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The appeal by Thomas Steinbeck is similar to the one the high court rejected in 2009. They both stem from a dispute over who controls the rights to publish Steinbeck's works.

Google almost wrapped up the Web rights to books over the ages. But the Justice Department - and Arlo Guthrie - are saying whoa . . .

Why SOPA is dangerous legislation.

For all their convenience, e-readers such as the Kindle, Nook, and Sony Reader have introduced citation challenges for researchers and scholars.

Interesting piece by one of the speakers at this year's Ethics and Publishing Conference.

Greed, greed, greed to supersede the voice of the public. There has to be and needs to be and open eformat. Collusion of any kind by any companies to monopolize is wrong. Why be mad at the government actually doing its job by trying to stamp unfairness. Is this not the land of the free and home of the brave where we are afforded the right to compete on fair terms, or are we just capitalist to the harshest degree, with no wiggle room? Uncle Sam will always be the ref in these battles of monopoly. Does Amazon, Apple, and Goggle with there wholesale pillaging scan scam holding the lions share of the ePub tech and licenses make it a safe place for upstart like I would like to have in the future? I say "NO"!!! Change the game Uncle Sam for the consumer, loyalist, and publisher in this ePub wild west.

I'm not entirely convinced by CrossMark, but Retraction Watch is right that peer review doesn't (and shouldn't) stop at publication.

"Google said it was alarmed by the number of government requests to censor political speech, particularly from Western democracies like the United States, Spain and Poland."

U.S. censorship piece is not so suprising to me in this post 9/11 and tube car bombing era. It is becoming difficult to site what is hampering my rights a company that wants to Know all(Google) infringing on my privacy, or a government that wants to keep people from knowledge to stamp out terror; and in doing so is impeding my privacy and speech. But what is terrifying to me is that my speech will not be free in a bit, so it seems. Democracy flaw is not the letter of law, but the people that implement it.

The law was written in an analog era, and it targeted those who copied tapes or CDs. Such people couldn't claim not to know about the copyrighted nature of the works they were copying-it was written right there on the cassette or CD! But in the digital world, this makes no sense. How could slapping a copyright notice on a CD alert anyone using a P2P network about anything?

Can Google continue to "Not be evil" and dominate the global market for search and user-generated content (YouTube, Blogger). Discussed how Google balances among free speech and privacy, the censorship demands of governments and its financial interests.

I was reading about the small window that opened the other day in the "Great Firewall of China" and then read this article. It bothers me that so many people seem to be ready to send printing presses to a junkyard and rely entirely on electronic distribution of information. First, there is still a HUGE demographic who does not have regular access to the internet. Secondly, what would happen if all of our information could be controlled with a filtering program? And finally, printed material still gets into places that a computer cannot. I read an opinion piece in the NYT before Christmas that discussed how an Afghanistan woman learned to read with the help of her young daughter and the newspaper pieces that wrapped her fish. Are we turning information into something elitist? Is there a parallel between a push to make everything electronic - so only people with Kindles and laptops can get information, and a time not-so-long-ago when literacy was a class distinction? DO WE REALLY WANT TO CREATE A NEW CLASS DISTINCTION BY RESTRICTING INFORMATION TO ONLY THOSE WHO CAN AFFORD ACCESS TO IT?

Fascinating points!!! The printed word has been responsible for the American colonists ability to read the words of the great Thomas Paine and Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin and perhaps be inspired to foment the continued revolt that brought us America. It brought the thoughts of the imprisoned Nelson Mandela and Adolf Hitler to the world. For good, and less so, the printed word has been a catalyst for change that has moved the world and impacted people around the globe. While there are many who have access to the Internet and PC, there are far greater numbers around the world who have no such access, for them even a phone is a luxury. Many represent the populations of the third world, but high numbers are the disadvantaged right here at home or in other developed nations around the globe. When oppressive regimes and less then optimal economic or geographic conditions prevent technology from bringing information via wire or air wave, the printing press will continue to spread the message. Education, found in the pages of textbooks, passed down from generation to generation or moved around the world, bring knowledge and potential to those who have no access to the Internet. Until, in some distant future when the earth is truly the global nation envisioned by some futurists today, the printing press will hold its place as a global facilitator of knowledge and information.

Huffington Post seems to have a vested interest in killing off print before its time. Maybe they are right, but they certainly are overzealous about it.

I think this is an excellent read on the rapid speed of the digital divide. Written about England, but applies everywhere.

An interesting discussion of the ethics of newspapers receiving money from the feds.