E-Book Currents
Library E-book Alternatives
Many libraries are testing a variety of methods for making e-books available. The response of patrons has been less than spectacular, but with the understanding that e-books are still in their infancy, the trials go on. The netLibrary model (www.netlibrary.com) is enjoying some of the most widespread trials, with public libraries at many locations checking out this supplier's method of charging for each copy of each e-book title, while restricting access so each copy can be used by only one patron at a time. For example, The Genessee District Library in Flint, Michigan stocks over 11,000 online e-book nonfiction, reference and children's titles. Users can search an online title for up to six hours on a library computer. If they find desired information, they can print what they need. Through netLibrary, an e-book copy can be downloaded - if and when a copy is available -to the patron's own PC or laptop computer and used for up to 24 hours. When the time limits are up the e-book displays disappear. Some 23 library systems in Northern California have launched a joint e-book program through netLibrary that makes over 3,000 e-book titles available to patrons. Access to the titles is integrated into library online catalogs.
netLibrary is not the only game in town for libraries looking to provide e-books and other edocuments. Thousands of titles are available for downloading and free use from Internet e-book sites such as the Electronic Text Center (http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/e-books)and Project Gutenberg (http://promo.net/cgi-promo/pg/cat.cgi). There are also numerous commercial sites from which e-books can be downloaded. Many libraries maintain collections of e-book files and lend out handheld e-book reading devices to view those files. For a list of libraries in 20 US states that have programs to lend handheld e-book reading devices see the Central Kansas State Library System feature on e-books at http://skyways.lib.ks.us/central/e-books. Questia (www.questia.com) and eBrary (www.ebrary.com) offer services designed for students, professors and librarians. Questia service is available by individual or institutional subscription and currently offers access to about 40,000 e-books and journal articles. eBrary offers free page by page viewing of hundreds of thousands of online books and documents, and charges 25 cents for printing or copying a page.
More Use Restrictions Added to E-books
Publishers and Web sites offering e-books in PDF format can now use a service called Adobe Content Server to add use restrictions to their titles. Documents in PDF format can normally be freely copied. Adobe Content Server prevents buyers and users of PDF e-books from easily making such copies. The service is offered by ContentReserve (www.contentreserve.com).
To add restrictions to their children's picture e-books, Time Warner has chosen software from SealedMedia that puts controls on video, audio, images and text. A variety of children's e-books, including electronic pop-up books, books with spoken text and music, and books with text in which a selected child's name appears will be offered. An animated story and activity e-book, based on the movie Shrek is the first restricted book available at the Time Warner (www.ipicturebooks.com) Web site. The SealedMedia software prevents e-book purchasers from copying their e-books or passing them along to others. The e-books are to be sold as individual downloaded copies and also through licenses and subscriptions.
First Sale E-book Copyrights Still Untested
When the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed in 1998, Congress could not agree on the question of "fair use" that is, whether e-book owners should have a right to lend or sell their e-books. A study of that matter was assigned to a panel at the US Copyright Office, but the report of that panel has been repeatedly delayed. There have been indications, however, that a report may be released before the end of 2001. Fair use is of intense interest; not only to individuals who may wish to pass on their e-book titles to family and friends,but to libraries where fair use has been the traditional basis for handling printed books and other documents that are under copyright protection, and to publishers and booksellers who fear that easy copying of electronic documents will undermine any e-book business they develop. Simon and Schuster, for example, is refusing to sell e-books to libraries until copyright questions are resolved.
FBI Arrests E-book Software Developer
A Russian programmer, Dimitry Sklyarov, attending a hacker conference in Las Vegas, was arrested by the FBI in July on charges that he violated US copyright law by developing software to defeat restrictions on use of e-book files. The software, called the Advanced e-book Processor, was developed in Russia by ElcomSoft and is designed to defeat Adobe Acrobat e-book Reader restrictions that prevent copying of files. It is uncertain whether this arrest can lead to conviction because development and sale of such software is legal in Russia. However, RegisterNow, a US-based company, briefly sold the software in the USA,and Sklyarov is accused of "aiding and abetting." The case could become a test for enforcement of US laws on activities in other countries if the Bush administration chooses to prosecute. It could also become a test of current digital copyright law in which the status of "fair use" was never resolved in Congress and remains uncertain. After pickets at Adobe's San Jose office and elsewhere protested that company's participation in the case, Adobe officially withdrew its support of Skylarov's arrest. The case has also highlighted the potential ability of digital restriction problems to disrupt e-book commerce. When Barnes and Noble became aware of the existence of the ElcomSoft software,sales of e-books were suspended (from June 26-27) while Adobe changed its Reader software to improve its restrictive capabilities. The next day, Amazon.com updated all the Adobe restrictive software used with e-books it sells.
Published Authors' Own E-book Rights
A few months ago, Random House went to court to deny authors, including Kurt Vonnegut and William Styron, the ability to sell rights to produce e-books of their already published works. The huge publisher contended that its agreements covering copyrights for printed titles with these and many other authors automatically extended to e-book publication as well. US District Court Judge Stein disagreed, denying an injunction against RosettaBooks to publish Random House titles as e-books. The decision opens the way to an era in which authors may control the rights to e-book publication of their works. Random House says it will appeal the decision.
