From eBook Culture:The Hyperliterature Exchange (found via Tenebris): "Somehow, though, a novel on a computer screen seems much less readable than the same novel in book form. In order to challenge the supremacy of print, an e-text needs to offer something extra"...Continue reading this entry...The TeleRead take: Interbook linking--even from sentence to sentence--is among my own favorite extras. OpenReader would allow this capability....

If thousands of American ever die in another domestic attack by terrorists--I'll optimistically use the "if"--one of the culprits will be the Washington bureaucracy created to spare us further grief.Dimwits in D.C. have turned the Homeland Security Department loose on so-called intellectual property offenders. Doesn't "Security" have more pressing things to do? How wacky are the priorities of the Bush White House, or at least their people running "Security"! Even John Kerry, beneficiary of millions in political donations from the IP interests, probably wouldn't be this stupid. Whether or not the toystore infringed, is the department the one to...

Despite some tough challenges ahead, I'm rooting for the proposal to Wi-Fi up the entire city of Philadelphia by summer 2006. What a way to help spread around not only e-books, but also much else ranging from neighborhood forums to blogs and PODcasts--while helping small businesses go broadband!Within the e-book area, faster downloads will help, along with greater portability, but those advantages are just the start. Wi-Fi can be "on" all the time without hogging the phone lines, so people will be able to browse e-book collections more easily and better take advantage of future innovations such as exact...

I'm not against video games, but I do wonder about their effects on brain development, just as I would feel the same about TV. Not everyone agrees with me. Below is another perspective from my friend Billy Barron. Other opinions welcomed.Just read that blog entry. I've been playing video games since Pong and been an avid book reader at the same time. In fact, I think my love of reading came after my love of video games. They are not necessarily in conflict. Everything needs to be done in moderation.By the way, I'd rather my...

So how much attention is the e-book industry paying to video games--a major competitor for time and money--and just what will the games' effect be on the young? Here's an excerpt from Weaned on Video Games in today's New York Times:"We have been looking at data that shows that kids at an earlier and earlier age are starting to play video games," said Julia Fitzgerald, vice president for marketing at VTech Electronics North America. "We wanted to know how we could make this phenomenon work for Mom" - and make it educational.It is unclear whether video games teach preschool...

Digitized libraries are one of the best revenges against practitioners of genocide. They might even help discourage future Hitlers.If books and other forms of art can be preserved in digital form throughout the world, mass-murderers will not be able to wipe out the culture of a people. Books, paintings, statues, and other art can live on forever in redundant digital archives across the planet, from Melbourne to New York. Not that haters are rational; but perhaps a few would-be Hitlers will understand the limits of even the most complete Final Solution. So, in reading Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures...

Even without the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, the copyright on the book Gone With the Wind wouldn't have expired until 2011. The act extended the book's term for 20 more years--to 2031.That's the word from Terry Carroll, an intellectual property attorney who also teaches Copyright Law at Santa Clara University School of Law, and who, like me, opposes Bono.Contrary to a detail in my first GWTW post, he says, Bono itself is not the actual reason why Gone With the Wind isn't in the public domain today.Part of a nasty patternHowever, as Terry would certainly agree, Bono...

Why are Margaret Mitchell's heirs so eager to scare Project Gutenberg of Australia into taking down Gone With the Wind? Won't the new Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. lengthen copyright terms anyway?"Well, despite all the talk from the Australian government, the treaty is far from a totally done deal. Here is an Oct. 28 story, Disputes defer FTA deadline--a day "ahead," courtesy the time differences--from the Australian:AUSTRALIA will miss a critical deadline implementing its landmark free trade deal with the US, with the Trade Minister Mark Vaile yesterday conceding it was unlikely Australia and the US would exchange...

Project Gutenberg has many texts in its collection which are public domain in the U.S. but still under copyright in other countries. So what happens if people download or distribute them in the places where unauthorized e-versions are banned? If the U.S. legal system insists that foreigners with direct or indirect Gutenberg connections can get into trouble by violating our copyright laws, then what about the reverse? So if the greedy Margaret Mitchell heirs decide to sue and are successful in both the States and Australia, the precedent could be rather nasty. Let's hope that doesn't happen, however.Update: Thanks...

With PDA sales slumping, it's great to learn that eBooks.com has just signed "a five-year distribution agreement with Nokia Corporation of Finland to distribute a growing range of popular books via a new generation of Nokia smart phones."The deal means that users of Nokia mobile devices will be able to find, buy, download and read books directly from their handsets."Under the agreement, Ebooks Corporation will supply a range of book excerpts that will be installed on Nokia phones. The phones will also include key elements of the eBooks.com web site."...

A Librie List poster with the pseudonym of Scythic says he has just created a demo file for the format-and-DRM-hobbled Librie. Meaning? Perhaps you'll soon be able to use the Librie to download Gutenberg-type books and others of your choice--rather than limit yourself to Sony-blessed rent-a-book collections and other such fun. Some details:I have generated an LRF file from user content, and uploaded that to the files section.And, I've done one better, and uploaded the (Windows commandline) binary and source code as well. (For best results, you'll probably want to use 'textify' or similar on the PG files).Now, there...

"Static Control has won its appeal against Lexmark, allowing them once again to sell their printer-cartridge chips," says a poster to the Law & Policy of Computer Communiations list.That's great news for consumers since Lexmark was threatening the replacement cartridge-maker via the DMCA. This Hollywood-bought law, alas, is now a tool for monopolists in areas far beyond entertainment. More at LawGeek.Related: Lexmark ruling: Chock Full O' Nuggets, via Copyright, and Court Slaps Down Lexmark For DMCA Misuse in Tech Dirt....