We already knew that consumers were fed up with Spore's DRM, but it seems that one of them has now launched a class-action lawsuit over it. (A PDF of the complaint can be downloaded here.) The lawsuit alleges that Electronic Arts does not disclose that SecuROM will be installed along with Spore, and that SecuROM cannot be uninstalled by any means short of reformatting and reinstalling Windows. Ars Technica's Ben Kuchera is dubious about some of the claims made in the lawsuit. He notes that the complaint about uninstalling SecuROM is factually incorrect—there is an uninstaller available—and points...

Apple still hates Podcaster, the tiny startup that the suits say is an evil threat to iTunes. Steve Jobs and buddies---or are these "friends" actually saboteurs from within Apple?---continue to ban Podcaster from the App Store. Door slammed on Podcaster shoppers And now Apple has zapped Podcaster's ability to provision more iPhones and Touches. Read more via Techmeme roundups. Existing Podcast customers, including TeleBloggers who followed up on my enthusiastic review of the beta, can still download and install the program. You just had to sign up before September 23. But thanks...

Have you ever tried to cancel a Kindle subscription? I originally signed up for the AP U.S. News feed, as a couple of other Kindle owners told me it's worth the $1.99 per month. This was before the advent of Kindlefeeder, of course. Much of the "news" this feed sent me it sent me wasn't exactly news. So I figured I'd drop that subscription and switch to the Latest News from The New York Times, also $1.99 per month. Switching to the Times feed was a breeze, of course, but how do you stop...

Of the two companies jointly owned under the Fictionwise banner, eReader has had the less confusing discount program up to this point. With eReader, it was always a straight 10% off any book they sold, as long as you had the coupon code from the weekly newsletter. This was not as big a savings as Fictionwise's 15% discount club plus micropay rebates program, but on the other hand it was a lot less confusing. Fictionwise and Micropay Fictionwise's program combines markdowns from list price, "Micropay rebates" (in which part of the money you spend is credited to...

Native Rites, a mystery set in Kent, is another free novel by David Hewson. A a best-selling writer, he has also put online a freebie of "a non-fiction account of an environmental campaign I was involved in." Related: Lively 'Dead' mystery: Free download at Scribd. Technorati Tags: David Hewson...

Some 85,000 users of the iPhone and iPod Touch had downloaded Stanza as of August 12. Now, just five week or so later, the cumulative number has shot up to 300,000, consistent with the fast growth of eReader as well. Stanza at this point would appear to be drawing more users. Just a few minutes ago it was #32 on Apple's list of free iPhone apps for the U.S., one notch higher than this morning. eReader doesn't show up in the first 50, but certainly isn't hurting, with 300,000+ downloads of books from paying customers. ...

2M downloads of ePub books for the iPhone/Touch will have taken place at Feedbooks in the next two weeks or so---that's my guess based on info earlier this month from Hadrien Gardeur there. And on the commercial side, Steve Pendergrast, replying to my just-posted question, reports 300,000+ iPhone/Touch downloads in eReader. Remember, we're talking about paying customers, not just freebies (both biz models have their place---freebies if nothing else can pave the way for commercial books). Steve is co-owner of eReader.com and its parent company Fictionwise. His informative comments today: ...

You can download a freebie of A Season for the Dead, the first in David Hewson's series featuring his detective Nic Costa. Go to the Scribd site. Formats are PDF and TXT. Look, ma---no DRM! The freebie is to promote the seventh book in the series, Dante's Numbers, which Pan Macmillan is publishing. "Blood-stained bag" Teaser: "Its a scorching summer in Rome. Sara Farnese sits in the Vatican Library. The streets are deserted. A man walks towards her. He is familiar. He is carrying a blood-stained bag." Related: Blog items from Pan Mac...

Any problems getting the latest Adobe Digital Editions update going? If so, check out an illustrated guide from BooksOnBoard. BoB's Bob LiVolsi tells us: "BooksOnBoard users are encountering some challenges in installing the new ADE 1.6 version. Our support team and customers are not happy about this. So we’ve created an illustrated install guide to help users get through this upgrade. There are a few tricks that new users and the less tech savvy---or those without the time to de-code the latest ebook reading software - need to know." Related: BoB's Adobe Digital Edition's 1.6 eBook Install...

Ficbot and Chris Meadows aren't the only ones seeing promise in the iPhone/Touch for e-reading. Both the MediaBistro Galley Cat blog and TheBookSeller have just run items---here and here. Our buddies at The Cat are looking for people who read on the iPhone, and I very much hope you can help 'em out. My own answer to the related "How many?" question would be, "Very few within the book biz itself, but lots of potential here." Looking beyond the people in the book biz For the bigger picture, The Cat might check out...

  Found via BoingBoing, a New York Magazine article (single-page, multi-page) examines the various crises currently facing print book publishing. Said crises include the practice of paying out advances that are far too huge, the declining number of serious readers, clashes of personality, the huge amount of influence being wielded by megastores such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and so on—but there are some words spared for Amazon's Kindle as well. The article trots out the "iPod of e-books" expression that is rapidly becoming a cliché, and then gets to the heart of the matter: ...

A new iRex 1000 series computer with a big 10.2-inch screen survived a one-meter crash test at a press conference today. So reports Robert, a TeleBlog reader who says he witnessed the test. While Robert doesn't say if he works for iRex, his post sounds both factual and heartfelt. And it's great news---given importance of the screen breakage issue to consumers and business users like. I'd love to hear more details from iRex about the test and the exact methodology. Will the new iRexes even survive falls onto concrete floors? More from Robert: ...