TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics » Copyright law

Europe’s Database Right: A scary concept

Joanna Cabot — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 22:48:01 +0000

Techdirt has a write-up on something I had never heard of–a special copyright introduced in 1996 which protects the contents of databases, even if all the works they list are public domain. The case Techdirt profiles involves a company which wanted to obtain some government records from the 1700s and 1800s and were told they [...]

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Happy Public Domain Day … Unless You Live in the U.S.

Joanna Cabot — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 15:56:27 +0000

Most days, us Canadians get the e-book shaft. Barnes & Noble won’t sell to us. Amazon will, but at higher prices and with less selection. We’re the forgotten child of the e-book world—with the exception of January 1, aka New Year’s Day, aka Public Domain Day, when countries that calculate the length of an author’s [...]

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Amazon’s zapping of customer’s Kindle library shows why we need library-provided ‘content lockers’ (Updated)

David Rothman — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 14:54:53 +0000

What if Amazon wiped out all your Kindle books and refused to let you open another account? I don’t know what if any sins a customer committed, but such an Orwellian scenario is said to have actually happened. No, I’m not just talking about the remote deletion of 1984, but rather the mysterious zapping of the customer’s entire [...]

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A look at India’s thriving publishing scene, part 2

Chris Walters — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 14:07:37 +0000

Here’s a link to the second part of Akshay Pathak’s overview of the state of publishing in India today. Where Part 1 focused on the need for better data, professionally trained editors and a more robust retail infrastructure, Part 2 looks at the roles Indian publishers play in the global marketplace, as well as the [...]

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Brazil’s copyright law forbids using DRM to block fair use

Paul Biba — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 06:31:45 +0000

This little article by Cory Doctorow in Boing Boing is important news, so I reprint it in full: A UN treaty called the WIPO Copyright Treaty requires countries to pass laws protecting “software locks” (also called DRM or TPM). Countries around the world have adopted the treaty in different ways: in the US, the Digital [...]

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Ex-eReader employee on the past and future of e-books

Chris Meadows — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 03:52:27 +0000

Ars Technica today has a great (and long—it goes on for seven pages) feature editorial about the past and future of e-books by Ars columnist John Siracusa. Siracusa, who took a job at the company that would eventually become eReader back when it was still called Palm Digital Media, has some fascinating insights and opinions [...]

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