05:52 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | General Discussions

Yes, rightsholders are entitled to protect their content from being pirated, but it's a sad fact that many of them are quite trigger-happy when it comes to wiping their content off the face of the Internet. This time it happened to Larry Lessig, Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School and co-founder of Creative Commons, who has allegedly violated copyright because he used a song by the French band Phoenix in one of his lectures that was subsequently posted on YouTube. Rather than removing the lecture clip, Prof. Lessig is now fighting back by suing Liberation Music. He enlisted EFF to help him take the record company to court:

Earlier this year, Liberation Music, which claims to own the license to the Phoenix song, began the process to block the video through YouTube's copyright infringement system. After the company submitted a DMCA takedown notice, Lessig filed a counter-notice that asserted the clips were fair use. After Liberation Music threatened to sue Lessig, he retracted the notice. But Lessig did not concede this issue. Instead, he enlisted EFF's help to take Liberation Music to court.

"There's a long and sorry history of content owners abusing copyright to take down fair uses, but this one is particularly shocking," said EFF Intellectual Property Director Corynne McSherry. "Based on nothing more than a few clips illustrating Internet creativity, Liberation Music took down an entire lecture by one of the leading experts in the world on copyright and fair use. This kind of abuse has to stop."

Below are two YouTube clips where Lessig talks about copyright.

Q&A with Lawrence Lessig on copyright in the digital age

Larry Lessig: Laws that choke creativity

Related: US Gov seeks to strike a copyright balance, wants your input, Rapidshare loses court battle against German booksellers

[via Boing Boing]

Image: Kristina Alexanderson/Flickr

04:55 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Now, you're not going to see this in stores any time soon. But if you've always liked the idea of mimicking the act of reading a book, take a look at the Twistbook (see attached images). Fabrice Dubuy has created this concept design of a dual-face E Ink reader that allows the user to simulate the feel of flipping through the pages of a book.

Related: So, did companies give up on two page devices?

[via Trendhunter]

03:16 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Lo and behold, today marks the day when calibre has finally reached the all-important 1.0 status. We've to go far back in time - somewhere in late October 2006 to be precise - when MobileReader and calibre brainchild kovidgoyal introduced the libprs500 tool. libprs500 was the predecessor of calibre, and it served as an unofficial solution for accessing the Sony PRS-500 (Sony's first e-reader, long before Amazon introduced the Kindle) from non-Windows hosts. It was then sometime around mid-2008 when libprs500 was renamed to calibre in participation of supporting non-Sony readers as well.

Congrats to everyone who's been involved in the development of calibre, and of course, first and foremost congrats to Kovid! Now that we've reached 1.0 - when can we expect version 2.0?

So what's new in 1.0?

New Features

• A new 'cover grid' view of the books in your calibre library
• A new, faster database backend
• RTF Input: Add option to ignore WMF images iinstead of replacing them with a placeholder
• Content server: Make virtual libraries available as searches from the start page. They work just like saved searches, clicking on a virtual library will show you all the books in that virtual library

Bug Fixes

• Remove extra, useless 'language' entry in metadata download configuration dialog
• Kobo driver: Display device collections even if the driver is configured to not manage shelves on the device
• Fix typo in calibre.desktop file on linux
• Edit metadata dialog: Disable OK button while results are being downloaded
• In OS X 10.8 Apple stopped redirecting stdout/stderr to Console.app for applications launched by launch services. Re-enable the redirection, useful for debugging
• Fix virtual library tabs not being updated when using VL button

New and improved news sources

• News24 and Nuus24 by Nicki de Wet
• Consumerist
• jeuxvideo
• Metro UK
• El Tribuno
• High Country News
• Daily Express
• Providence Journal
• mediapart

The above list only lists changes from the last 0.9 version. For a complete list of changes between 0.9 and 1.0, see this page.

Want to know more about calibre? Head over to the Calibre forums.

02:44 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

According to the latest MobileSTAT reports from Jumptap, Apple is still the dominating force in the tablet market, while Samsung continues to make gains. Unfortunately for Amazon, the Kindle Fire loses ground by a hefty 11.4 percent (from previously 21.5 percent to 10.1 percent).