Freelancers' Own Database Rights
At the end of June the US Supreme Court decided that freelance writers own the rights to electronic versions of those works. For many years, a huge number of articles, reports and other works authored by freelance writers have been carried and sold by online databases. The American Library Association and the Association of Research Libraries commended the Court's decision and looked forward to a court sanctioned remedy that would be fair to the public, database publishers, and also to freelance authors whose claims for compensation could total billions of dollars. ProQuest has announced its online databases would comply completely with copyright law. Lexis-Nexis has announced that it plans to try to get legislation in Congress to help its reduce costs stemming from the Court decision. The New York Times found its own private solution to paying freelancers for electronic copyrights by moving immediately to delete over 100,000 articles written by some 27,000 freelancers from its online database files. However, this action does not absolve The Times from paying freelancers for database sales that have already taken place.
International E-book Readers Proliferate
Mentoract Reader software is designed to display e-books in virtually any language on desktop or laptop computers. The software reads texts encoded in the Open e-book (OeB) standard format. It is based on the Java software language so it can operate on many types of computers. With Mentoract, text is automatically adjusted to allow display on various devices, with different screen sizes, and for multiple languages. For example, the software works with right-to-left Arabic and Hebrew text. Mentoract has a Web site at http://www.globalmentor.com.
Xinhua E-book, developed by Xinhua Bookstore Company of Taiwan, and released simultaneously in Beijing and Taipei in July, is a portable e-book reading device about the size of a printed book. In addition to displaying e-books, the device is designed for Internet display, audio-visual display and game playing. The device can be used to download e-books from the Internet and can store dozens of e-books.
MyFriend is a portable e-book reading device with a high-resolution color touch screen that can display animation and images. The device can also produce music and other sounds. The MyFriend device uses Microsoft Reader and ClearType technology. It is being sold in Italy by IPM-NET, a company that collects Italian and English e-book titles and provides conversion and digital distribution for the Italian and European publishing industry.
E-book Vending Machine
When a PerfectBook automatic vending machine receives an e-book file from the Internet it can produce a printed and bound version of the title, complete with a color cover, in about seven minutes. A PerfectBook prototype was demonstrated in Chesterfield, Missouri early in July by its inventor, Jeff Marsh. His company, Marsh Technologies, plans to produce PerfectBook machines and sell them at under $100,000 each within a year. He estimates that a PerfectBook vending machine will cost about $30,000 when manufactured on a large scale. The prototype is about the size of a large copier and, like a copier, is relatively simple to operate.
The possible ramifications of this vending machine are breathtaking. At a local convenience store, library or bookstore, one of the machines could churn out classics, back-list titles, best-sellers and any of the 50,000 new titles the publishing industry now originates each year. The vended books could be produced on the spot to meet whatever book customers desired. All of human literature could be available on demand at any of thousands of the machines located around the world in developing as well as advanced countries. Nothing need be unavailable or out of print.
Since tens of thousands of e-books are already available on the Internet, we asked Peter Zelchenko, the e-book designer and publishing expert who worked with Marsh to demonstrate the PerfectBook prototype, how much work it takes to reconfigure an ASCII e-book file, or a Microsoft Reader e-book file so it could do the job. He replied: "ASCII text would need to be tagged for style, first,and then poured into pages in a page-layout program like PageMaker, QuarkXPress,FrameMaker, or a simpler word processor. Proofreading passes are par for the course at this stage. A cover would need to be designed which takes into account the inside dimensions and the number of pages the book has turned out to be. I can rip a 200-page book out like this, from raw text, in a couple of days' work,or longer if I am being more careful...Microsoft Reader-based copy...should take less time to do all of this, since it is already tagged for headlines and other work, in (standard) OEB style." It should not take long to re-fit existing e-book files for this purpose. Zelchenko pointed out that there are thousands of desktop publishers, all over the world, who are capable of doing the work and would jump at the chance to do it. He also believes that software will soon be available to paginate most e-book text automatically for machines like the PerfectBook.
More E-book Travel Guides
Frommer's has joined the parade of travel book publishers offering e-book guides with a list of 26 titles covering popular worldwide destinations. Included are guides covering Amsterdam, Aruba, Aspen and Snowmass, Berlin,Brussels, Budapest, Dublin, Honolulu and Waikiki, Istanbul, London, Los Cabos,Madrid, Martha's Vineyard, Mexico City, Munich, Nantucket, New0 York City,Paris, Phoenix and Scottsdale, Prague, Rome, San Francisco, Santa Fe and Taos,Savannah and Charleston, Sydney, and Washington. Each guide will sell for $8.95 in Adobe Acrobat e-book Reader, Microsoft Reader or Palm Reader format, and will be available through many Web sites that sell e-books. The guides will have hotel and restaurant indexes sorted by price range, links to individual reviews;pop-up pages with tidbits of information and historical background, and dining and lodging price charts. As a promotion, the New York City guide is initially being offered free.
Howard Falk(falkho@msn.com) is an independent consultant based in Bloomfield, New Jersey, USA.
