Google’s victory in book-scanning case is a huge win for fair use – Huzzah! Google’s book scanning has been found to be both fair use and transformative in nature by the Second Circuit. The Author’s Guild’s protracted litigation against Google (nearly ten years now!) had numerous problems along the way, but ... more >
Is Android a monopoly? – There are rumblings that Google is being investigated for anti-trust violations via the Android operating system. With 59% of the US smartphone market controlled by Android, it may not seem like a monopoly on the face of it, but given the limited options for smartphone manufacturers ... more >
Oyster, a Netflix for Books, Is Shutting Down. But Most of Its Team Is Heading to Google. -Oyster announced yesterday that is going to be shutting down its subscription service “over the next several months.” News spread quickly that Google had purchased Oyster, although Google apparently does not want the ... more >
Supreme Court Overturns Conviction in Online Threats Case, Citing Intent – Although this opinion was released on Monday, I wanted the chance to skim the opinion before reporting on it, in part because the decision was being received as failing victims of online harassment. I disagree with that statement, at ... more >
Authors Guild warns authors over contributing online articles for free – So does each new president of the Author’s Guild undergo some kind of organizational mind-meld program? Because the main tune seems to be eerily similar from year to year (and president to president). Google is evil, Amazon is evil, ... more >
A Thousand Hands Will Grasp You with Warm Desire: On the Persistence of Physical Books – This is really a lovely essay on the virtues of printed books and on the issue of creativity more generally, and despite the eye rolling nature of assertions like ‘we learn better in print ... more >