But really: who is to blame? Yes, the authors. But what about the publishers? Branding themselves as the guardians of quality, the promotors of good taste, … how could they ignore or "overlook" the fact that they were fed plagiarized texts? Sure they are quick to react when somebody posts a plagiarims alert on amazon (e.g. in the Lindner case). But they neglect any duty they have towards their customers — we want to read original books, not bad copies. And they prove in a weird way that authors' rights don't matter and that copyright is only good for the profit of publishers.

It's not consumers who destroy the old brick-and-mortar-industries in the digital age; its incompetence on the part of intermediaries and arrogance on the part of creators.

Sadly, this seems not sufficient to abolish copyright altogether.

The Guild continues: "For most authors, markets created by copyright are all we've got." So in its logic, "timely harnessing of Google was the best way to do it." Maybe.

But what they have not solved yet, is to find the equivalent for authors to "perform". It might in fact be the book itself. If, for a moment, we assume this, then it will be key for authors to make fans to buy their books, as it is key for musicians to attract fans to concerts. Kevin Kelly has a very nice and seminal article on how to trick the "copy machine" that is called Internet. "When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied" he argues. And then he goes on to list what cannot be copied: embodiment (think physical book) is one element, personalization another (think iPad), accessibility a third one (remember Amazon deleting copies of Orwell's books from their customers' kindles in July last year…).

It will be interesting to see, where book publishing goes from here, from denying itself the RIAA stance. The future could be bright if authors and publishers would be willing, and adept, to embrace the ubiquitous Internet technology. The Guild recognized that all the bad things that happened to the record industry could also happen to the book publishing industry: "Sure could. The technologies are out there." The Amazons and Apples of this world are only too keen to get their share of the book publishing market (their even bigger share in the case of Amazon, that is). The book world used to be quite efficient in distribution in the brick and mortar times. Why not in the bits *and* atoms era that is sure to come?

It will be interesting to see when the first "book" with an "in-book-purchase" feature will reach the market … (remember you've read it here).

Commentary:

This could mean that online delivery foor books, after a long wait and a few false starts, might be accelerating much faster than for other media, as electronista suggests.

As long as the news is buried on some geek blogs this means nothing. But what if industry analysts start to pick it up, probably combining it with the other item we heard recently that the Kindle DRM had been cracked?

We might soon see "the end of the book industry as we know it" announced — as we have seen for the music industry — with a call to arms against "illegal downloaders", demands for the extension of copyright protection (as if this would help authors at all), etc., etc., etc.

Will the paper-based book survive? Will authors have to give performances to earn their living like ageing rock stars?

Time will tell … and we might keep an eye on it.

On Monday, dozens of nations will meet in Geneva to consider adopting the WIPO Treaty for Sharing Accessible Formats of Copyrighted Works for Persons Who are Blind or Have other Reading Disabilities. The proposal before a subcommittee of the roughly 180 World Intellectual Property Organization members would sanction the cross-border sharing of DRM-protected digitized books that tens of thousands of blind and visually disabled people read with devices and tools like the Pac Mate, Book Port and Victor Reader.

To oppose this, check the Writers Open Letter in Support of WIPO treaty for People who are Blind or have other Disabilities!

"This treaty would be the first one that is not done for the copyright owner, but for the user of the works - for the blind to make a copyrighted work accessible," says Manon Ress, a policy analyst at Knowledge Ecology International, a Washington, D.C.-based human rights lobby that helped spearhead the proposal.

But that prospect doesn't sit well with American business. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest lobby representing three
million businesses, argues that the plan being proposed by Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay, "raises a number of serious concerns," chief among them the specter that the treaty would spawn a rash of internet book piracy.

The treaty also creates a bad precedent by loosening copyright restrictions, instead of tightening them as every previous copyright treaty has done, said Brad Huther, a chamber director. Huther concluded in a Dec. 2 letter to the U.S. Copyright office that the international community "should not engage in pursuing a copyright-exemption based paradigm."

Echoing that concern, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry of America told the Copyright Office last month that such a treaty would "begin to dismantle the existing global treaty structure of copyright law, through the adoption of an international instrument at odds with existing, longstanding and well-settled norms."

