France Chooses Profit For Publishers Over Authors’ Rights And Public Libraries

Posted on March 7, 2012 by laura

Last week, Mike Cane alerted me to a new law that was recently passed in France: France’s Book Grab: Worse Than Google Books.

The law was passed on February 23 and relates to the digitization of “unavailable books” from the 20th century. As set out in the motivation for the proposal of the draft legislation to the Senate,

In effect, because there is little economic profit to be gained, a large part of the titles published in the 20th century were not reprinted. The titles are out of print, commercially unavailable and no longer accessible except in libraries. In this context, digitization is the only imaginable way to bring new life to this important corpus, but it is not legally possible, because the ownership of the digital rights is unclear.

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En effet, pour des raisons de faible rentabilité économique, une grande partie des titres publiés au XXe siècle n’a pas été rééditée. Les titres sont épuisés sous forme imprimée, indisponibles dans le commerce et ne sont plus accessibles que dans les bibliothèques. Dans ce contexte, la numérisation est le seul horizon envisageable pour faire renaître cet important corpus, mais elle n’est juridiquement pas possible, car la titularité des droits numériques est incertaine.

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Posted in Books, Copyright, Libraries | Tagged | 19 Comments

Last Book Sale In Switzerland?

Posted on March 1, 2012 by laura

I took this photo on the way to work yesterday morning. The signs in this bookstore window say “Sale” and “50% on all odd articles.” They’re referring to remnants for which the set is incomplete.

If you look carefully, you can see the posters and pamphlets for the “Oui Au Livre” campaign to vote in favor of regulated book prices in the upcoming referendum.

According to the text of the law put to vote [pdf in French], retailers would be able to offer customers a maximum discount of 5% on single items. Collections of related works may benefit from unlimited discounts, but it doesn’t say anything about odd volumes or special sales.

Ironically, if the referendum passes, 50% sales like this may become a thing of the past unless specifically authorized by publishers.

It’s hard for me to understand how anyone will ultimately benefit from this short-sighted attempt to preserve an industry struggling to find its future amidst fundamental changes in technology and consumer behaviors.

Previously here:

Oui Au Livre? Swiss Referendum On The Regulation Of Book Prices
Single Price: An Arm And A Leg

Posted in Books, Switzerland | Tagged | Leave a comment

Personal Data Sold To Marketers By The Government

Posted on February 20, 2012 by laura

Since I’ve been living in Europe, I’ve been generally impressed by the attention of European states to their citizens’ rights with respect to privacy. From the mandatory blurring of faces in Google Street View images in places like Germany, which seemed to surprise many Americans, to the reaction of the European Council to legislation such as the proposed three strikes law for illegal downloads, certain provisions of the ACTA treaty and the question of protecting personal data used by mobile geolocation services, Europe seems to come down on the side of protecting citizens. Europe has a Data Protection Directive, which governs all the European member states.

France is not an exception to this rule, so when I heard a report on the evening news last week about the French government selling personal data from vehicle registration records to businesses for commercial use, I looked up the details on the Internet.
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Single Price: An Arm And A Leg

Posted on February 14, 2012 by laura

Most of the billboards I saw last week in favor of the single price for books have been replaced by more mundane posters for individual candidates or parties. Of those I noticed, only one remains.

On the other hand, I saw my first poster for the opposing side today on my way home from work.

It says,

Importer’s Diktat
NO
Single price: an arm and a leg!
No to the single price for books March 11, 2012!

For now, it’s the only one I’ve seen.

Previously here: Oui Au Livre? Swiss Referendum On The Regulation Of Book Prices

Posted in Books, Switzerland | Tagged | 2 Comments

Oui Au Livre? Swiss Referendum On The Regulation Of Book Prices

Posted on February 12, 2012 by laura

Preparation is underway for the national vote next month in Switzerland. On March 11, citizens will vote on five different referenda. Among the proposals, a limit on the number of secondary residences per commune, an increase of the minimum amount of paid vacation to six weeks, and the regulation of book prices.

