Don’t forget to buy your fireworks. Here’s an early July collection of news about books, ebooks, file-sharing, lawsuits, plagiarism, and more.

• Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired and author of The Long Tail and Free, is the latest established writer to get flat busted for plagiarism, after a reviewer found long uncited passages from Wikipedia in his new book Free. Anderson quickly admitted the errors and apologized, with the usual line that he meant to attribute the passages and messed up somehow. Something still stinks about this. Wikipedia isn’t an appropriate source to use in a freshman comp class, let alone a book. However, since Free “is another examination of how digital technology is changing life and business,” according to the Guardian‘s gushing review, it’s quite possible that Anderson used Wikipedia as an example of free information. But in that case, it seems like the passages would have been easier to find and attribute in his “eleventh hour” citation bonanza, because they would have had big “here’s another Wikipedia entry” intros. Something stinks.

• Alice Hoffman is another writer in trouble, after she lashed out, via Twitter, at Roberta Silman, who wrote a mixed review of Hoffman’s novel, The Story Sisters, in the the Boston Globe. Hoffman didn’t just call Silman “a moron,” she actually posted Silman’s phone number and email address, and encouraged fans to harrass her. This caused, not surprisingly, quite a stir (read GalleyCat’s roundup of the reactions here), and Hoffman later apologized, kind of, saying, “I feel this whole situation has been completely blown out of proportion.” Hmm, seems like posting a reviewer’s phone number and siccing your fans on her is fairly out of proportion itself. I’m writing a post about this that will go up tomorrow.

• In file-sharing, legal, and copyright news, a plethora of developments. “Scareware scammers” have been ordered to pay $100,000 for programs that made people think they had viruses and then “fixed” them; a system that sounds uncomfortably close to this automatic copyright protection BS. The Pirate Bay doesn’t get a retrial and in fact has been sold. File hosting website RapidShare lost a big case and has been ordered to filter their files. Amazon threatens California lawmakers over a potential online sales tax; they’ve followed through on such threats in Rhode Island and North Carolina. Meanwhile, blind advocacy groups sue to keep Kindle DXs out of Arizona State. And, a backlash against the $1.92M Thomas-Rasset file-sharing verdict. I’m reading all these lawsuits—and the difficulty of predicting how judges will determine their outcomes—as the growing pains of the still-nascent digital media world. It’s pretty clear that we still haven’t figured out how everything’s going to shake out in this great, big Internet, which is simultaneously comforting and disturbing.

• Quick takes: Jacket Copy has a great piece about John Barth’s 1957 novel, The Floating Opera; here’s a piece in Slate about the upcoming potential golden age of journalism; libraries are now using Twitter, at least in England; should authors be used as selling tools?; on the ethics of product reviews; the benefits of Kindle’s “uni-tasking”; and, just a taste of the kerfuffle about Murakami’s new novel.

• Random of the week: It’s not entirely random actually: Werner Herzog, the director of Grizzly Man and Rescue Dawn, is publishing the journals he kept during the famously perilous filming of Fitzcarraldo. They should be awesome. Herzog was effortlessly poetic and insightful in the documentary about the filming, Burden of Dreams. Do yourself a favor and watch the best part right now: here’s a YouTube clip from Burden featuring Herzog’s four-minute spine-chilling rant about the power and saveagery of the jungle.

Some news about books and ebooks from around the web:

• The Jammie Thomas-Rasset file-sharing retrial reached closing arguments last week in Minneapolis. Last time, we learned that Sony wanted $150,000 per pirated song. Then Thomas-Rasset broke down on the stand and claimed the record companies were trying to extort money from her. This week, the jury found Thomas-Rasset liable and ordered her to pay $80,000 per song, for a total of nearly $2M for 24 crappy songs. Ouch. The other big file-sharing case, the one against Joel Tenenbaum in Massachusetts, is becoming a circus. Meanwhile, research has come out disputing the Big Media argument. that piracy is a disincentive to creation. And here are some myths about piracy debunked.

• Clearly having been inspired by our Literary Beach Books series, NPR is holding a poll to determine the best beach books of all time. They define “beach books” as: “When you read one, your surroundings recede, time bends and you’re transported, mesmerized, enthralled. These are page turners to be sure, but that doesn’t mean they’re brainless.” The results should be interesting. NPR also has Nancy Pearl, the librarian behind Book Lust, weighing in with her best books of the summer.