The proposal before the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights could free up thousands of book titles to millions of blind people in WIPO-member nations - without payment to the publisher.

Many WIPO nations, most in the industrialized world including England, the United States and Canada, have copyright exemptions that usually allow non-profit companies to market copyrighted works without permission. They scan and digitize books into the so-called universal Daisy format, which includes features like narration and digitized Braille.

The Daisy Corp. Consortium, a Swiss-based international agency, controls formatting worldwide and has some 100 companies under its direction across the globe. The largest catalog rests in the United States, in which three non-profits, including the Library of Congress, host some half million digital titles produced by federal grants and donations.

As it now stands, none of the nations may allow persons outside their borders to access these works, which are usually doled out for little or no charge. The treaty seeks to free up the cross-border sharing of the books for the blind.

"People who oppose copyright exemptions oppose exemptions on principle that there should be no exemptions of copyright law," says George Kerscher, Daisy's general secretary. "They should have sole right and discretion to do what they want with their intellectual property. To a great extent, the opposition to the treaty is based on that principle."

To receive any reading materials, the blind and disabled must prove their condition, he said. In the United States, Knowledge Ecology International estimates about 5 percent of published books have been transformed to the Daisy format.

Google is the only major U.S. corporation to side with the blind in the international tussle. In filings with the Copyright Office, the company called for American copyright holders to see past their doctrinal opposition to weakening copyright protections.

"We are concerned that some of the comments are simply stating opposition to a larger agenda of limitations and exceptions," Google's chief copyright officer, William Paltry, wrote this month. "We believe this is an unproductive approach to solving what is a discrete, long-standing problem that affects a group that needs and deserves the protections of the international community."

Not surprisingly, U.S. book publishers are the harshest critics of the proposal. The Association of American Publishers, which represents about 300 publishers large and small, argue the treaty is not necessary. The publishers suggest the blind and disabled should pay for their materials — the only way the market for such products could flourish.

"Under the proposed draft treaty, where it appears that privileged copies could be made even where accessible versions were commercially available, copyright owners would have understandable doubts about the wisdom of investing in the production of accessible versions for the market," the association's vice president, Allan Adler, wrote the Copyright Office on December 4.

"Under these circumstances, publishers not unreasonably hesitate and wonder whether they can expect such a market to flourish when potential customers would still have the option of relying upon a statutory exception to get an accessible version of a work without having to pay for it," Adler added.

Dan Burke, a 52-year-old blind man from Montana and a self-described "book worm," does not agree with the publishers.

Burke, a victim of a retinal disease that blinded him decades ago, often acquires books and poems at Bookshare, an online non-profit offering about 60,000 titles in exchange for $50 in annual dues and other volunteer work. Burke says none of the rank-and-file commercially available e-readers, including the Kindle, are adequately equipped for the blind.

"You have to be able to see to use these, to turn the machine on and navigate menus," says Burke.

Amazon, however, said this week that it would soon produce a blind-accessible Kindle, one with an audible menu and large font for the visually impaired.

But Amazon, the Kindle's maker, gives book authors the option of disabling the read-aloud function, notes Burke, a board member for the National Federation of the Blind, which supports the treaty. The Authors Guild, an advocacy group for writers, argued earlier this year that reading a book aloud counts as an unauthorized public performance.

"Information is what we want. Information is the power to become economically viable members of society," Burke said. "This is a world in which if you don't have money you usually don't have access."

Text: Manon Ress, www.keionline.org
Knowledge Ecology International
1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20009 USA
Tel.: +1.202.332.2670, Fax: +1.202.332.2673

This alleged "audio right" isn't.

It's like reading abook using glasses. But I'm sure you'd find a way to call "reading with glasses" a derivative under copyright law … maybe even plain reading?

Get a life … !

The settlement will also establish a mechanism of Google selling books to users (individuals and libraries) and sharing the revenues with rights holders.