In Lausanne, the first billboards to go up were those sponsored by the committee supporting the single price for books. With their bright blue and red colors, the snow-covered Alps in the background and a young Heidi-like figure holding a book high aloft, the Oui Au Livre (Yes To The Book) Campaign first caught my eye on the way to work Monday morning.

What’s all this about? Read more of this post

Posted in Books, Switzerland | Tagged | 5 Comments

Hulu For Books Is A Great Idea, Just Don’t Do It Like Hulu

Posted on February 8, 2012 by laura

Earlier this week, Mike Cane published a fantastic idea, The Hulu For Books That Never Was.

The formation of Hulu should have been a wake-up call to the Big Six of publishing.

They too should have banded together to form a Hulu for Books.

I’ve often wondered why the major publishers haven’t done something like that. A fragmented offer isn’t going to compete against Amazon, Apple or the rest. On the other hand, I’d be genuinely stunned if they did manage to come together to do it. The TV industry doesn’t seem to have been able to, despite being ahead of publishers in the digital transformation. Why should we expect publishers to do any better? They’re caught in the Innovator’s Dilemma, still worried about projects that might “cannibalize” existing revenues, and everyone knows what that means.

Although this is a great idea, if publishers want to do it, I don’t think Hulu is a good model to follow and here’s why:

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Posted in Amazon, Apple, Books, eBooks, Google, Innovation, TV, User Experience | Tagged | Leave a comment

Bottin vs. Google

Posted on February 5, 2012 by laura

Last week the French Tribunal de Commerce ruled in favor of French mapping company Bottin in their complaint against Google for unfair competition, abuse of a dominant market position and abusive pricing. As most of the articles in the major French newspapers have noted, this judgement does not pertain to the Google Maps service as provided to individuals, but to the use of Google Maps API, which Google provided to businesses for free. Nevertheless, there seems to be a great deal of confusion about this ruling around the Internet, so I thought an explanation might be helpful.

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Posted in Google, Internet, Technology | 2 Comments

David Lynch, Commercials, Product Placement, And The Audience Relationship To Books And Film

Posted on February 4, 2012 by laura

A few days ago, Open Culture featured some of David Lynch’s Surreal Commercials.

Still thinking about David Foster Wallace’s comments on Lynch with respect to the expectations we bring to media and how they shape our perception of it, I took a few minutes to watch these clips, most of which I hadn’t seen before. I was surprised to see that Lynch had produced a commercial for Parisienne’s “Parisienne People” campaign for cinemas in Switzerland. Of these, I had only seen the ones from Robert Altman and the Coen brothers.

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eReaders Go Mainstream In Switzerland?

Posted on February 4, 2012 by laura

Yesterday, I passed by the FNAC in Lausanne during opening hours and had a chance to pop in to see what was new.

I noticed that they had moved the eReaders from the locked glass display case in the mobile phone section of the store to an open area alongside laptops and tablets. I’m not sure exactly when that happened, but I did not notice it when I visited the store before Christmas. This move sends the signal that eReaders are becoming less of a novelty, early adopter product in Switzerland–or at least FNAC is adopting a strategy to make them so.

On display were models from iRiver, Kobo, Sony, and Bookeen. There were two LCD screen readers, an Archos 70 eReader and the MPMan Color eBook 7. The two Bookeen models were the Odyssey and Orizon Cybor10.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to play with any of them because I didn’t have much time and most needed to have their batteries recharged anyway. I’d especially like to see the Kobo, so I’ll try to make time to slip back there sometime soon to try it.

Posted in eBooks, Switzerland, Technology | Leave a comment

Thoughts On Books And Movies: David Foster Wallace On David Lynch

Posted on January 25, 2012 by laura

A little while before Christmas, Sara Marie Watson, shared a link to an article by David Lynch fan David Foster Wallace describing the time he spent on the set of Lost Highway.

https://twitter.com/#!/smwat/status/145792445999874048
As a Lynch fan, I enjoyed reading the piece.

This passage caught my attention in particular. It’s rather long (surprise) but I’m going to quote it in full here (emphasis is mine):

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Posted in Books, Film | Tagged | 2 Comments