Memo to Bill Gates: The best way to reduce piracy of Microsoft Reader files is to make the format friendlier to users. Here are comments by George Czajkowski on Usenet--via Pocket PC eBooks Watch: "Why use something so user unfriendly and unsuitable for mobile reading (Pocket PC, Palm, etc.) as Adobe e-book, when there is so much better, user friendly and secure system available in the form of Palm Reader?"Did you notice that nobody is bothering with cracking Palm Reader DRM system? Could it be because it is so much more user friendly (unlimited activations on unlimited number of...

"For Godoff's allies, the question of 'What Now' comes closely followed by 'Why'. Olson was remarkably up front about his reasons--finances, which many read as pressure from the Bertelsmann highers, who have their eyes on an IPO. As for why revenues weren't higher, many pointed to a decision made too recently to create a Little Random paperback division; it is Vintage, after all, that many feel makes Knopf untouchable." - Publishers Weekly, Jan. 16..The TeleRead take: An IPO? Jeeze. Yes, publishers can turn nice profits, and it wouldn't hurt to trim back some of the outlandish advances for the...

TeleRead for years has pushed for a distributed national digital library system managed day to day by many librarians in many locations--as opposed to a Washington or New York elite--even if certain administrative functions could be centralized and national resources could be used and adapted at the local level. Meanwhile, in certain other media and technological areas, the decentralizational movement is gaining strength. Check out David Weinberg's recent essay Why Open Spectrum Matters The End of the Broadcast Nation--the topic of a recent post from Dan Gillmor. In the essay, Weinberg lays out the three big lessons of the...

"Apparently, they spent less than half of the money that other schools spent on new computer labs, and got better hardware to boot." - SlashDot post about a private school in Maine, via Google Technology News.The TeleRead take: A great reason for schools to try to favor e-book formats that are not tied to specific operating systems! Earth to Microsoft: You were quick enough with that stock dividend despite earlier statements to the contrary. So when are you going to get into linux for e-books and other apps rather than just do the expected? You'd actually have been better...

Know how to write? Want do a p-book and invest virtually nothing--and avoid the vanity-press scams? A zillion books exist on the subject of self-publishing. Also read an SFgate piece about CafePress:Early this year, says SFgate, "the company's media-services division will offer print-on-demand books, audio CDs and DVDs. Using the same general principle, it'll produce, to order, your novel, album or film with glossy covers and jewel-box inserts, a move that has revolutionary possibilities. And though self-publishing already exists on the Web, CafePress has honed the production-and-fulfillment process to make it far more viable..."Such publications could be available through...

An abstract from an article by Donald King and Carol Hansen Montgomery in the December issue of D-Lib Magazine:An October 2002 D-Lib Magazine article by the authors described the changes in the Drexel University W.W. Hagerty Library's operational costs associated with the migration to a (mostly) all-electronic journal collection. The present article gives the use perspective to determine whether the migration to the electronic collection has had an effect on the number of journal readings, outcomes from reading and information-seeking and reading patterns. Key findings are that amount of reading remains high; outcomes from reading continue to be favorable,...

Just a reminder of the losers in the Eldred case. Not just schoolchildren, library-users and net-surfers--but also ISPs offering broadband. Not to mention network-hardware companies such as Cisco. Plus, PC vendors. The sooner works go into the public domain, the more free content will be online to entice people to sign up for broadband or upgrade their hardware. Strange, isn't it? The tech bust took place around the same time it became clear that the copyright interests would be winning in the short term. No, that wasn't the only reason for the bust--hardly. But the jihad didn't help....

Belatedly here are some New York Time links: Protecting Mickey Mouse at Art's Expense (Larry Lessig) and The Owners of Culture vs. the Free Agents (Edward Rothstein). Oh, and check out the neat cartoon that J.D. Lasica used from the Waxy.org site to accompany the links.The TeleRead take: I especially like Larry Lessig's proposal that copyright owners pay a small tax 50 years after publication--one way for their identities to be known to artists seeking to use the work in one form or another. Yes, Lessig's real goal will be to shorten copyright terms. But meanwhile, yes, we need...

From the Inquirer, via Pocket PC eBooks Watch:Hilary Rosen--Jack Valenti's RIAA female clone--has now gone on record saying that as part of the fight against music piracy, ISPs should be held accountable for the actions of their users and charged a fee for giving their customer's access to services such as Kazaa or Morpheus.The result of holding ISPs liable for the ways their customers use them would be catastrophic. Should ISPs be held accountable for the actions of pedophiles? How about members of racist groups? How about groups that are legal but we wish weren't, like the KKK, Aryan...

"Ann Godoff, one of the most influential publishers in the book industry, was forced out yesterday as president of the Random House Trade Group. Her division, home to authors like Salman Rushdie, E. L. Doctorow and William Styron, was merged with an imprint better known for mass market paperback editions of thrillers, romances and science fiction." - New York Times, Jan. 17.The TeleRead take: What's interesting is that Random House is owned by Bertelsmann, perhaps the classiest of the publishing conglomerates. Imagine what is happening elsewhere in the book-publishing industry. Time for a better business model?...

From an OCLC press release, via Library Stuff:The Taiwan eBooks Network (TEBNET) now has access to more than 11,000 eBook titles from netLibrary. It is the first netLibrary eBooks consortium in the Asia Pacific region.Twenty-one university libraries came together to form TEBNET under the leadership of Hsianghoo S. Ching, library director, Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan. Dr. Ching currently serves as chairperson for the National Committee of Distance Education Evaluation, nominated by the Minister of Education in Taiwan. ...

A PBS transcript lays out some of the issues to be discussed in Copyright in America. It's apparently complements or is from part of the NOW--with Bill Moyers show that will air tonight at 9 EST on many PBS stations.Not too much new here from Pat Schroeder, the child-welfare advocate turned publishing lobbyist--who at one time was on a rather vocal jihad against librarians over the fair use issue (and continues to distort the facts even if she is more polite about it). "Now, if suddenly you say when a library buys one digital copy they can then give...