Yesterday a variety of Dutch publishers filed objections to the Google Books settlement agreement with the Federal District Court, in similar letters from Leopold/Ploegsma; Querido; SWP; Athenaeum – Polak & Van Gennep; and Nijgh & Van Ditmar, citing many of the same objections as other European publishers that we reported on yesterday. Holland’s Unieboek and Spectrum departed from that form letter and sent a different list of objections, including an assertion that “the division of any income between publishers, authors and translators is currently still unclear to us.” New objections were also filed by Czernin Verlag, Sweden’s Liber, and the […]
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Europe Objects
It’s a quiet week in most of book publishing but a busy one in the offices of Federal District Court Judge Denny Chin as Friday is the deadline for filing objections to the proposed Google Books settlement agreement. (September 4 is also the deadline for opting out of the settlement entirely.) Until recently, despite the noisy public debate about the sweeping and complex settlement, very few objections of substance had been filed with the court. The most detailed legal objections, covered here previously, were raised by attorney and author Scott Gant in his August 20 filing, while support has come […]
BN to Distribute Smashwords Titles
Ebook distributor and online self-publishing platform Smashwords announced late Friday that BarnesandNoble.com will sell titles from the company as part of its new “premium feed.” Smashwords, which says they publish about 2,600 titles electronically, will sell to BN.com at a traditional discount of approximately 50 percent, and will keep approximately 7.5 percent as their commission, giving authors and publishers 42.5 percent of the sale. Founder Mark Coker says that “additional distribution relationships are forthcoming.” He says that “until today, it was difficult if not impossible for independent authors and publishers to gain such mainstream digital distibution.”Company announcement
EU Begins Consultation on Future of Digitized Books
Europeana, the EU’s digital library, has more than doubled its collection of digital books, maps, photographs and other items since its November 2008 inception and with projections of up to 10 million by 2010, the European Commission has opened up a public inquiry on the future challenges for book digitisation in Europe and the need to reform copyright framework that runs until November 15. In a statement, Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media “finds it alarming” that Europeana makes only 5% of all digitized books available, with much of those works from a single country. Other issues […]
E-News: Sony Reader in Europe, Frustration with Kindle Licenses, and More
WHSmith and Waterstone’s appear to be heading towards a price war on Sony Readers once the latter retailer’s exclusive period ends on September 17th. Waterstone’s will be selling the new Sony Reader – Touch for £249.99, however the WHS website is selling it for £219. With the Sony Reader – Pocket Waterstone’s is taking pre-orders for £179.99 whereas WHS is offering it at £159.The Bookseller But don’t expect the Daily Edition, Sony’s touchscreen wireless reader, to be available in the UK anytime soon. Sony did confirm it will be sold there, but that it may take “a year or two.”PC […]
The Daily Google: EPUB Format, More on the Open Book Alliance
Google Books will make over one million public domain titles available in EPUB format in order “to make these books more accessible by helping people around the world to find and read them in more places.”Google Books Blog The Internet Archive’s Peter Brantley tells the Guardian about the Open Book Alliance, a “hodgepodge” of corporations like Microsoft, Yahoo and Amazon as well as libraries and journalists who oppose the Google Books Settlement. “We see this as an organization that’s really quite heterogeneous in its composition,” he said, “each of [organization] whom, by the way, has very distinct and very specific […]