The Daily Square – Storybook Children Edition

Today’s links of interest:

• Garage doors, printers, and the DMCA: A look back
  A different look at the first sale doctrine.
• Things break
  From Brian O’Leary, some thoughts on ebook delays and pricing.
• Separation of E-Book Rights: Publishers’ Worst Nightmare
  From Richard Curtis, who points out yet another battle about the past (though a likely more lucrative past than the orphans in the GBS).
• UK Society of Authors issues guidance on ebook licensing, royalties
  This feels far more specific than the suggestions coming from the US Authors Guild. Yes? No?
• War over e-books heats up
  …Amazon and its ilk have effectively shut publishers out of e-book pricing decisions altogether. Ilk=booksellers.
• The E-Book Wars Have Really Begun, Part 2
  Where has Peter Ginna, aka Dr. Syntax, been all these years? His recent posts have been thought-provoking: To the extent that e-book sales of Covey’s books supplant sales of their print editions, that’s vital backlist revenue disappearing from SS’s pl, not to mention potential growth the house is losing out on. Covey will apparently be releasing some of his new titles through Amazon exclusively, so SS won’t see those dollars either.
• News Corp. to Sell Subscriptions on Sony Reader
  While exclusive deals can limit sales, the competitive thing might work in more than a few publishers’ favor. “You can assume we’re getting a better split than the Kindle,” Mr. Thompson said. “I won’t actually say the price, but I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t a better deal.”
• The Apple iTablet Is NOT A Horsey, FFS!
  Sigh. Some people don’t like unicorns.
• Should E-Books Be Protected?
  Lots of questions and some answers in this post from David Pogue. Also many quotable moments. We chose this one for obvious reasons: What if, someday, you want to jump ship from Amazon’s reader family to Barnes Noble’s? This is precisely the nightmare scenario that faced iPod owners who wanted to switch to a Zune. (O.K., there’s no such person, but you get the point.)
• Laredo could be largest US city without bookstore
  This is terrifying. For a few reasons.
• Spain cuts tax on electronic books
  This is news — tax on ebooks now equivalent of tax on print. This is good for publishers in Spain.