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Under normal circumstances, the fact that Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson's latest book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price, logged over 17,000 Free views in a day on upstart "social publisher" Scribd would be the story. The real story, however, lurks in the comments left on the Scribd web site.

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.

Holy moly! Our precious long tail is being called into question? The article referenced is here: http://www.vqronline.org/blog/2009/06/23/chris-anderson-free/.

Sourcebooks is collaborating with Smashwords to produce 14 mass market titles as DRM-free e-books.

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.

A great presentation that puts discussion of copyright in a broader social and historical context.

Update: This post is part of a series. If you find this topic interesting, I recommend you read the two follow-ups as well: Apple has built its iBooks platform on the back of an open standard. With last week's introduction of iBooks 2.0 and the free iBooks Author software for Mac OS X, Apple is deliberately locking out that popular open standard.

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.

"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.

Interesting blog post about the New York Times using material from a freely accessible website for an editorial column, which the Times then charged users to access (part of their paywall).

Here is some information about open access and the Public Knowledge Project. This piece generated a lot of comments, which are also worth reading.

Interesting comment on the Rosen NYT article Google's Gatekeepers.

"But if Amazon tries to enforce its demands by removing "buy" buttons from some pages again, some believe it could harm its reputation in the eyes of customers and the publishing industry." You THINK???? Unfortunately, as long as they keep free shipping, most people probably won't care. I see this as a really serious industry issue.