Liebe Kollegen,

Thema der diesjährigen Buchmesse ist das E-Book. Es ist zwar noch nicht so top, wie dies berichtet wird, dennoch wird das E-Book in vielen literarischen Bereichen zu einem Medium neben dem Buch werden und es gegebenenfalls ersetzen. Auch wenn die Lesegeräte für das E-Book den gewohnten Ansprüchen eines Buchlesers wie Textübersicht, Auswahl und Nachschlagen noch nicht genügen, wird es derartige Formate wohl bald geben. Die Entwicklung des mittlerweile von jedermann genutzten Adobe-Acrobat-Reader setzte hier Maßstäbe, an die die derzeitigen Lesegeräte nach eigener Anschauung noch nicht heranreichen. Indes wird mit den zunehmenden Angeboten von E-Books auch das Problem der Umgehung des Kopierschutzes bedrohlicher werden. War es bislang nur eine kleine Zahl narzisstischer Raubkopieren, die sich die Mühe machten, gedruckte Bücher einzuscannen und zu digitalisieren, wird mit der Existenz eines bereits fertigen elektronischen Buches, das illegale Kopieren und Verbreiten urheberrechtlich geschützter Textwerke massiv zunehmen.

Dass diese Annahme nicht nur meine Befürchtung, sondern ebenso von den Verwertern erachtet wird, machte Gottfried Honnefelder, Vorsteher des Börsenvereins, in seiner Eröffnungsrede zur Buchmesse deutlich. Ich zitiere: "Die Politik hat nicht begriffen, dass ein Gesamtkonzept für den Umgang mit geistigem Eigentum und Persönlichkeitsrechten im Netz für die Zukunft entscheidend ist. Mit kosmetischen Änderungen in einzelnen Gesetzen ist den Autoren, Kreativen und Verlagen nicht geholfen. Kultur und Hochtechnologie können nur durch eine Gesamtstrategie für ein zivilisiertes Internet verknüpft werden." Erfreulich ist, dass diesen Worten auf Seiten der Verleger auch Taten folgten. So lag die Broschüre "Kopieren ist keine Kunst, aber ein Problem? - Verlage sprechen über Piraterie." der Arbeitsgruppe Piraterie (www.original-legal.de) an vielen Ständen auf.

Weniger erfreulich war hingegen die Rede von Paul Coelho, der seinen besonderen Erfolg mit von der Tatsache ableitete, dass seine Bücher schon seit 1999 als Raubkopien im Internet kursieren. Ja, er förderte den Download dieser Kopien und damit seiner Meinung nach zugleich den Absatz seiner Bücher durch eine eigene Piratenseite, auf der er seine Titel in Tauschbörsen verlinkte. Hier mag ich dem Kollegen Coelho nur zuraunen, er möge künftig ein bisschen demütiger und schweigsamer sein, während andere Kollegen sich für den Erhalt und die Weiterentwicklung des Urheberrechtes einsetzen. Jedenfalls werden wir durch Raubkopien nicht zu Millionenauflagen gelangen, auch wenn es ihm trotz Piraterie gelang.

So erfreulich also das Vorgehen des Börsenvereins ist, vermisse ich eigene Aktivität beziehungsweise Kooperationen unseres Verbandes, denn auch wenn wir mit den Verlegern gleichermaßen daran interessiert sind, die Internet-Piraterie zu diskriminieren, bleiben unsere Interessen von den ihren bei der Durchsetzung der Verfolgung und Entschädigung differenziert.

Herzliche Grüße, Matthias Mala

But Coelho went even further — he invited his readers to shoot films based on his novel The Witch of Portobello. The results of this competition can be found on his blog. Also, Coelho staged a virtual exhibition for readers sending him their photos of reading Coelho which he used as a backdrop for the Frankfurt Book Fair. There is the author connecting with his readership using the Internet.

So is he the new bad kid on the block or the (re-)inventor of the book in a world 2.0?

This is 'The Author's Rights Awareness Campaign', and our message to the public is: 'Texts don't grow on trees. – It is all about authors' rights. Respect the authors' position. Get to know their economical situation – also and particularly in the digital era. Become their partners.' Equally, our message to authors could be: 'Texts don't grow on trees. – It is all about your rights: Use your rights for bargaining. Make people your partners in text.' Eventually it is your, the authors' choice how you want to use your rights.