PDF is toxic to e-books. It makes them an ugly afterthought. Adobe created PDF not to help the e-book business but rather for other purposes such as reproduction of business documents.Tempted by the number of people with Adobe-loaded computers, some e-book publishers have succumbed to the idea of simply going with a popular format. In most cases, however, such as for recreational reading, PDF is pathetic compared to more modern, better-looking alternatives such as PDA-friendly Mobipocket.Below, edited, is part of a thoughtful post that NetWorker wrote for the eBook Community list. - David RothmanI remain convinced that the large...

Doubt there's a war against fair use? Let me reproduce the following from Ivan Hoffman, an entertainment lawyer whose posts appear regularly on Studio B's CBP list for computer book writers:Fair use is troubling to those who are uncomfortable with lack of certainty since fair use requires a case by case analysis. If you are seeking a bright line rule, then it should be to never rely on fair use since to do so is legally very uncertain and there is virtually no way to tell, in advance, whether any particular use is going to be upheld as a...

The eBook Community list has been buzzing with talk about the hassles of converting PDF files to run on machines such as the much-welcomed eBookwise-1150.I've joined the chorus, pointing this out as an example of the damage from the format wars--which actually may be winding down in time, given the brand names coming out quietly for OpenReader. An end of hostilities would be logical enough. After all, the OpenReader consumer standard will simply be built around an existing production one from the Open eBook Forum. The OpenReader Consortium is keen on realizing the excellent vision forsaken by the...

This is terrible. An underworked temp at the U.S. Department of Labor has been sneaking in Gutenberg-style classics on the job. From the Washington Post: So far, he has taught himself the Internet's HTML coding, started a blog and taken up several pen pals, including one who speaks Spanish. Why? Because our friend here is also teaching himself the language. But mostly, he likes to read. In the past few months, he has read "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith, Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" and Sun Tzu's "The Art of War."...

Stuck in a 1995 time warp, Project Gutenberg's site layout screamed disdain for modern Web aesthetics.Now, however, after just-made changes, the site is at least in the 21st century. You can even choose the appearance from one of six skins.Flaws still remain such as in the default color scheme and the choice and arrangement of home page links in various skins. Not all the options work in the aging and somewhat quirky Internet Explorer, just in more modern browsers such as Firefox.Overdue but welcomeEven so, this is a welcome and long overdue improvement. Furthermore, through the miracles of style...

In the United States, copyright exists mainly for the benefit of the public, while European countries fixate on authors' rights. In both cases, the law really doesn't benefit the public to the extent it should. From Branko Collin's blog in the Netherlands:The interesting thing about copyright law, is that it more or less presumes the interests of the author to be unchangeable. Not only that, but it tries to protect these interests as if they are at their strongest.Of course, the public loses out big time in this scenario. When an author has lost all interest in a work,...

"The overall effect of 'distributed navigation' brought upon by content aggregators is that we...

Isn't this a little bit of an oxymoron if considered in the future tense? Some 15 supposedly "independent bloggers" will be paid $800 a month and sales-lead-based commissions to mention Marqui's hosted communications management services. I want to find out more about this rent-a-blogger effort--and I don't mean for the purposes of selling out to Marqui.Advertising in blogs is fine. And I myself plead guilty to mentions of, say, Open Reader or, gasp, TeleRead--this is, after all, the TeleRead blog, and if you're going to preach in favor of well-stocked national digital libraries, you might as well contaminate...

Kudos to David Moynihan and his Blackmask site for making e-books--both for-sale titles and free public domain classics--available in the .imp format used by the eBookWise-1150 from Fictionwise. You can already buy a DVD with Blackmask's PD titles in the new format, not just download them.We 1150 owners--I have one on order myself--will enjoy other help. A new flavor of the GEB eBook Librarian will let us convert book from ASCII, HTML, Word and other popular formats. I'm all in favor of action in the here and now to address format concerns. Of course, the true solution remains OpenReader,...

For blog-hating librarians too worshipful of the "mainstream" media, I'd recommend the movie Shattered Glass or a study of the Jayson Blair affair. The problem isn't too much blogging for the good of society. It's too little.Alaskan Librarian slams bloggers as ignorant, a post in nbruce's blog in LISNews, is Exhibit A of the need for open-mindedness. Fairbanks librarian Greg Hill, alas, belongs to the "In editors we trust" school. In a newspaper column, Hill also takes a crack at the Wikipedia. Netfolks are firing back even though some wired librarians are surprisingly easy on the guy.Laughably, Hill questions...

"...the University of Phoenix, a for-profit system with a national presence, converted to electronic books several years ago, in part to reduce costs and therefore compete better for students." - Chapter and purse in Atlanta Journal-Constitution (reg. required).The TeleRead take: "Previously," the Consitution reports, "the university's students--mostly working adults--used standard college textbooks, according to Shane Clem, who directs the school's operations in Georgia. The cost ranged from about $70 to $200 per book, he said. The customized online textbooks and materials that students now use run about $60 per course for undergraduates." So when are these economies going to...

Oh, yes, video games and DVDs and other distractions abound and drain off money that might otherwise go for general trade books--both paper and electronic. Other factors also could help explain the disappointments in consumer book sales overall and the underperformance of e-books despite the growth there. Here's something else to consider. Could ordinary people simply have less to spend than before, after shelling out money for the essentials? Again, we're talking about a mix of factors. In e-books' case, Draconian DRM and the Tower of eBabel don't help. (Item on consumer spending found via Idiotprogrammer.)...