05:33 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | General Discussions

Do you hear that sound? That's thousands of Finish digital rights activists cheering loudly, then coughing uncontrollably, then reaching for their inhalers, for they have succeeded in collecting over 50,000 vote signatures supporting their proposal on changing Finland's copyright legislation. Why does this matter? Because under Finnish law, once this quota is reached in a six-months period, the nation's politicians are required to vote on the matter, rather than merely taking a look at it or discussing it in the legislature.

The Common Sense in Copyright group is hoping to force amendments to the existing Copyright Act that, if approved, would allow individuals to share private copies of digital content with third parties and would reduce monetary fines for copyright infringement. From their mission statement:

There is widespread agreement, that the Finnish copyright law is too strict and allows for excessive infringements of privacy and penalties.

The case of the confiscation of the 9-year old girls Winnie the Pooh laptop in November 2012 made headlines internationally, but was only a tip of the iceberg. Since 2006 when the current copyright law came into force, countless youngsters have been found guilty of copyright crimes and sentenced to pay thousands, in some cases hundreds of thousands, of euros in punitive damages to the copyright organizations.

This crowdsourced law proposal suggests several changes to the current copyright law including allowing the fair use of copyright-protected material for parody and satire and in teaching situations and impriving the situation of freelance artists. It is not a pro-piracy law proposal. However, it does suggests that the individual downloading of copyright-protected material from the internet should be a misdemeanor – and no longer a crime. This is actually what the law in Finland was until 2006. It is also in line with the international tendency, for example, in countries like Holland and United Kingdom, to alleviate the overly strict copyright regulations.

[via TorrentFreak]

12:02 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | General Discussions

So it's not just the British but also the majority of Americans who prefer paper books over e-books. At least if you're inclined to believe the poll done by Rasmussen Reports.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 75% of American Adults would rather read a book in a traditional print format than on an electronic book-reading device like a Kindle. Fifteen percent (15%) prefer reading on an electronic device. Ten percent (10%) are undecided.

You find the original questions asked in the poll over here.

[via Slashdot]

07:08 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | General Discussions

Hot on the heels of yesterday's proposal to keep bookstores alive, the Sunday Times is proclaiming that book fans are reverting to the traditional way of reading, at least in the UK. The article names various well-known authors, thinkers and journalists - among them Roger Scruton, Alain de Botton, Philip Stone (The Bookseller), Rosie Boycott (journalist), John Simpson (broadcaster), Jilly Cooper (novelist), and Richard Curtis (screenwriter) - as examples of critics who've been experiencing a growing antipathy towards e-books. Some of their reasons:

• "irritation about "ugly adverts" to matters of art and aesthetics"
• "whatever I read on my Kindle I couldn't really remember in the long term. It was as if I had never read it"
• "The prospect of the bookshelf of the future -- just containing a slim tablet -- is truly depressing"
• "I can't stand the sloppy, ugly, ignorant way ebooks are often presented"
• "I'd much rather have the feel and look of pages with nice type to enjoy"
• "I like to scribble all over [books]"

The articles cites the results of a poll that appears to support this negative sentiment. Adults asked what they'd take with them on holiday, 17% said e-reader, 32% said paper books, 26% don't know, 9% take both, and 16% take neither. Asked which one they'd prefer, 17% said e-reader and 65% said paper books. 32% of those who were polled owned an e-reader.

Full article: Kindle on the eshelf: book fans go back to paper (subscription required).

[image via Flickr]

02:16 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | General Discussions

For some, DRM stands for Down-Right Maddening. Nobody likes the painful and annoying restrictions it imposes on us, and the very fact that there's an increasing number of e-book stores selling their content DRM-free can be seen as proof that the publishing industry doesn't depend on it either. So why do we still have to deal with DRM for a majority of e-books, whereas most downloadable music has gone DRM-free?

Or, could Apple step in and pressure the publishing industry to go completely DRM-free, the same way they did when renegotiating deals with the big music labels? Kirk McElhearn of Macworld thinks there is a chance, also for Apple:

I can listen to my digital music files on just about any device; I want to do the same thing with my books. [...] Apple could take the lead, as the company did with DRM-free music, and help change another market that needs it. This could be good for Apple itself, too, given the perception of the company in the wake of the ebook price-fixing ruling.

[image source: Flickr, related: Apple eBook price fixing case going to court]

10:34 AM by guanaco in E-Book General | General Discussions

More food for thought

A random sample of new books for sale on Amazon.com shows three times more books initially published in the 1850’s are for sale than new books from the 1950’s. Why? This paper presents new data on how copyright seems to make works disappear.

The full paper, written by professor Paul J. Heald from the University of Illinois, is available here.

09:53 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | General Discussions

Imagine this. Next time you want to enjoy an e-book, it'll have to wait until you've relieved yourself. I get straight to the point: British scientists discovered a way to turn urine into electricity. I'm not saying this is the most elegant way to power a mobile device, but, well, can you think of anything cheaper?

According to Ieropoulos, a member of the team who has been working on this project:

"One product that we can be sure of an unending supply is our own urine. By harnessing this power as urine passes through a cascade of microbial fuel cells (MFCs), we have managed to charge a Samsung mobile phone. The beauty of this fuel source is that we are not relying on the erratic nature of the wind or the sun; we are actually re-using waste to create energy.

So far the microbial fuel power stack that we have developed generates enough power to enable SMS messaging, web browsing and to make a brief phone call. Making a call on a mobile phone takes up the most energy but we will get to the place where we can charge a battery for longer periods. The concept has been tested and it works – it's now for us to develop and refine the process so that we can develop MFCs to fully charge a battery."

Here's a video describing the process in further detail:

[via Slashdot, image: Flickr]

07:32 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

There are many good books out there. The only problem is finding them. You can follow recommendations from Amazon and roam social platforms such as MobileRead or Goodread. Or you could trust the proprietary artificial intelligence of BookVibe, a new book discovery engine that extracts data from conversations in social media, including Twitter, to identify what's currently hot and what's not among users.

Vindu Goel of the NY Times gave BookVibe a spin:

The service is still in beta, and it shows signs of being a work in progress. Extracting real meaning from the shorthand found in 140-word tweets can be a challenge for humans, let alone computers. Some books popped up on the recommended list because their author had mentioned them. Some reviews were missed because the Twitter user offered a link to an external review without summarizing it in the tweet.

But over all, I found BookVibe to a valuable single-purpose tool and an indication of what’s possible as social media search technology becomes more sophisticated.

Full article @ NY Times Blogs

[via dbw]

06:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Welcome to another digest entry of MobileRead, where we transform the profound into the bite-sized.

E-Book General - News

• Flexible E-Book devices: One step closer with flexible batteries
• Google Play Books expanding further in Europe

E-Book General - General Discussions

• How does writing style influence your reading choices?
• Storm brewing: Library book pricing
• Are bookstores still worth fighting for?

E-Book General - Reading Recommendations

• August 2013 Book Club Nominations

E-Book Readers - Amazon Kindle

• NYTimes launches dedicated Kindle Fire app

Miscellaneous - Lounge

• Amazon can't own .amazon domain name