Some news about books and ebooks from around the web:
- Ex-New Yorker staff writer Dan Baum has been tweeting about his time at the magazine; fascinating insider account including details about negotiating with editors, his stories getting killed, and his eventual firing. The Elegant Variation says this is the first reason to pay attention to Twitter; Susan Orlean might provide a countertweet; and The Millions found a commenter who reformatted the Tweets as a regular essay. You can read the tweets at Baum’s Twitter page, or, sooner or later, normally formatted at his website.
- Still feeling the ripples from the DX announcement last week. Ireland is skeptical. TechNewsWorld isn’t satisfied yet, and wants a perfect ereader (so do I). PC World has a poorly researched piece on how the DX will change reading (neither are those points “unsung” nor are they exclusive abilities of the DX). And there’s a rumor floating around that Sony’s building an etextbook reader, too. Finally, the Onion’s take.
- Some various items about piracy and DRM. First, am interesting piece in Gamasutra about DRM on video games, including the interesting hypothesis that publishers use DRM to cut into the used-game market, not piracy. At Internetnews.com, a story about the Digital Hollywood conference—the consensus seems to be that, whether or not DRM is a good idea, it’s being horribly mismanaged. In Neoseeker, a quick post about the new DRM capabilities of Windows 7. TechCrunch thinks the Kindle DX will fail unless etextbook piracy becomes rampant enough to serve as a selling point. Ars Technica has a piece on the silly kerfuffle going on at the DMCA hearing. And the NY Times has a story out about the state of ebook piracy—as of two months ago (but there’s also Stephen King misspelling “Funyuns,” and Harlan Ellison being a jerk…so they’ve got that going for them…which is nice). Here’s Booksquare’s take. Also, the Guardian has a great piece on one potentially serious Kindle rival. Finally, O’Reilly’s publishing an ebook about file-sharing’s effect on book sales—price: $99. What are the effects on piracy of charging a hundred bucks for an ebook?
- Quick takes: a hideous Kindle 2 paint job only costs $200? Where do I sign up? The Guardian on (literally) underground classics (plus, they’re giving away a Sony Reader); Joe Wikert on the book as an outdated concept; the selling power of free books; Pirate Bay to stick it to lawyers; California wants open-source etextbooks; and it looks like those “3-strikes” copyright laws aren’t going to happen after all—the latest one was struck down. But hold the phone! What about this one? And France doesn’t agree at all (but that French one probably won’t pass).
- Random(s) of the week: awesome music video wherein Ted Stevens explains the Internet (hint: tubes!); fire drill jam session; my new favorite football-player blog–-Chris Cooley’s (there’re whispers of a reality show on the way; I’m crossing my fingers). And The Simpsons takes a swipe at Disney’s manipulation of copyright.
