eBooks in the News -- All Last Week

So much has happened in the eBook world in the last few days that I am still having trouble taking it all in.

• The Amazon Kindle reader for the iPhone was introduced
• Kindle for the top Web App Download for iPhone last week
• Barnes and Noble bought Fictionwise for $15.7 million dollars
• Rand Corporation released an in depth study on eBooks
• Read an eBook week starts today

I could write many words about each one of these developments but I am on a very tight schedule today.  Check out the links and see what is going on for yourself. 

Enjoy!

del.icio.us Tags: ebook,e-books,kindle ebook,iphone for books,barnes and noble

Barnes & Noble, the Bible and the Law

First a Bible Story: the story of Richard Dorazio of White Plains, New York. Richard was sentenced to 30 days in jail Thursday after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor petty larceny charge. He admitted to City Court Judge JoAnnFriia that he had stolen a $14.01 Bible from the Barnes & Noble bookstore.

Ironically, he will have plenty of Bible reading time in the Westchester County Jail because “… the jail's clergy provides free bibles to any inmate who requests one”. B&N is hoping to give him the time to find Exodus and the Eighth Commandment that says “Thou shalt not steal.”

Barnes and Nobles doesn’t stop at protecting it’s physical property . . .

At Harvard, of all places, B&N is actively creating their own unique interpretation of intellectual property law. You see, the Harvard Co-op that they run along with the University has concluded that prices are their "intellectual property."

This is the culmination of an ongoing battle between the store and the students. Of course, the students are sick of paying inflated prices. So to get around that many of them started to do a little comparison shopping. They went into the Co-op and started copying down the book information -- including ISBN numbers and prices. Presumably they were planning to go online to find the cheapest possible copy of the required texts.

First the Co-op began kicking students out of the store for “for taking too many notes on pricing”. Outraged students and parents confronted the store asking for an explanation.

That’s when B&N upped the ante. They came up with the ridiculous notion that their pricing, when associated with the specific ISBN number of a given book, was protected under intellectual property laws. The argument is that since the ISBN number identifies the specific edition of a required text; and the pricing formula for the specific edition was devised by the B&N owned Co-op, it was de facto their intellectual property.

I suspect that this argument is the only real intellectual property to emerge in this dispute. But maybe I should check with my attorney.

In the telling of these stories I have come across a real dilemma -- is it worse to steal or to lie?

Publishing, the First Amendment and Excruciatingly Bad Taste

So here’s my guilty secret: I have been surreptitiously following the saga of O J Simpson and If I Did It.

First, Harper Collins (under the editorship of Judith Regan) was going to publish it. Then they weren’t. The Brown and Goldman families sued to stop it and ultimately it was used as an excuse to fire Judith Regan. Then the Goldman family decided to go ahead and publish it – over the Brown family’s objections. A bunch of booksellers declared they would not sell it. . . Now they are going to.

Please note, I am leaving out all the parts about pirated copies, the boycott movement, the law suit, the Arnelle Simpson factor, the Goldman family explanation of why they want to publish this book, the current Brown/Goldman feud.

Never mind that this whole thing is an exercise in excruciatingly bad taste; it is still great theater with much sound and fury.

My biggest source of entertainment has come from listening to the tortured logic of all parties involved: ‘You know, it is a confession’; ‘it will help battered women’; ‘it finally tells the truth’; it ________ (you fill in the blank since evidently, any excuse will do).

But seriously, if you ever wonder about the human capacity for hypocrisy -- this is a wonderful case study. The range of reactions is a great window into the American psyche and the point at which expressed values and money intersect. :

• Initially, there was a public outcry against this book even as it rose to the number one position on Amazon’s presales lists
• No one wanted it published, but thousands of people wanted to see the pirated copy on BitTorent (took their server down). If you are interested, you can still get a pirated copy (just for the record, I have restrained myself – so far)
• The Goldman family wanted this book stopped until they figured out how to make money from it. How disgusting is that!?
• The Brown family contents that this book will hurt the Simpson children. Like they don’t know what happened?
• Barnes and Nobles took the high road and decided not to sell the book.
• Then decided to sell it online but not in the store
• Now, Barnes and Nobles is pleased to join Amazon and Borders in selling this book online and in the store.

I am not exactly in a position to get on my moral high horse here. This very post shows that I have been as titillated as anyone.

My fill in the blank?

Well, it’s all about the first amendment and the right to free speech. (Pretty intellectual, huh?)