• Kindlers beware: the first major DRM headache has surfaced. As long as there is ubiquitous DRM on ebooks, this won’t be the last headache, either. Also, Amazon very well might raise ebook prices, though they could also feasibly lower them. And, Farhad Manjoo on the design drawbacks of the Kindle for newspapers.

• Quick takes: here’s a handy-looking customizer program for your Sony PRS-505 (via TeleRead); Ray Bradbury is anti-ebook and pro-library; Marisha Pessl’s adventure novel recos; Google Books has added a bunch of new features; here’s an interesting piece on how we read; and a Booksquare post on digital comfort reads.

• Random of the week: Sharks hunt like serial killers. Plus, if you’re ever making an impassioned speech from the middle of a road in a movie, consider looking to your right every once in a while.

Some news about books and ebooks from around the web:

• The Kindle is under attack! California is ramping up its free digital textbook campaign, which does not involve the Kindle DX at any point. Ahnuld might want to check out NW Missouri State’s list of lessons learned vis a vis etextbooks (the entire article is posted in comments in that MobileRead thread). On a different front, Simon & Schuster are selling ebooks through Scribd, a move Jacket Copy thinks might be a direct threat to Amazon. NPR says Google is the most likely Kindle usurper, and Bezos got a bit snippy with Google this week. Finally, here’s an in-depth Kindle DX review at TeleRead. Doesn’t sound like an ideal PDF or textbook solution.

• Yesterday was Bloomsday, the annual celebration of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Jacket Copy has some general info about Bloomsday, which will be helpful if you’re interested in taking the Guardian’s Bloomsday quiz. Boing Boing has a recording of Joyce reading. And finally, Galley Cat has a piece about a Ulysses-themed graphic novel.

• Some throwback news: The Guardian has a review of a new Italo Calvino book called The Complete Cosmicomics, which includes all the stories from Cosmicomics the original, plus a host of others, including several that haven’t appeared in English before. It sounds quite tempting. Also, the Sentences blog at Harper’s magazine has a scintillating post about Proust, memory, senses, and music. From Mark Athitakis’s blog, here’s a reprint of a terrific 1978 article about looking for Thomas Pynchon.  Finally, and significantly less enjoyably, a Wisconsin group of old farts—Orwellianly calling themselves the Christian Civil Liberties Union—are suing for the right to enact their favorite scene from Fahrenheit 451 and burn a book they find offensive. What year is it again?

• Quick takes: interesting idea for a reading challenge from As Usual, I Need More Bookshelves; here’s how to apply to read audiobooks; Sony wants $150,000 per song illegally downloaded; much ado about textbooks: Seth Godin ranted this weekend, and Joe Wikert responded Monday;  20 years after the fall of the Berlin wall, the Guardian is publishing four stories from affected countries– here’s the first; and here’s an interesting piece in Ars Technica about digital TV and “piracy.”

• Random of the week: Is Big Papi, aka David Ortiz, aka David Arias, finally coming out of his slump? Let’s hope so, he’s making $13M in ’09, which should buy more than a .197 BA and .318 SLG. In the meantime, here are some “papi”-related links. First, the game PapiJump, which is better on an iPhone. Here’s Big Papi’s book Big Papi (searching for “papi” on Amazon yields different results). Here’s the video and lyrics of Britney Spears’s “Mmm Papi,” written not long after Ortiz’s career-high 54 homers in 2006. Here’s the IMDb page for the 2003 movie Chasing Papi, about “successful and handsome wolf executive of the cosmetic industry Thomas Fuentes.” Finally, here’s a story about creepy Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi making girls call him “Papi” at parties. Eesh, that’s a bad one to end on. OK, heere’s one more.

