Authors Guilds Sue
Authors Guilds in four countries and numerous individual authors have sued to stop Google, the University of Michigan, the U of California system, and Cornell (among others) from scanning and distributing books whose copyrights cannot be confirmed.
The suit claims that over 7 million titles with valid copyrights have been scanned, made available, and are digitally stored at U of Michigan, which remains “undaunted” and continues scanning its titles.
Borders' Bonuses
Borders Group has requested bonus payments for the management team that remained in place through its bankruptcy. Borders former employees have posted the dollar amounts proposed and filed a class action lawsuit for severance pay.
B&N Buys Info
Barnes & Noble has purchased the customer profiles from the bankrupt Borders Group and will be able to target emails to former Borders' customers based on their previous purchases.
Fire Sale
Amazon has challenged Apple's iPad with the Kindle Fire, a tablet running a modified Android O/S. In terms of features it appears to be no threat to the iPad, since its cloud based technology focuses on entertainment, not web surfing. Priced at $199 it may find a substantial audience.
Lost in the hoopla was news of the other updated Kindles that were introduced.
Bookflix?
Amazon has also introduced a media subscription service called Prime that will allow subscribers to download books, movies, etc, for $79 per year. Few publishers have endorsed the idea.
Kodak Woes A decade ago Kodak was a major supplier to the print industry with film, plates, chemistry, equipment, etc. Now, coupled with the decline of snapshot film, the company has hired law firm Jones Day to oversee what it hopes is a turnaround, not a bankruptcy as it's stock shares slid into the $.70 range.
Reading Scores Tank
Our entire industry serves one purpose: to supply content for people to read. Look for that audience to continue contracting as SAT reading scores fell to their lowest level ever.
Crystal Covers Harper Collins is contemplating a special edition of Dollhouse by the Kardashian sisters which would have Swarovski crystal studding the covers.
Domestic Printing
Argentina has over a million books sitting in customs houses, confiscated because they were imported. Argentina aims to rebuild its domestic print industry by banning printing outside its borders
Amazon eBook Solutions
After some readers complained about typos and errors in Neal Stephenson's Reamde eBook, Amazon arbitrarily replaced the contents on customer's Kindles via Wi-Fi...which removed all of the notes, bookmarks and highlighting the reader may have added. The accompanying note also advised that “missing content had been corrected”, but failed to note which content and where it was located.
The Future of Newspapers
An Editor-in-Chief of a major European paper discusses growing the digital commitment of newspapers profitably.
Comic Book Sales Drop
Comic book sales continue to decline, losing 4% revenue last year, but the publishers are fighting back with some dramatic changes. Archie Comics has introduced an openly gay character who marries in issue #16 of the Life with Archie series. Also, proceeds from issue #625 (70th anniversary issue) of Archie, which features a character fighting cancer, will be donated to the Ronald McDonald House.
Meanwhile, Superman and his DC Comic cohorts gets stylish makeovers to fight crime in the 21st century.
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