03:58 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Wired breaks the news with a thought provoking story on how copyright holders are to consider the "Fair Use" doctrine first before sending takedown notices to online sites.

"Even if Universal is correct that fair use only excuses infringement, the fact remains that fair use is a lawful use of a copyright," U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel ruled. "Accordingly, in order for a copyright owner to proceed under the DMCA with 'a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law,' the owner must evaluate whether the material makes fair use of the copyright."

Fogel added that an "allegation that a copyright owner acted in bad faith by issuing a takedown notice without proper consideration of the fair use doctrine thus is sufficient to state a misrepresentation claim."

Source: Wired

You can download the original 10-page case document stating the judge's decision over here (.pdf).

06:04 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

How many E Ink display panels did Prime View International ship this year? How many of them went to Amazon (Kindle) and Sony (Reader)? In the words of a wise man: Seal up your lips and give no words but mum. Which is pretty much what PVI has been told:

With a 90% share of the EPD market, PVI nevertheless has been asked by its major clients, such as Sony and Amazon, not to reveal its EPD shipment figures, industry sources claimed.

Sony's e-Reader and Amazon's Kindle account for more than half of EPD shipments, the sources said.

Source: Digitimes

Does anyone care to speculate why our friends from Amazon and Sony would be so desperate to keep hints of actual sales figures hidden? It makes you wonder... anyways, according to the same report, PVI is going to single out revenues from their e-paper business starting next year. Then we'll know more.

01:09 PM by JSWolf in E-Book General | News

A lot of people on the forum have been asking for Terry Goodkind's books to be available as eBooks. Wizard's First Rule is now available at BooksOnBoard (in Mobipocket only at the moment) for only $6.88; it's also available at Amazon for $7.18.

This is only the first book in his epic series, but I for one hope the rest do come out and soon.

06:53 AM by Steven Lyle Jordan in E-Book General | News

At Denvention 3, a yearly SF convention, it seems e-books were the subject of the year, according to the article by Peter Glaskowsky. He reports that e-book panels were in most time slots, and that there is a lot of disagreement in pro circles as to what will work in the e-book arena, and what is working now.

He also has some interesting personal observations. For instance, he points to estimates of Amazon Kindle sales to refute the claim by some panelists that DRM is unworkable, impractical and unpopular.

Unfortunately, I don't see any transcripts or podcasts available from the panels, but there is more info on the convention goings-on at the web news page.

06:46 AM by Falbe Publishing in E-Book General | News

I have run across the concept of promoting ebooks as a green alternative to paper books. This makes sense because:

1. No paper is used to produce the copies, which includes the massive water and power usage needed for paper production and then for the printing.
2. No physical shipping is necessary, which means no gas/diesel use.

However, ebooks and their readers do all need a computer (mostly) and a reading device. Also the ebook distribution takes place on the internet (mostly) and the infrastructure of the internet uses vast amounts of power, which for the most part comes from fossil fuels.

I think that ebooks use less resources and cause less pollution than paper books. At the very least trees are not being cut down and pulped into celebrity memoirs (a great affront to Mother Nature).

I was wondering what other people thought on this subject.

Thanks.

06:40 AM by mdibella in E-Book General | News

So many of my favorite authors have blogs now, and it's such a wonderful experience to leave a question and have that author actually answer it!

Something does bother me though. So often an author is asked some variation on 'Why did you stop writing that series? It was so good, why not write more?'

And the answer is always something like 'The publisher refused to pay me enough money to live on, and they owned the series, so I had to stop writing them'

So what is the deal here? It's so easy to imagine that a professional writer makes at least a living salary...writing a book is certainly not a fast or trivial task, and not everyone is capable of it. Sure, someone like Stepen King can probably name his price for his new books, but what does Joe Average Author get for his work? Are they really getting ripped off by the publishers?

06:38 AM by grimo1re in E-Book General | News

Taiwanese manufacturer of network products and multimedia peripherals Netronix is boosting their shipments of ebook readers. The company shipped 2,000 to 3,000 ebook devices a month in the third quarter, compared with 1,000 to 2,000 a month in the first half, Digitimes writes, citing unnamed company sources.

By Q4, the company is expected to ship around 5,000 devices per month with revenues accounting for 10 percent of the company’s total revenues.

Mod added: PVI holds substantial shares in Netronix. PVI is the main producer of E Ink display panels, and supplies Sony and Amazon among others.

06:22 PM by NatCh in E-Book Readers | Alternative Devices

Apparently Palm has been busy over there in Sunnyvale. A little birdie just dropped a notice in my mailbox of a new Trēo model.

Since this one is so close behind the Trēo 800W, I'll just hit the differences between the two.

Now this is a quick-comparison, so I'm likely to miss something, but I'm confident that others will help me out.

Differences between the Trēo Pro and the Trēo 800W

• Less user accessible RAM -- 100 MB to 170 MB
• Maybe a different display, but I'm thinking probably not
• Its camera has 8X digital zoom, to the 800W's 2X
• Bigger battery 1500 mAh to 1150 mAh
• Supports up to 32 GB microSD card
• .08" wider, .08" taller, .2" thinner, and .31 oz lighter
• Only comes in "Obsidian" -- presumably "Black" in man-colors

Here's the software that's on the device, I notice something called "Adobe Reader LE" in the list, anyone know what that refers to?

ActiveSync®; Adobe Reader LE; Bluetooth®; Bubble Breaker; Calculator; Calendar; Communications Manager; Contacts; File Explorer; Get WorldMate; GoogleMaps; Internet Explorer® Mobile; Messaging; Microsoft® Office Mobile including Excel® Mobile, OneNote Mobile, PowerPoint® Mobile, and Word Mobile; My Treo; Notes; Pics & Videos; QuickGPS; Quick Tour; SIM Manager; Solitaire; Sprite Backup; Streaming Media; Tasks; Telenav; Voice Command; Windows Live™; Windows Live™ Messenger; Windows Media® Player Mobile

All in all, no big surprises there, just another pro/am variation such as they've done before.

Here's a link to the product page.