Some news about books and ebooks from around the web:

• Oxford University’s 300-year-old poetry professorship has become the center of the biggest gossip maelstrom in the literary world recently. It’s got more than its share of sex, lies, and betrayal. If you’ve missed it, here’s the story in brief. It started about a month ago, when Nobel laureate Derek Walcott withdrew his candidacy following the resurfacing of a sexual harassment complaint against him from 1982, a resurfacing that Walcott called “low tactics.” Oxford refused to  delay the election (an odd way to hire a teacher, to say the least), and Ruth Padel ended up winning, becoming the first woman to hold the post in its history (here she is reading a poem). Barely a week later, Padel resigns, after allegations that she sent emails to journalists reminding them about the complaint against Walcott. She denies the allegations and a big ugly fight ensues. Now Walcott has a job in Canada, and many others are lining up for the Oxford post. So this is what it takes for poetry to get in the news.

• Here’s a great find at Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’? about a Russian writer suing a journalist over a bad review, and the implicit corollary that readers could sue writers over bad books.

• Quick takes: the UK won’t adopt a 3-strikes anti-piracy law; an interview with Ars Technica suggests that Sony (or at least their PSP division, understands that DRM sucks for customers; here’s a massive summer reading list from Jacket Copy;  the upcoming documentary Bad Writing looks awesome; I’m not a big fan of the Google Books settlement by any means, but I don’t like this alternative either; more data on the effects of piracy on sales; this new Pixel Qi, which is not an E-Ink ereader, looks pretty good; the Pirate Party actually won a few seats in the EU parliament; and the recession hits libraries.

• Random of the week: for every crazy good parkour-style stuntman, there have to be at least a thousand wannabes out there breaking themselves. I don’t know the probability of spontaneous dance-offs during NCAA baseball tournament rain delays.

Apologies: travel kept me slightly out of commission this week—I finally found a pirate hotspot. Anyway, some news about books and ebooks from around the web:

• Studies on DRM are coming out, giving me hope that the debate about it will get some grounding soon. Early results are in the anti-DRM camp. Ars Technica reports on a UK study done by law professor Patricia Akester, which suggests that DRM enrages lawful users more than it stops piracy. TeleRead has a piece about the lecture at BookExpo America about the O’Reilly piracy and free book study, which found that free copies increase sales (this is the study you can buy the ebook of for a cool $99). Also, Galley Cat has a video with William Johnson, the grad student who did the P2P legwork for that O’Reilly study, on how to monitor pirated books.

• A couple followups: Last week, I mentioned a “sequel” to The Catcher in the Rye not written by Salinger. Well, Salilnger’s suing. Seemed like such a good idea for a minute there… Also, I mentioned Tibor Fischer in my part of our Literary Beach Books series. This week, he wrote a guest post at Notes in the Margin (via) about Thomas Pynchon’s new crime novel Inherent Vice, which sounds awesome and comes out August 4th. Fischer also has a novel out: Good To Be God, also a crime story, and also awesome-sounding.

• A few tokens of the evolving publishing landscape. At GalleyCat, the editor of One Story, Hannah Tinti, discusses publishing in a digital world. Also, do book readings sell books? My theory is they won’t if you just get in front of a handful of people and read drily from your novel. Chuck Palahniuk puts on a show and fills auditoriums; although, it probably helps if you read stories that make people faint. On the plus side, John August (screenwriter of Go) released a short story online that made more money in a week than most lit mags would’ve paid. The catch in that system is that you have to be John August.

• Quick takes: great piece in the Millions on giving books post-ereader; the Espresso Book Machine was in effect at BookExpo America; still much kerfuffle about ebook prices, but some companies are heading in the right direction; Google might dip its toes in the ebook water; iRex announces a color ereader for 2011 and the Cool-er is nicely open; finally, the Literary Saloon at BookExpo America.

• Random of the week: Here’s some SFW porno (yes, that’s not a typo, it’s all safe for work). First, here’s a really weird video called Ufoporno. It’s about aliens, and it seems to be in Italian for some reason. Also, here’s Green Porno, wherein Isabella Rossellini bizarrely and theatrically describes the sex lives of animals.

Some news about books and ebooks from around the web:

• There’s been a touch of kerfuffle lately over the way ebook formats look, which is great, as its another sign of the growing momentum behind ebooks. Here’s an interesting piece in Wired’s Gadget Lab blog (via TeleRead) about the ugliness of most ebooks. I couldn’t agree more, though at this point I’ll settle for an ugly typeface if my ebooks will just display properly. PDF has a lot of trouble, and though ePub is much better, ePubs still contain dozens more errors than paper books. As far as aesthetics, it’ll be interesting to see if ebooks trend more toward customizability, as digital things tend to. From the Wired piece, it sounds like publishers want to try to retain the intentional aesthetic of typefaces and formatting even though, as Eric brought up again yesterday, most of the visual package of a book is stripped away in its digital version. In the meantime, John August walks you writers through Kindle formatting.

