Judge Denny Chin has reviewed the revised Google Books Settlement proposal and found it to be “within the range of possible approval” and set a February 18 hearing date. The court granted preliminary approval of the amended agreement (a procedural formality rather than a judgment) and recertified the revised settlement classes for settlement purposes only and accepted the expanded author and publisher plaintiffs. Chin has approved a new round of notice beginning December 14 to anyone who registered at the settlement website, opted out, or filed papers with the court, and the new deadline for opt outs and objections is […]
eNews
eReaders: Demanding Supply Issues
As previously reported, early demand for Barnes & Noble’s has soaked up most of the projected available supply prior to Christmas. Now Sony is looking to pick up some of that same glow, saying people who asked “to be notified” when the wireless Daily Edition became available “exceeded our expectations over the last few months and we expect high demand now that it’s available.” But that just papers over the fact that Sony has mostly blown the holiday season by not having any units ready to ship until December 18.Reuters For more e-reading material, Mike Shatzkin considers some “changes in […]
Finally: Canada Gets their Kindle
This morning Amazon announced a Canada-compliant Kindle is ready for immediate shipping. (Canada had been left aside at the initial release of the international version of Kindle.) As for other international customers, the units are priced in US dollars, and the promised “typical” low low price for new releases and Globe and Mail bestsellers is $11.99 “or less.” Amazon is offering Kindle version of the Globe and Mail and National Post, and will add Canwest’s top newspapers shortly.Release Separately, BN.com addressed a frequent complaint among their customers on one of their blogs yesterday. As of mid-December, they will start accepting […]
New Deals for Smashwords and Scribd
Following their sales partnership with BN.com, Smashwords has struck a partnership to supply their self-published and small publisher ebooks to Shortcovers as well. Smashwords says their authors and publishers will earn 46.75 percent of the digital list price on those sales. Separately, Scribd.com announced a deal to offer over 14,000 dissertations and theses from ProQuestUMI through their site. Selling at $49, they will pay 80 percent of the proceeds to ProQuest. Overall, Proquest has over 2 million dissertations and theses in its database.
New Google Settlement Drops Foreign-Language Works, and Gives Orphans a Fiduciary
Bowing to pressure from foreign governments and the Department of Justice, the revised Google Books Settlement agreement presented to the District Court shortly before midnight on Friday limits the scope of the scheme to works registered with the US Copyright Office and books published in the UK, Canada and Australia. As part of that change, the named plaintiffs have been expanded to include authors and publishers from those countries, and British, Australian and Canadian rightsholders will gain representation of the Book Rights Registry board. Expressing a less expansive view than he did a year ago when announcing the first settlement […]
eAnnouncements
B&H Publishing Group will launch a downloadable five dollar Xbox 360 application called Bible Navigator X in December featuring the complete Holman Christian Standard Bible. They say it is “thought to be the first complete Bible available on a video game console.” It includes search and bookmarking tools that are “designed for everyone, but particularly with youth ministers in mind.”More info Hachette Book Group has hired Tata Consultancy Services to take over day-to-day technology needs including application development and support and off-hours service. The larger point is to free HBG’s own IT staff to focus on innovation and expansion of […]