EFF's Fred von Lohmann suggests a system under which ISPs would charge consumers a flat monthly fee to be paid to the recording studios and musicians, based on a Nielsen-style ratings approach. TeleRead would allow more precise tracking of individual items than the von Lohmann plan--something to consider, given the low sales of individual books. Still, his proposal is far more clueful than the recording industry is, and it jibes well with the previous thoughts on this matter by Pamela Samuelson. "The reality," he writes, "is that file-sharing is almost certainly going to remain a fact of campus life....

"'When told...that last year...

"The Open eBook Forum (OeBF) is an association of hardware and software companies, publishers, authors, users, and related organizations, whose goal is to establish common specifications for electronic book systems that will benefit creators of content, makers of reading systems and, most importantly, consumers, helping to catalyze the adoption of electronic books and increase awareness and acceptance of the emerging electronic publishing industry. Over 85 companies and other organizations are currently members of the Open eBook Forum." - Open eBook Publication Structure Specification FAQ. The TeleRead take: "Most importantly, consumers"? (Italics inserted above.) So why no consumer format after...

Don't believe that the Open eBook Forum was a Microsoft creation in '98? Check out the Whois listing, which, even today, shows the administrative address for openebook.org as "1 Microsoft Way, Redmond, Washington." Time for a little update? Meanwhile, the Inquirer says Elsevier, the publishing giant, may choose the Mobipocket .prc format over .lit from Microsoft. Poetic justice. Could one reason be that .lit won't run on Palms? Live by the proprietary sword, die by it. Microsoft, Adobe and the other OeBF members should stop the games and give us a universal consumer format, pronto. Hey, OeBF, your follies...

A standard Open eBook format for consumers would help popularize e-books and thus multiply the number of titles available for blind people to enjoy with speech synthesizers and digitally based Braille readers. More on this issue in a future post. Right now I can't resist telling the story of my blind friend David Faucheux, a TeleRead supporter whom I've known for more than six years. David holds a Masters in Library and Information Science from Louisiana State University and has a distinguished academic record, an infatuation with books and a true gift for writing. But guess what. No one...

No standard e-book format for consumers after nearly five years. VHS-vs.-Beta times ten. That's the Open eBook Forum for you. OeBF delays have cost publishers many millions of dollar in sales to readers put off by the format wars. Everyone has suffered, from Random House to self-publishers.TeleRead's Web log will continue its analysis of the OeBF debacle and also suggest some solutions, in no particular order. The OeBF has attracted some very bright and well-meaning people even if they come with clashing interests. How to get humans and formats in harmony or at least reduce the conflicts?The good news...

"The National Geographic Society plans to appeal a jury verdict in a landmark case pitting the magazine publisher against a freelance photographer who claimed his work was improperly included in a CD-ROM. In late March, a jury in Miami ruled that National Geographic failed to properly compensate the photographer, Jerry Greenberg, for photos of his included on a CD-ROM that contained every issue of the magazine published in its 108-year history. The dispute centered on the question of whether archiving work on microfilm and microfiche is different from releasing it on CD-ROM. In appealing the case, the magazine wants...

Cory Doctorow has a piece in Business 2.0 on the risk of the Bells crushing "open wireless" and competition from independents--the very kind of uppity stuff that could help rescue broadband. He's hoping that free-access experiments can survive and thwart the gougers. So how do e-books fit in with Wi-Fi? Cory's piece doesn't explore that angle, but cheap or free "always-on" broadband could be a great way to spread around e-books in certain low-income neighbors. Not to mention the obvious: the middle class at home, parks or Starbucks. Downloading speed is just one issue. If a connection is always...

TeleRead has been gung ho on the glories of stable links in a well-stocked nationa digital system. You'd think that ALA, too, would be like-minded. And maybe they will be in the context of library policy. Meanwhile, however, as reported by Ex Libris, ALA has infuriated wired librarians by come up with a new Web site that renders thousands of existing links inoperative. Time for ALA to set a better example for publishers?...

Fictionwise, one of the smarter e-book sellers on the Net, has announced the availability of a book called All the Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning's Napster. Needless to say, due to the requirements of the usual suspects, Fictionwise must offer the title only in "secure Microsoft Reader or secure Mobipocket format."The TeleRead take: In one of our forthcoming articles on the Open eBook Forum--the laundry list of suggestions for OeBF--we'll have more to say on the question of e-book security. Turns out that the smaller publishers have been much more sensible on this issue than the...

"I found a great piece about an MIT student and his XBox hacking over at news.com. Apparently he can't get his how-to book published do to fears with DMCA. I hope he at least can get it publish in China or Russia where people have some freedoms left. ;)." - Via SlashDot, April 16.The TeleRead take: Time for a little consistency? Hollywood moguls love to invoke the First Amendment to defend violent, sex-filled movies--but not when it comes to freedom to program and discuss security measures. What's especially infuriating is that a publisher's fear of the DMCA cost the...

Like Word, like Windows, the Open eBook Forum started out as a Microsoft product. In ...