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20 Feb 2010 16:01

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Tech: Authors all scared eBooks about to ruin the book economic model

  • I’ve got news: It takes about a year to write a book, you have to travel extensively, you have to do a lot of fact-checking. What Amazon and Apple are trying to do is significantly decrease the amount of money that publishers, and specifically authors, can make.
  • The Register writer Dan Goodin • Regarding the possibility of making profits off of eBooks via Kindle or iPad. We think the point he’s trying to make is pretty weak. Why’s that? Well, it completely discounts the things that eBooks make obsolete: The high costs of printing and distribution, which are no longer an issue. We’re not geniuses, but we’re guessing that if you take those two things out of the equation, it more than makes up for the $5 less that an eBook version of your average novel costs. Not convinced. Blame publishers for damaging the model by taking more than their fair share of the pie, not e-readers. source

26 Apr 2009 23:54

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U.S.: Barbara A. Ringer, the queen of fair use in copyright

  • The basic human rights of individual authors throughout the world are being sacrificed more and more on the altar of … the technological revolution.
  • Barbara A. Ringer • In a 1975 speech discussing the rights of authors in the use of content. It’s crazy, by the way, because it seems her comments would be even more relevant now than they were 34 years ago. Ringer, by the way, is the author behind the Copyright Act of 1976, which both gave copyright-holders more rights in retaining copyright and established the very fair use that allows us to quote this article from The Washington Post. She’s kind of our hero, and makes the Library of Congress seem vaguely awesome. • source