• Our Literary Beach Books series will continue all the way through June; it’s designed to help you find fun summer reads that won’t insult your intelligence. I might be biased, but I think our lists are the best you’ll find if you like smart books and fun. However, in the interest of objectivity, here are some other lists. NPR’s Maureen Corrigan has a list of good detective novels. Also on NPR, Augusten Burroughs makes a few recommendations. On The Daily Beast, Charlaine Harris, who writes vampire novels, recommends a few reads. The Daily Beast also has a list of 13 beach books. Curb your enthusiasm on that Stieg Larsson novel, his last one was not as good as the hype.

• Last week, I made mention of a Harvard Law professor who was defending file-sharing in court as “fair use.” This week, that professor, Charles Nesson, wrote a very interesting op-ed for Ars Technica. In it, he discusses the ridiculous case against his client, and the insane way the RIAA and others protect their copyrights. Here’s another Ars Technica piece about Nesson’s case. Also from Ars: DRM v. fair use.

• Quick takes (weird edition): a Japanese writer is publishing a horror story on rolls of toilet paper; here’s a weird, funny video about newspapers and the Internet on Slate V; a vision of the next Kindle; here’s a weird piece in the Guardian about literary award lingo; E-Reads offers Dick Cheney a book deal; and, apropos of nothing, here’s an awesome video of an artist “painting” this week’s New Yorker cover on his iPhone.

• Random of the week: Vince Shlomi, despite being an unsavory fellow, makes some funny commercials. You’re probably familiar with the Sham-Wow, but I actually prefer the Slap Chop, with Shlomi’s bizarre list of things to put cheese on (at 2:29): “Tacos, freddicine, linguine, martini, bikini.” Even funnier than that are these two phenomenal Shlomi parodies: Paper Towels (parody of Sham-Wow), and Cock Shot (slightly NSFW parody of Slap Chop).

We appear to be back on track; apologies for the delay. Anyway, here’s some news about books and ebooks from around the web:

• So Maureen Dowd flagrantly plagiarized Talking Points Memo Sunday. Here’s the Telegraph UK story about it (the NY Times has suspiciously not written a story about the plagiarism). Here’s the column in question, with the paragraph now cited (to Josh Marshall), and an awkward correction at the bottom. Dowd’s excuse was that she only meant to plagiarize an email she got from a friend, and not another journalist. This makes me think that the definition of “fair use” will be an important point of debate in the next evolution of media. Should it be fair use for Dowd not to attribute her friend’s work just because it’s unpublished? Here’s a post from A Commonplace Blog about the pain of having your unpublished work plagiarized. On the other hand, how does fair use factor into the debate about piracy and file-sharing? One Harvard professor thinks P2P file-sharing should be considered fair use. Food for thought.

• The finalists for Amazon’s 2009 Breakthrough Novel Award have been announced; our own Sean Clark was a judge in the first round. If you’re feeling inspired, here’s a list of June writing contest deadlines. Or you can get involved with collaborative fiction at MobileRead.

• Quick takes: Dick Meyer’s list of the 100 best English-language novels on NPR.com, a response to The Modern Library’s list, didn’t sit well with Jacket Copy; here comes a Catcher in the Rye “sequel” not written by Salinger; new ereader announced from Bookeen; one independent bookstore in Kansas is going to interesting lengths to survive; lots of controversy, debate, and excitement about Murakami’s new novel; a British library embraces ereaders; and a very interesting story about the effects of ebook pricing in the Kindle store.

• Random of the week: Football fans, rejoice! The Time of Tears is over! After three painful years, Tony Kornheiser—he of the racist jokes and all-around terrible commentary—will not return to Monday Night Football 2009! Hallelujah! Kornheiser claims he quit due to his fear of flying, but that excuse smacks of a latent case of Chien-Ming Wang’s Disease (aka Chronic Suckitis). Replacing Kornheiser is Jon Gruden, ex-head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccanneers; the team fired him in January. Taste the happy.

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.