Round up #169: ultimate PAW EBR, publishers bullied by Apple?

Round up #169: ultimate PAW EBR, publishers bullied by Apple?

The ILMK Round ups are short pieces which may or may not be expanded later.

Earl: the backcountry survival tablet

If “Earl” seems to good to be true, you are right…it’s not true yet. Take a look at it:

MeetEarl.com

This is a (deep breath) solar-powered, water-resistant, GPS-loaded, weather-detecting, walkie-talkie, Android E-Ink device…with a flexible screen.

It’s the ultimate EBR (E-Book Reader) for the PAW (Post-Apocalyptic World).

It’s only being crowdfunded right now…you can “invest” in the development, and that’s how you end up getting one at this point (for as low as $249).

They are about 55% of the way to the goal as I write this, and there are 25 days left to help them get to the $250,000 needed to launch it.

Would it replace a Kindle?

Not in the marketplace…most people don’t need all that stuff, and it’s a lot more expensive than the “Mindle” (that’s what I call the lowest priced device). However, you should be able to install the Kindle app on it, and, well, it would certainly appeal to some people (including people who worry that a Kindle is too fragile for their kid).

I think it may happen…they could hit the goal.

The nice thing then would be if some of the tech spread into other tablets, which is certainly possible.

Amazon’s problems in Europe

There have been a couple of interesting bad PR (Public Relations) situations for Amazon in Europe recently.

First there is a 1-day strike in Germany over pay:

The Guardian article

The argument is over how the workers at Amazon’s warehouses should be classified. Are they working in retail, or are they working in logistics? Amazon does a lot with logistics, no question…in the USA, they have a big business delivering things for other people.

Oddly to me, retail workers get a higher wage in Germany than logistics workers.

However, that’s not the only source of the problem here. There was a TV show back in February that alleged abuses by Amazon, including the use of security connected with neo-Nazis:

DW.de article

That documentary probably contributed to this strike…Germany is a big market for Amazon, and you know how it goes…once a powerful entity gets hit, the hits may keep on coming.

I’ve written before about negative stories about how Amazon treats warehouse workers in the USA. There may be a reason Amazon bought a robot company, partially to automate warehouses…

Then, there is this article about Amazon.uk (as opposed to Amazon.de, which had the strike:

Reuters article

Amazon recently reported financials, and, well, they fed concerns people have had about the e-tailer running business through a Luxembourg division…which means they don’t pay the same taxes they would if they were housed in, say, the UK.

According to the article, Amazon paid $3.7 million in taxes on an income of $6.5 billion…note those initial consonants. That’s a rate of about….0.06%. It’s a good thing Europe is rolling in the dough right now and doesn’t need money, right? Just kidding…my guess is that Luxembourg isn’t too upset by this. Amazon does have to be careful about it’s reputation, though, and not just in the USA.

How logo would you go-go?

One of my regular readers, Lady Galaxy, gave me the heads-up on this

Daily Finance article

about “subliminal” company logos.

A lot of people became familiar with the concept with Wilson Bryan Key’s book,

Subliminal Seduction

which isn’t currently available in a Kindle edition.

Certainly, Keys’ ideas have been challenged…see this

The Straight Dope by Cecil Adams article

The basic idea is that images of which you are not consciously aware can influence you…in particular, there might be unrelated images (such as sexual ones) in an ad for a drink, perhaps, and that would make you want to buy that drink.

Anyway, the Daily Finance article included Amazon’s logo…and that prompted some comments from another regular reader, Roger Knights, and my responses to them.

Before I tell you what we were saying, let me ask you some questions:

Reportedly, it’s intended to look like both a smile and carry that “A to Z” message. The latter is also supported by Amazon’s research department being called Lab 126, about which Jason Merkoski in Review: Burning the Page says,

“As for the “126” part, well, you have to realize that there was never a Lab125 or a Lab124, just like there was only ever a Preparation H, never a G or an F. The “126” part stems from the fact that “A” is the first letter of the alphabet and “Z” is the 26th, a techno-geeky homage to the “A to Z” development center. Jeff liked his geeky in-jokes— you could have heard his laugh a mile away when they came up with that name.”

The discussion Roger and I were having was over whether the line is an arrow pointing to the “O” (and therefore a mistake) or a flowchart type connector with the arrowhead just indicating direction (so it is “A to Z” and not “Z to A”). Roger thinks they should change the logo so that the arrowhead points more clearly to the Z. I don’t feel the need for that. For me, that message is done correctly…the arrowhead even distorts the bottom of the Z, pushing it up out of the way and deforming it.

