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Is anyone still paying attention to the DOJ/ebook antitrust case?

Brian Howard — Sat, 18 May 2013 16:47:07 +0000

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 [...]

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Study: 30 Percent of Flyers Have Left on their Electronic Devices

Aggregated Content — Sat, 11 May 2013 02:30:34 +0000

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 [...]

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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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Irish Senator proposes “pay to post” Internet

Bill Stiteler — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 18:45:02 +0000

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 [...]

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White House Ready to Legalize Phone Unlocking

Stanley Goodner — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 03:12:25 +0000

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 [...]

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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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Myanmar Makes History with its First Literary Festival

Dan Eldridge — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 18:15:22 +0000

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 [...]

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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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Why Your Kindle is an Open Book to the Government

Aggregated Content — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 19:00:28 +0000

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, [...]

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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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Amazon to win EU e-book pricing tussle with Apple

Aggregated Content — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 01:15:16 +0000

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 [...]

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RoyaltyShare founder Bob Kohn appeals denial of his right to appeal DoJ agency pricing settlement

Chris Meadows — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 01:52:21 +0000

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 [...]

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Changes in e-book pricing settlement payouts: Here’s what you need to know

Dan Eldridge — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 03:32:05 +0000

If you’re one of the many e-book customers who’s expecting a payment or credit as a result of the 49 states’ recent $69 million settlement with HarperCollins, Hachette and Simon & Schuster, you should be aware that “the states have slightly modified the way those payments will work,” according to Paid Content reporter Laura Hazard Owen. [...]

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California universities to produce 50 open-source textbooks

a TeleRead Contributor — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 16:30:18 +0000

California Governor Jerry Brown gave his pen a workout this past Thursday, September 27. In addition to signing legislation prohibiting social network snooping by employers and colleges, he also signed off on a proposal for the state to fund 50 open source digital textbooks. He signed two bills, one to create the textbooks and the other to [...]

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What’s missing from the UK government’s e-book lending review?

a TeleRead Contributor — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:29:28 +0000

By Andy Richardson, CEO of Influential Software Last week the UK Culture minister, Ed Vaizey, bowed to sustained pressure from publishers and The Society of Authors and announced a government review of e-book lending that will have important implications for the British book trade. The review’s stated objective is to look into the “possible consequences of [...]

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