From the press release:

Apple continues to hold the top spot in tablet market share, but its chief competitor in the smartphone sector, Samsung, is starting to make a run. The Samsung Galaxy Tab jumped 5.8 percentage points in market share year-over-year. Meanwhile, Kindle Fire, which was the hottest challenger to Apple after Christmas 2011, has cooled down, losing 11.4 percentage points in market share. Additionally, Google’s Nexus is finally on the radar after releasing three generations of its first tablet in just one year.

While Amazon is currently selling the Kindle Fire as certified refurbished marked down from $239 to $179, we predict that once the new Fire generation hits the market, its total market share is likely to grow again.

Related: Rumor: Next-gen Kindle Fire HD 8.9" aka KFAPWA benchmark leak, Kindle Fire HD: More leaked benchmarks; codenamed Soho, Thor and Apollo

02:07 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | General Discussions

A UK children's charity, NSPCC, urges parents to monitor the e-books read by their children. The warnings comes after a mother caught her 13-year-old daughter discussing with a friend an X-rated Kindle publication how to make sex tapes to become famous. The Telegraph reports:

The two teenagers had been reading aloud from It’s All About the Sex Face: A Guide to Becoming a Celebrity, a no holds barred manual offering tips on how to achieve instant fame by producing a sex video.

The e-book, which costs £1.02 to download from Amazon, claims you can “actually become famous without even having a talent”.

Jon Brown, head of sexual abuse at the NSPCC, said: “It is really important to talk to your children about the risks that are out there either online or offline, in an age-appropriate way and without frightening them.

It's unfortunate that it goes so far that owning a reading device should require parents to discuss with their children the risks of making sex tapes. Or should online book sellers be required to include warnings on adult literature? What do you think?

11:49 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

We're still getting over Barnes and Noble's less-than-stellar quarterly results, when the company announced today a little freebie that sets our heart aflutter again, at least a little bit. According to the press release, starting tomorrow, Friday, August 23, anyone who downloads a NOOK reading app and sets up a new NOOK account is entitled to the following free bestseller readings:

• Red or Dead by David Pearce
• The White Queen by Philippa Gregory
• City of Bones, The Mortal Instrument Book 1, by Cassandra Clare

In addition, they're going to give out the August edition of T3 and the summer edition of the lifestyle mag The Simple Things.

Update: As pointed out by MobileReader hwlester it's quite possible that this deal is only valid for new NOOK user registrations within the U.K.

Unfortunately it seems this offer is only good for new NOOK user registrations.

09:40 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Various online webstores predominantly from Switzerland, have leaked sales information of what appears to be the upcoming Sony PRS-T3 e-book reader.

Specs:

• 6-inch E Ink screen with IR touch, 1024x758, 16 grey levels
• WLAN (802.11b/g/n)
• Dimensions: 160x109x11.3mm
• Weight: 200g
• Cover with automatic start/sleep function
• Available in the colors black (PRST3BC), red (PRST3RC), and white (PRST3WC)

The information suggests that the Sony PRS-T3 will be priced at somewhere around CAD $158 (~US $150) and CHF 188 (~US $200), and that it will be available in late-September/early October (in Switzerland that is).

Update:
I should add that in Switzerland, grey imports of electronics is legal. Hence very often you get electronics in Switzerland on the same day when they are released elsewhere.

In one of the Swiss stores it is suggested that the release day for the Sony PRS-T3 is Sep 19, 2013 (black) and Sep 26, 2013 (red and white), and that these dates have been confirmed by the company importing the devices.

Related: Is Sony readying the PRS-T3? PRS-T2 on sale, Sony's PRS-T3 leaks out at the FCC, Possible new Sony ereader with Glo

[via TDR]

09:21 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

The latest competing for your backing dollars comes from a small group of Hong-Kong based inventors, who launched their "world's first EINK computer monitor" fund-matching campaign on Indiegogo. The idea is that you take a regular e-book reader with a standard E Ink screen, and connect it to your computer to function as a secondary monitor.

From the description:

It is the world's first EINK Ebook Reader and Monitor 2in1 device. We call it CBR. After the campaign ending, we will reveal what CBR stands for to our contributors.

The purpose of this project is to use a regular EINK ebook reader as a second computer monitor, displaying text or images that are displayed on LCD/TV monitors onto the EINK ebook reader device. It’s better for the eyes and much more readable for the user.

Color me a shade of skeptic, but I cannot quite see yet how the slow refresh and relatively low resolution of an E Ink screen could be any useful in a standard desktop work environment.