JFK’s pro-consumer FCC chair to do virtual book signing: Time for Minow-type philosophy toward e-books and DRM?

By David Rothman

Newton Minow was JFK‘s legendary chair of the Federal Communications Commission, perhaps the most public-spirited leader of the FCC in history—the orator behind the Vast Wasteland speech.

The creators of the Gilligan’s Island series may even have named "The S.S. Minnow" after Minow. In the best sense, the one-n Minow was a pro-consumer Jehovah of the regulatory scene. More recently, via the Digital Promise initiative, he has also been a leading advocate of funding for online education, workforce training and libraries, a potential TeleRead ally; but that’s a topic for a future post, unlike e-book standards and DRM, which I’ll discuss later in the present one.

Virtual book signing for presidential debate book on Saturday

Among many other civic activities, Minow has helped organize all the presidential debates for the past 48 years, and this Saturday, June 14, at noon Central Standard Time, he will answer questions in a virtual book signing for Inside the Presidential Debates: Their Improbable Past and Promising Future. An e-mail address or a question form will go up on the signing site on Saturday. He’ll be at the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop just before, during and after the signing. The shop is at 357 W. Chicago Avenue, in Chicago.

Some of the possible debate-related topics to be discussed? "How are they structured?" "What about Obama and McCain?" "Who should present questions?" Minow himself was an early Obama booster. Whoever wins the White House, Obama or McCain, I wouldn’t mind an FCC that enthusiastically embraced Net neutrality and otherwise was more pro-consumer than the current crew as a whole. Let’s hope that the new president makes the right appointments when the time comes.

DRM, e-book standards, Net browsers and regulation: Issues for next administration’s Minows?

Speaking of regulation, I’m hoping for the book and tech industries to shape up about DRM and e-book standards and somewhat related other matters so the government does not have to step in—Web browser standards are still a mess even after the marathon Microsoft suit despite some progress by Microsoft. For e-bookers, however, the real company to watch is Amazon, home of the Kindle. It’s striving for a Standard Oil-style monopoly in the POD industry and would love to be able to use proprietary DRM and house formats to do the same in e-books. This scenario could be poison for publishers and readers alike, and literary agents could suffer, too. Nice—cutting out the middle people, right? Well, not necessarily if one giant can control publishing and set compensation, perhaps in cahoots with other big players.

Will officials from various agencies, such as Justice, the Federal Trade Commission and others catch on to the implications here for consumers and content providers alike? What about those DRMed books, for example. You don’t own them for real—you’re at the mercy of the DRM provider and others—and I myself find it rather misleading when retailers talk about "selling" you a DRMed book. Ugh, how about "renting"?

Even forgetting the risk of an Amazon monopoly reinforced by the mix of proprietary DRM and the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, there’s the disclosure issue in the case of this technology. If the industry won’t level with consumers, shouldn’t Washington require DRMed books to come with warnings of the limited rights of "buyers," especially given the horror stories I’ve written up in the TeleBlog? Of course, the real solution is no DRM, or at least reduced use of it—or how about social DRM? I’d love to know Newton Minow’s thoughts on such matters. And, no, I don’t want federal regulation of content (there are zillions of book publishers, as opposed, say, to just three national networks at the time of the Wasteland speech, which, by the way, was anti-censorship). Alas, Amazon in a sense is already doing that for us, by trying to tie books in with specific formats.

Close to home, Mr. Minow: You’re smack in the middle of the browser war!

For Newton Minow, those could be matters close to home on Saturday. I see the following on the Virtual Book Signing site:

System Compatibility

Virtual Book Signing live programs are viewable with Windows and MS Explorer only.
TEST YOUR SYSTEM FOR COMPATIBILITY

Users of other Operating Systems and browsers can watch the Archived versions.

Just a few minutes ago, I got an error message when I followed the book-signing site’s suggestion. No surprise in this screenshot, alas.

The Minows, Comcast and me: Jehovah on my side?

Let me conclude with the laugh of the week.

When I got the virtual-signing invitation from Mary Minow, library law whiz and one of my favorite Kindle owners, given her concerns about DRM and other K-related issues, I e-mailed back that I’d be happy to mention her dad’s signing in the TeleBlog.

I typed out my note with great difficulty. Comcast, the cable monopoly in Alexandria, VA, had been down since yesterday afternoon, and I was using Carly’s machine, which was a pain since the connection from another obnoxious and arrogant conglomerate, Verizon, wasn’t the best at the time (not sure if Verizon was the culprit). What’s more, the ergonomics of Carly setup are for her, not me, and I find her machine a real torture to use. Oh, to get Comcast back!

Well, wouldn’t you know it? Within half an hour after I answered Mary, my Comcast service returned in full force. You don’t suppose that Comcast quaked in fear of even a minor, second-degree NM connection? Now if only the e-book industry can do the same and de-eBabel and de-DRM itself on its own without any regulatory involvement!

Detail: The Minow book is to be available in a Kindle edition. May it be released in other formats, too, including, fittingly, the ePub standard.