I guess I'd forgotten. Now that all the the publishing players have settled, abandoning agency pricing and returning to the wholesale slums, the DOJ/e-book antitrust case, which popped up again in everyone's news feeds this week, feels a little anticlimactic. The DOJ, perhaps simply because it's what it found, or perhaps because there's no one left to pick on, is framing the last defendant standing, Apple, as the "ringmaster" in the price-fixing suit, according the New York Times. With the case set to go to trial June 3 in New York (and what a fine note on which to end BEA), I find myself wondering: At...

By Stephen Silver Ever reach into your pocket at the end of a long flight to turn on your phone, only to realize it was on all along? You’re not alone. A study released Thursday found that 30 percent of U.S. airplane passengers have accidentally left a personal electronic device turned on while on a plane. According to the “Portable Electronic Devices on Aircraft” study, jointly conducted by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX),  69 percent of respondents say they have used an electronic device in-flight. The study comes as the federal government is considering relaxing restrictions on in-flight...

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 Act of 2013. This act would rewrite the anti-circumvention provision to make DRM-breaking illegal only if it’s done in order to “facilitate the infringement of a copyright.” Non-infringing uses, such as ripping DVDs, unlocking cell phones, and so on, would presumably be allowed....

Using an iPhone in Ireland to connect to the Internet? Get your passport out. The legislature of Ireland, the Oireachtas Éireann, is exploring the topic of Internet safety and cyberbullying, and the possible need for legislation and regulation of online comments. It’s going about as well as you might imagine, with one senator, Eamonn Coghlan, suggesting that people should pay to post online. Coghlan has also suggested that Internet users use a passport to register their IP address. According to this story in The Irish Examiner, Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte went on to suggest at the same meeting that American companies, such as Facebook and...

The White House is supporting the consumers' right to unlock their cellphones once they have fulfilled the terms of their contract. In response to a petition on WhiteHouse.gov, the executive branch has stated that “The White House agrees with the 114,000+ of you who believe that consumers should be able to unlock their cell phones without risking criminal or other penalties. In fact, we believe the same principle should also apply to tablets, which are increasingly similar to smart phones. And if you have paid for your mobile device, and aren’t bound by a service agreement or other obligation, you should be...

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 to ship a new order of a particular good every so often to a customer without being asked. Or, as one pundit put it, Amazon has just “patented the milkman.” Amazon has already been offering this service for some time now. If you order some sort...

A truly historical literary event took place last weekend in Southeast Asia that doesn't seem to have enjoyed quite as much attention from the Western media as it probably should have, and so we figured we'd briefly mention it here: During the first three days of February, Myanmar—the country still known to much of the world as Burma—held it's first-ever literary festival, the Irrawaddy Literary Festival. The Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released in November 2010 after serving 15 of the past 21 years under house arrest as a political prisoner, was the event's guest of honor, and arguably its main draw. According to an...

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 friend of both Lawrence Lessig and Cory Doctorow. Swartz’s other accomplishments include RECAP, a tool that uploaded public-domain legal documents retrieved from the subscription-based PACER document record system into a duplicate free-access database. He was also reportedly involved in the early stages of...

  In 1987, the Federal Bureau of Investigation approached Columbia University librarian Paula Kaufman  with a request: keep an eye out for commies. She refused to cooperate with the bureau's "library awareness" program and her defiance helped spark a nationwide backlash against government snooping into Americans' reading habits. Even knowing the government might be watching, people realized, could change what you choose to read—and in turn alter what you think ... Read Full Article ...  Source: Mother Jones * * *      ...

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 Republicans, stating that current US copyright law is stifling creativity instead of encouraging it, and is in dire need of drastic reforms. (The paper is embedded below this article.) The paper pointed out that copyright is all about encouraging the progress of the useful...

European Union regulators are to end an antitrust probe into e-book prices by accepting an offer by Apple and four publishers to ease price restrictions on Amazon, two sources said on Tuesday. That decision would hand online retailer Amazon a victory in its attempt to sell e-books cheaper than rivals in the fast-growing market publishers hope will boost revenue and increase customer numbers. Read Full Article ... Source: Reuters Follow us @TeleRead  Join us on Facebook...

I’m a little late, but I wanted to bring up just one story that popped up between the times I was at The Digital Reader and here. I’ve been following the saga of RoyaltyShare founder Bob Kohn at length with some interest and more than a little amusement. (That's Kohn in the photo to the right.)  Though he doesn’t necessary have a direct stake in the case’s outcome, Kohn has nonetheless been filing verbose comments, legal motions, and even a comic book (as a legal motion) in an attempt to head off the Department of Justice’s proposed agency pricing settlement....