchases now come from Amazon instead of B&N. I don’t understand why B&N would give up that market share.
I’m actually thinking of just switching to an Android phone – I didn’t think the lack of apps for Windows would bother me, but it totally does. The Google Nexus 5 is a really good deal when you get it from the Play Store.
The Beastie Boys’ response to Goldie Box’s declaratory action is hilarious!
I can’t read on my phone, it’s not comfortable. My Kindle is fine for on the go, but I still prefer to read print books.
@JJPP:
I use a generic reader on my Windows 8 phone (Fiction Book Reader) and load directly from Dropbox (free). The app was free if you just added three books (ha!) and only $1.99 for unlimited. Do you use Calibre? That could convert your books to epubs (I have Calibre set up to automatically copy any books added to Dropbox as a way to be sure I never lose them too), then you could read them with any app. I’m not very clued in on this so if that’s not possible for you, ignore me :-)
I have a smartphone, nothing fancy, and I have used it to read an ebook in PDF format. I didn’t read the entire book in it, only a few pages while I was bored. For me it’s a good solution for when I find myself bored, in a waiting line or commuting, and forgot to bring a paperback with me. But after 15 minutes of reading on your smartphone it becomes tiresome.
I don’t think smartphones can replace e-Readers, no matter how big their screen is. To read books without getting eyestrain you really need that e-Ink display, while in a smartphone you want everything to be colorful and well-lit.
But I’m a minority, really. I like to keep things separate. A good camera to take pictures, an iPod to hear music, a cellphone to make calls, etc…
Of course it’s nice to have a smartphone that can do a lot of things, since I don’t carry every single thing in my bag everyday, but then things lose their charm…
I am certainly rooting for Goldie Box, both because the video is awesome and because fan fiction involves some of the same issues.
It made me glum that my local radio news this morning kept referring to women over 165 pounds as being “obese,” with also a mention of 176 pounds as being obese. No mention of height, weight distribution, BMI, etc.–which is not relevant to the story at hand, I suppose…
@Charming Euphemism: Isn’t the difference with fan fiction that the creator is giving away their homage for free? Isn’t that one of the tenets of fan fiction? In this case, Goldie Box have created an ad for their products using Beastie Boys creative material. Ie it’s not a parody they created for some political point, but to sell stuff. As cool as the song and visuals are, if the creator of the work doesn’t want to licence their music for commercial use, they should have control of that, IMO. It feels like a slippery slope otherwise.
@Aly: I’m the same way, I get eye strain even with settings as gentle as I can make them, and really enjoy uni-task devices (I still have an old Ipod that can’t connect to the internet). I think smartphones and tablets are awesome, but I barely use my phone and it’s awfully expensive here even with absolute minimum plans.
I hate how the Goldieblox case is being spun (lol these stupid women pre-emptively sued the Beastie Boys aren’t they terrible and stupid?), and am very interested to see how it turns out. I Kickstarted them a while back and have been just thrilled for all of their successes (landing deals with major toy stores) and their commercial has been all over my Facebook with relatives and friends getting excited and wanting engineering toys for their kids. It did so much good and inspired so many people — I am glad they’re not backing down on this.
Someone complained that the toys weren’t very good because their daughter didn’t like the one they got, but in the same sentence said Rainbow Loom is amazing and will be better forever, and there is no way that is lasting beyond the usual Silly Bandz/Bones/Pogs/Tickle Me Elmo/Furbies/etc fad. I never figured out how to use Lincoln Logs as a little kid, but that doesn’t mean they were a bad toy.
Let me say first off that I support what GoldieBlox doing in the toy market. However, I think they are wrong in this case. My husband is a musician, so although I don’t have a legal background, I like to follow cases like these. There is a difference between a song parody like those made by Weird Al Yankovic, which may or may not become a hit, and the parody by GoldieBlox which was made to sell toys. Also, Weird Al actually goes out and gets permission from the artists he is parodying. A phone call from GoldieBlox might have gone a long way to avoid this situation.
I’m with all the other eyestrain folks. I have 2 tablets (Fire & iPad), a smartphone (Galaxy sIII) and Kindle Keyboard. Reading anything longform happens on the kindle – I even send long news articles there. It’s just so much easier on my eyes. It’s a glorious multitasker.
@Jane Davitt: I’m always impressed by all this talk of Dropbox and Calibre plug-ins! (I always think, “Seriously? Everyone does all of this? So complicated!”) I tried to add a plug-in one time, and it didn’t work for me for some reason. I think of myself as pretty clued-in tech-wise, but apparently not. :-p I guess I just need to try again, because your method sounds great!
@JJPP:
I love Calibre to bits and donate to it now and then to make sure it doesn’t go away. I buy books from Amazon and it makes them into epubs so that I can read them on my Kobo; I buy books from Kobo and add them through Calibre rather than their interface so that I have one single listing of all my ebooks and I add my library books that way too. I honestly can’t remember how I configured it to automatically update Dropbox but I don’t think it can be difficult if I did it :-) Let me see if I can find some links.
This link is how I got Calibre to convert Kindle to Kobo:
http://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/ebooks-formats-drm-and-you-%E2%80%94-a-guide-for-the-perplexed/
and this syncs Calibre and Dropbox
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/combine-dropbox-calibre-universal-access-ebooks/
@Jane Davitt: thanks for the links!!