What do you think?

New York Times: “U.S. Now Paints Apple as ‘Ringmaster’ in Its Lawsuit on E-Book Price-Fixing”

This New York Times article

reports something which simultaneously seems obvious and makes you shake your head in disbelief.

The DoJ (Department of Justice) has now released e-mails which make it really clear that Apple wanted e-book prices to go up when it masterminded the Agency Model for e-books.

That’s the allegation…and unless Apple is going to say the e-mails are false, they are pretty convincing (take a look at the article by Edward Wyatt and Nick Wingfield).

I suppose the shift here is in seeing publishers as the victims of Apple, rather than as co-conspirators.

It always seemed apparent to me that Apple had come up with the idea, and floated it to publishers. One question was whether or not the publishers discussed it with each other (which could make them guilty of a conspiracy to fix prices), or just each individually made a deal with Apple.

It’s not a surprise that Apple might have been the “ringleader”. It’s hard for me to imagine the publishers all sitting together and saying, “You know, it’s rumored that Apple is going to be producing a new tablet computer. Let’s suggest to them that they make us raise the prices on e-books…”

What do you think? Would you want a waterproof solar-powered EBR…even if it wasn’t a Kindle? Would you pay almost $200 more for one? Does Amazon’s treatment of its warehouse workers bother you? Are the publishers victims of Apple? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Judge rules against ReDigi, making Amazon used e-books more likely

Judge rules against ReDigi, making Amazon used e-books more likely

Judge Richard J. Sullivan has decided against ReDigi, which runs what amounts to a used digital music service:

“However, here, the Court cannot of its own accord condone the wholesale application of the first sale defense to the digital sphere, particularly when Congress itself has declined to take that step. Accordingly, and for the reasons stated above, the Court GRANTS Capitol’s motion for summary judgment on its claims for ReDigi’s direct, contributory, and vicarious infringement of its distribution and reproduction rights. The Court also DENIES ReDigi’s motion in its entirety.”
–Memorandum and Order

I haven’t read the entire M&O yet, but I figured many of you might be seeing this this morning and I thought you might appreciate my opinion on it.

The first thing to say is that this isn’t necessarily the end of the case…ReDigi can appeal this ruling from the

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

and it could go to the Supreme Court eventually. The Judge has asked for a joint letter by April 12th from the parties about what they want to do next.

Unless a court were to rule that the First Sale Doctrine (which is what enables you to resell a paperbook without first getting the publisher’s permission, basically) applies to contracts (which is what you agree to when you buy an e-book in the Kindle store…you are really buying a license), I haven’t quite seen ReDigi’s argument.

The process that they use,while it ensures that only one copy of the e-book does exist at a time between the purchasers, still makes a copy and distributes it without the rightsholder’s authorization. While the effect is similar to selling a copy of a p-book, the process is quite different…and you didn’t buy a copy of the file, you bought a license.

However, I’m not a lawyer, and I’m always hesitant to predict what a court will do, based on mere logic.

The key thing for me is that the potential for using Amazon’s patent, which I wrote about in early February, to create a used e-book market, is strengthened by this decision.

As I explained in that post, Amazon would do this with the rightsholders’ permission…and it would be an economic win for everybody, the way I laid it out.

There’s the split: without permission/with permission.

Not allowing it to be done without permission makes doing it with permission more economically viable, since there would be fewer competitors.

I think this moves a used e-book marketplace (through Amazon) much closer…you could be selling your used e-books sooner.

Publishers may wait to see what happens until we see what ReDigi does…if they don’t appeal (I expect that they will, if they have the resources), that helps clear the way for Amazon.

Yes, yes, I know…we don’t want Amazon monopolizing the used e-book market, any more than we would them monopolizing the used p-book market. However, the legal used e-book market doesn’t even exist right now, at least not unambiguously. Amazon’s patent could bring one into being, saving you money.

What do you think? Should the First Sale Doctrine apply to digital goods? Was ReDigi working in good faith to protect rightsholders’ interests, or was it working around existing protections for its own benefit? How important would a used e-book market be to you? Even with Amazon having a patent, could other legal resellers emerge? For example, could the publishers themselves do used e-books, if you bought directly from them (perhaps “buying you out” of the contract early)? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Indie bookstores sue: the end of Kindle-specific DRM?

