Register of Copyrights and director of the US Copyright Office Shira Perlmutter formally responded to US Senate ranking member on the subcommittee on intellectual property Thom Tillis’s request for an analysis of Maryland’s recently-enacted law regulating library lending of ebooks and similar efforts pending on other states. Tillis was clearly looking for confirmation of his inference “that these state legislative efforts would appear to directly conflict with the Copyright Act’s clear language” and “preemption rules that situate copyright law exclusively at the federal level.” Perlmutter concurs, noting, “We conclude that under current precedent, the state laws at issue are likely […]
eNews
Earlier Kindle Models Will Get Bricked As Carriers Drop Older Networks
Cellphone carriers are sunsetting their 2G and 3G (and CDMA) networks, which means that a number of older Kindle ereaders will lose their cellphone connectivity. The earliest models will lose their internet connectivity entirely as a result. A number of other models, “from the third-gen Kindle Keyboard all the way to the 8th-gen Kindle Oasis,” will lose their cell-based service but at least retain wifi capability. Amazon notified customers of the coming changes by email and is providing a $50 credit towards a new device and and $15 in ebook credits.
Funding: BookClub Raises Again
After announcing $6 million in seed funding last September, BookClub has now raised a $20 million Series A financing. The round was led by Signal Peak Ventures — which was joined by GSV Ventures, Maveron, Backstage Capital and Pelion Venture Partner, along with MasterClass co-founded Aaron Rasmussen and Goodreads co-founder Otis Chandler. The service has been in private beta, but expects to open to the public in July. TechCrunch says they are still “experimenting with two services to bring author-led discussions to readers.” One is a traditional interview-style format with the author; another has viewers “click through videos as they […]
Back to the Future: Kobo Launches Writeable eReader
If you remember the Newton and the early days of dedicated ereaders, Kobo’s new product announcement is a trip down memory lane. Their Elipsa reader, launching June 24 is oversized — a 10.3-inch screen — and writeable. It comes with a stylus and lets you annotate ebooks and PDFs (depending on the DRM permissions). You can also “create your own notebooks, where you can instantly convert your notes to clean typed text, and export them off your device as needed.” With students finally converting to digital textbooks, the $399 Elipsa is positioned as a better dedicated learning reader. In other […]
Amazon Publishing Reaches Library Deal
Amazon Publishing will finally make their titles available for lending to library patrons in the US, working with the non-profit Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) and the SimplyE ereader app created by the New York Public Library. Starting this summer, and applying to their full catalog of approximately 10,000 ebooks and audiobooks, Amazon Publishing will offer four different licensing models. They say, “We expect that libraries will be able to access all of the Amazon Publishing titles by the end of the year.” For access by one reader at a time, they provide for either unlimited lends in a […]
Korea’s Kakao Buys Out Radish and Tapas Media as Naver Closes Wattpad Acquisition
South Korean’s Kakao Entertainment is buying serialized fiction app Radish for $440 million and web comics platform Tapas Media for $510 million. The purchases expand on Kakao’s popular webtoons business, currently focused on Korea and Japan. Kakao was already a minority investor in both companies — reported to own about 13 percent of Radish after helping to lead their $63 million Series A financing, and with a recently-increased stake of 40 percent in Tapas. “We are planning to engage the North American market in earnest through the intellectual property (IP) business” with the two acquisitions, Kakao Entertainment CEO Jinsoo Lee […]