This morning, Slashdot had a link to a blog post pondering the ethics of downloading illicit ("pirated") e-books of out-of-print books that are not available as legitimate e-books. The post generated a large number of comments, both on the blog post itself and on the Slashdot discussion of it. [A]ccording to Russell Davis, former chair (and now president of the Science Fiction Writer's Association) of the SFWA's Copyright Committee, "electronic infringement is theft". From a legal perspective, I suppose that is true.   And given that as an Open Source programmer, I depend on Copyright Law to assure that...

Most readers of this blog are opposed to DRM. But publishers continue to be enamored of it, and continue to say that if you really are a legitimate customer, doing nothing wrong, you shouldn't even notice it, so why should you care? Well, publishers have it wrong. They clearly have no understanding of how the average customer's computer set-up, and life, works. My latest headache, from one of the gentler forms of DRM, is proof of this. eReader system explained The background: I do not support overly restrictive DRM formats, but I have in the past (and more...

Kindle sellers are aiming for "Buy It Now"  prices as high as $1,495 on eBay. The $1,494 is hardly typical, but it still reflects the demand, now that customers must wait weeks and weeks for new Kindles to arrive from Amazon itself. Related: Get a Refurbished Kindle---in Stock Now!, from Bees (Books) on The Knob. Alas, when I checked, the $329 refurbs were sold out, and used units began at $696. Related: Parts I and II of an e-book-gizmo buying guide from DearAuthor.com. The first part deals with dedicated machines like the Sony Readers, while the second discusses...

If you go by Google's search reports, interest in the ePub standard has rocketed in recent months. Switzerland, Belgium, Brazil, France and Russia and India are Regions 1-6, with the U.S. coming in at Number 7 and the U.K. at Number 8. Here's a glimpse into Google Trends' methodology. ePub usage is just a speck of, say, the popularity of Adobe PDF, but graph shows terrific potential. ePub could be on its way to becoming a true international, multilingual standard, and I hope that publishers industry will not shoot themselves in the foot by cluttering things up with silly...

The Android incarnation of FBReader, which can handle ePub among other formats, now has "more Androidish scrolling," according to Freshmeat, which is offering downloads. Also see the FBReader site for the latest on FBReaderJ, the Android version. "In future releases the list will be extended to support the same formats as the original FBReader. Direct reading from zip, tar and grip archives is supported." While cheering on FBReader, I'm also wondering when Stanza will make it to the Android phones. If I were Lexcycle, Stanza's developers, I would regard Android development as a at least a partial precaution...

Whatever you might think of Amazon, you certainly have to admit that it's are clever. For some time the company had an option called Amazon Upgrade which lets you read the p-books you have bought from them on line. If you pay the extra fee, which varies based on the book, you can: * Start reading the book online while you wait for your physical copy to arrive * Add highlights, bookmarks, notes, or tags to any page or section of text * Print pages, and even copy and paste text from the book * Read your book from any Internet-connected computer, meaning your...

If you don't want to wait weeks and weeks for a Kindle, the Sony Reader PRS-505 might be just the ticket. The PRS-505 lacks the Kindle's wireless features or the built-in backlight of the $400 PRS-700. But the screen is among the more legible, and even newcomers can get the hang of importing books from a desktop machine. Plus, it can read the IDPF's ePub standard and even encrypted PDF, among other formats. See an Amazon page for more details, including reader reviews. So how much to pay? Circuit City is advertising the readers for $259.95 by mail---some...

We most often think of e-books as digitized text coupled with a convenient reading medium. But there is a lot more to e-books than that if you use your imagination. Here's an excerpt of a story from the Australian paper The Age. Take a look at the full text here. In its current incarnation, Christoph Benda's first novel requires that you a) be able to read German and b) have an internet connection. Benda's work, Senghor on the Rocks, is a geo-referenced electronic novel in which the text is combined with an embedded map mash-up from Google Maps on...

The Oprah Effect works not just for p-books but also for e-book devices, at least if you go by the 11-13 week delays for Kindle shoppers. Say good-bye to next-day delivery. Will Amazon stop taking orders for the current Kindle and switch to the Kindle 2? ArsTechnica has the details; also see a Techmeme roundup. Ars Technica's main point is that e-books as a whole are enjoying a popularity surge, and that publishers such as Random House are responding. Close to home: At Thanksgiving dinner last night in Fairfax Station, VA, one of my nieces for the first time talked...

An often overlooked feature of most e-book displays is the ability to change the size of the font. Especially in recent years, I have noticed that the average font-size in p-books has been getting smaller and line-spacing has decreased, making the text harder to read for anyone without good eyesight. Years ago, I remember searching the Large Print section of our local library, trying to find intelligent reading-matter for an elderly relative who, although suffering from failing vision, had nothing whatever wrong with her mind. It was not easy. And of course, if even an ebook-display does not permit sufficient...

For e-books to take off, they need to be audio-CD-simple---without today's Tower of eBabel of clashing formats. So I was delighted that after writing Why supported formats don't matter to me (very much), MobileRead's Bob Russell stressed he was truly serious about the "me" qualification. Also check out RJH's arguments against eBabel and DRM. As tempting as it is for technical people to learn to tolerate the current format mess, the real future is in more visionary approaches without vendor lock-ins.  Toward the true public interest Such approaches will benefit everyone: readers, writers, publishers, software companies and...

Editor's note: Here is another posting from Richard Herley's blog. He poses an interesting question in this one. One I certainly had not thought about before. I have just received this email from a reader, which I reproduce with his permission: I have just read The Penal Colony and really enjoyed it. Usually when I read a book by a new author (to me) and enjoy it I go straight onto Amazon and purchase every single book by that author. But currently I am going through a little bit of a financial...