Indie bookstores sue: the end of Kindle-specific DRM?

I wanted to wait to write about the

lawsuit filing document

by three bookstores against Amazon and the “Big Six” publishers (Random House, Penguin ((those two are in the process of merging)), Simon & Schuster, Hachette, HarperCollins, and Macmillan) alleging that, through the use of DRM (Digital Rights Management), they have unfairly cut independent bookstores out of the e-book market, until I had a chance to really read it. This is a class action suit, on behalf of all independent bookstores which sell e-books.

IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer), but my basic understanding of the Sherman Act (which is the basis of the suit) is that on the one hand, you can’t get together and act to constrain trade, and on the other, you can’t have a monopoly.

It’s a lot more shaded and complex than that, and even having 100% of a market doesn’t make you automatically a monopoly.

If the suit were to succeed, I think the likely result would be that publishers would sell e-books with “open source DRM”, meaning that you could buy an e-book from an independent store (but not meaning that you wouldn’t be prohibited electronically from copying and distributing that book).

The filing is not particularly long, or terribly steeped in legalese…you may want to read it yourself.

I think it is a long shot, but again, I’m no real expert.

From Amazon’s defense viewpoint, there are a couple of obvious angles.

First, Amazon allows publishers to sell e-books without DRM through Amazon. Tor (a division of Macmillan) does it, for example, and indie publishers using Kindle Direct Publishing can opt for that as well. If publishers don’t choose to do that, that is their choice.

Second, there are competitors. You can buy most of the same e-books from Barnes & Noble, Sony, or Apple…certainly, that’s true of many of the most popular books. The existence of Kindle-specific DRM coding doesn’t prevent other coding. Could independent bookstores come up with a DRM plan that the publishers would accept? I think so, but it doesn’t seem to me like that is Amazon’s issue.

On the publishers’ side, it might be trickier.

As I understand it, you can’t, as a supplier, not give retail stores an equal opportunity to buy and sell your goods, especially if you get together with other like entities to enact a policy like that. Let’s say you make a…widghookie. You set a wholesale price for it. Then, you decide you won’t sell it to any stores managed by people with…oh, blue eyes. Even though the blue-eyed people offer you the exact same compensation as the other people. That’s a very simple illustration, and lawyers, please be welcome to explain why it might be incorrect.

Let’s say your widghookie has a wholesale price of a gazillion dollars. That’s going to price small stores out of selling it, but it wouldn’t be a violation…as long as,if a small store can raise that gazillion dollars somehow, they can buy it (and resell it to the public).

If the publishers have not allowed independent stores to develop a similar DRM plan which they accept, then I think they have a problem.

I think that’s unlikely to be an issue, though.

The suit makes some odd points…

• It suggests that the introduction of Kindles allowed e-books to be read on a portable device. Actually, there were already at least ten EBRs (E-Book Readers) in the US market when the Kindle came out in 2007…including Sony being in the market. The Kindle transformed the market in part by allowing wireless downloads, in part by being associated with Amazon (which was associated in a strong way with books), and yes, in part by getting fuller tradpub (traditional publisher) participation (in my opinion, on all three of these). That might have been an interesting argument: did tradpubs enter the market more strongly because of Amazon’s DRM? 
• The suit is simply wrong when it says, “All e-books sold by AMAZON contain the AZW DRM.” As I mentioned above, selling with DRM is optional at Amazon

Let’s say that the suit continues to the point where Amazon might choose to settle. Could I see that happening?

While I think it’s unlikely, yes. I could see Amazon dropping DRM. There are other ways to bind buyers to you, including great customer service.

The unintended consequence of no DRM, of course, would be publishers suing people who were distributing books. DRM, when used properly, can work as an infringement preventative (by average users). This is always a difficult thing to discuss, because some people are very passionate about not liking DRM (and certainly, the success of DRM MP3s for music can be legitimately raised, even though the use models of books and songs are quite different). Publishers can reduce casual (and often unintended) infringement using DRM, or they can pursue people legally after the fact.

We’ll keep an eye on this suit, but I don’t think it will have the impact of the Department of Justice’s legal action against five of the Big Six and Apple over the Agency Model.

What do you think? Is the use of platform-specific DRM inherently anticompetitive? Would the publishing industry be helped or hurt by dropping the sort of DRM that exists now? Was DRM perhaps important in the nascent stage of the e-book industry, but no longer as important? Feel free to let me and my readers know by commenting on this post.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.