TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics » Chris Meadows

Congress to Consider DMCA Anti-Circumvention Reform…But Probably Not Very Hard

Chris Meadows — Fri, 10 May 2013 02:40:22 +0000

Well, it’s that time of decade again. Someone in Congress has finally—or, rather, once again—taken note of how the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions step all over consumer rights and introduced legislation to try to balance the scales. Ars Technica reports that three Democrats and a Republican, including California rep Zoe Lofgren, have introduced the Unlocking Technology [...]

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Digital manga site JManga to shut down, take all customers’ purchases with it

Chris Meadows — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 01:15:00 +0000

DRM opponents should be sending love letters to the Japanese Digital Comics Association. As of March 26th, its “streaming manga” website JManga (which I covered here before) will stop selling new manga—and as of the end of May, manga already purchased will become unavailable to view. And there is no way to download and back [...]

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Supreme Court rules importation of textbooks legal under First Sale doctrine

Chris Meadows — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 23:35:24 +0000

Remember the Supreme Court case about the Thai exchange student who bulk imported cheap overseas copies of textbooks and resold them in the U.S. (making over $1 million in sales) to finance his doctorate? The judges handed down a decision today. By a six to three majority, they found that the student’s importation and resale [...]

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Google to close down Google Reader as of July 1

Chris Meadows — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 02:19:51 +0000

There is a risk to relying on cloud services, as I’ve found to my chagrin time and again: they may not always be there when you need them. Etherpad servers have crashed, taking the only copy of my writing with them. Web-based IM service Meebo shut down, leaving me scrambling to find a replacement. And [...]

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Amazon patents scheduled recurring deliveries

Chris Meadows — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 22:02:00 +0000

A few days ago I brought up a patent Amazon got on reselling “used” digital content. It turns out that’s not the only odd patent Amazon’s gotten lately. Dan brought to my attention U.S. patent number 8,370,271, which Amazon just received on “recurring delivery of products.” Essentially, Amazon just received a patent on the ability [...]

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Games Workshop, self-publishing author battle over ‘space marines’

Chris Meadows — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 18:19:43 +0000

Self-publishing has a lot of advantages and just as many countervailing drawbacks. The biggest advantage is, of course, you get to be your own boss and can publish whatever you want to, without some publisher taking a cut of the money. But the dark side of this freedom is that it can leave you vulnerable [...]

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Amazon scores broad patent on reselling ‘used’ digital content

Chris Meadows — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 01:32:10 +0000

I’ve written quite a few pieces here about the various attempts to try to create a workable digital resale market—most recently with digital music resale firm ReDigi, which is currently engaged in a legal dispute with music label EMI over its activities. Now it looks as if, as with a lot of its digital media [...]

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Baen soon coming to iBooks, finally posts announcements of changes to web site

Chris Meadows — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 01:13:53 +0000

A month and a half since Baen made the jump to Amazon availability, the publisher is about to add another feather to its cap. On her forum on the Baen Bar, publisher Toni Weisskopf has mentioned that Baen e-books will soon be available DRM-free in Apple’s iBooks store. A formal announcement will be made when [...]

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Wizards of the Coast starts selling D&D PDFs again

Chris Meadows — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 08:31:01 +0000

Remember how, back in 2009, Wizards of the Coast pulled all its PDF products from on-line gaming store Paizo and announced it was ceasing PDF sales altogether? Apparently it only took about four years for the company to change its mind again. Wired’s GeekDad reports that WotC has launched a new e-book store site, dndclassics.com, [...]

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Aaron Swartz suicide represents gross miscarriage of justice

Chris Meadows — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 01:33:49 +0000

On Friday, Aaron Swartz was found dead in his apartment; he’d apparently hanged himself. Swartz was only 26, a brilliant and troubled young man who suffered from clinical depression, and also an Internet activist who spoke out and acted out in favor of making access to public information more free to everyone. He was a [...]

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Baen/Amazon deal takes effect December 15

Chris Meadows — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 04:31:28 +0000

Since I originally posted about Baen’s deal with Amazon, a couple more details of about the deal have come to light. First of all, the deadline for buying any of the old Baen bundles is Saturday, December 15th. That’s when the deal with Amazon goes live, and the old $10, $15, and $18 monthly bundles [...]

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Baen inks deal with Amazon, makes major changes to Webscriptions and Free Library

Chris Meadows — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 04:22:58 +0000

Toni Weisskopf has posted a series of messages to the Baen Bar indicating major changes in the offing for the Baen Ebooks (nee Webscriptions) store. Baen is finally on the verge of getting its titles placed directly into Amazon (and is negotiating with others such as Barnes & Noble, etc.) The problem is, that comes [...]

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Happy Thanksgiving 2012

Chris Meadows — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 00:48:36 +0000

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone (in the US, anyway—those impatient Canadians celebrated it weeks ago)! Hopefully you are replete with turkey (or ham, whichever you prefer) and spending the day with your families…in which case you probably won’t see this until at least Black Friday. But hey, we can be thankful any time of year. I have [...]

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A tablet buyer thinking guide

Chris Meadows — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 02:34:26 +0000

Everybody’s coming out with tablet gift buyers’ guides this time of year (including us in not too long). I thought it might be a good idea to come out with more of a thinking guide, something to suggest ideas for you to consider while you read those guides—a “buyers’ guide guide” if you will. These [...]

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Republican paper on copyright reform lasts less than 24 hours, but there may still be hope

Chris Meadows — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 01:17:52 +0000

Given the state of Republican rhetoric in recent years, I was very surprised to find them endorsing a cause I can actually wholeheartedly support—but they did so this past weekend, for less than 24 hours before they hastily retracted it. I refer to a paper issued by the Republican Study Committee, the caucus for House [...]

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