Ethics and Publishing

GREAT news for the First Amendment!

Does it make you uncomfortable knowing that Amazon has everything you've highlighted?  What else do they know?  And what do publishers know about how their books are being read?

How much evidence of borrowing is required before charges of plagiarism are reasonable?  

The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) has expanded its collection of eBooks to more than 200 titles. GPO and Google formed a partnership in 2010 to convert Government publications into eBook format and make the eBooks available through Google's eBookstore. GPO and Google's endeavor has increased Government transparency by making Government publications accessible to the public in a digital format.

Am I wrong to think that these ebooks should be free if the goal is government transparency?

Debate on the costs of college textbooks.  I think we did a better job at last year's SPI.

This is not likely to have any real effect. Textbooks are sold to a captive market. Those who are paying their tuition without benefit of student loans will buy the books without thinking too much about the cost. Those who are going to school on student loans will go into debt.

Project Gutenberg founder Michael Hart will be a keynote speaker at the Ethics and Publishing Conference.

Should Google filter search results to eliminate e-book pirate sites?

The Wylie agency signed a deal to exclusively distribute e-books of its authors through Amazon. Want to read Philip Roth, Dave Eggers, Saul Bellow in digital form?  Better get a Kindle. 

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.

Echoes of Shepard Fairey.  Fair use defenses based on the transformative nature of the work are expense and often "won" by copyright holders on the basis of the cost of defense.

See how public domain material moves into the non-public domain.

Publishers fail again at basic fact-checking.  The assumption must be that the reading public doesn't care about the truth when something is called a memoir.

Accounting of what enters the public domain this new year's day, and a look at what could have been.

This is a great article on the importance of universal broadband access and why it is in the public's interest.

According to Poynter, Matt Taibbi's just-posted Rolling Stone piece on Michele Bachmann "borrowed liberally" from a 2006 City Pages cover story written by G.R. Anderson.

Amazon exploits local booksellers. If you like bookstores you should be concerned.

"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.

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.