Judge in Maryland strikes down library e-book law
13 June 2022 (Washington Post)
“…the law’s “practical impact” would force publishers “to offer their products to libraries — whether they want to or not — lest they face a civil enforcement action or criminal prosecution … While the goal of this bill is laudable, unfortunately, copyright protection provides the author of the work with the exclusive right to their works.”
New York’s Cambridge Information Group Acquires the UK’s Emerald Group
10 June 2022 (Publishing Perspectives)
England’s Emerald Group and its Emerald Publishing now are part of CIG, an investment firm in New York City and Bethesda, Maryland. Cambridge Information (CIG) is a family-owned investment firm, often working in education, information, and software. It has owned ProQuest in the past [and acquired eBooks.com’s academic library service, EBL, in 2013.]
Internet Archive Says ‘Emergency’ Digital Library Protected By Fair Use
10 June 2022 (@InfoDocket)
On Thursday, the Internet Archive told U.S. District Court Judge John G. Koeltl it will argue both lending programs — the emergency program, which lasted from March through June of 2020, as well as the original program — are protected by fair use principles. Read their sumbission.
The Palace Project Officially Launches its New Library E-book App
10 June 2022 (Publishers Weelky)
One library e-book platform to unite them all? That’s the vision behind the upstart Palace Project, the nonprofit library-centered digital content platform which this week announced a major step forward with the official launch of the patron-facing Palace App. Now available for download in app stores (for iOS and Android) the Palace app allows patrons at participating libraries to potentially access all of their library’s digital content via a single interface
A New Way to Choose Your Next Book
7 June 2022 (New York Times)
Tertulia is a sleek new app that takes a novel approach to online discovery. Using a mix of artificial intelligence and human curation, Tertulia aggregates book discussions and recommendations from across the web, drawing from social media posts, book reviews, podcasts and news articles to generate reading recommendations that are tailored to individuals’ tastes and interests. To get personalized recommendations, users answer questions about which genres they like and what types of people they want to hear about books from.
British edtech Bibliu secures funding boost with $15m injection
8 June 2022 (Sky News)
Existing investors including Stonehage Fleming and Nesta Impact Investments are injecting further money into the digital educational resources company. The funding will be used to help Bibliu expand in the US, including through partnerships with publishers and new product development, it said.
Kindle Alternative Called PocketBook Era has 64GB of Storage and More
6 June 2022 (Tech Times)
PocketBook, a Ukrainian-born, Switzerland-based company is now coming out with an e-reader that’s 7-inches and equipped with built-in speakers. Its page contrast has also been improved by 15% and instead of following other e-readers with a plastic layer on top, it uses a flash screen making it sit better with its bezels. To add, users can also control the screen’s light based on either brightness or temperature in order to make the device more usable in different conditions. The PocketBook Era has a built-in speaker specifically designed to support audiobooks
Court Seeks Proposed Declaratory Judgment in Maryland E-book Case
6 June 2022 (Publishers Weekly)
However the court ultimately rules, Maryland’s library e-book law is a step closer to its end. In February, Boardman issued a preliminary injunction barring Maryland’s library e-book law from being enforced, holding that the state’s law is likely preempted by the federal Copyright Act. And in an April filing, the AAP asked federal judge Deborah L. Boardman to convert her preliminary injunction blocking the law into a permanent injunction.
College Trends: The Pandemic increased adoption of E-Textbooks
According to Student Monitor’s Spring 2022 survey, recently released, we might be headed that way. We found that since the return of students to campuses, the 23% jump in student spending on digital, distance learning materials that began in the Fall of 2020, has continued to increase through 2022 even as students have returned to the classroom.
Amazon to pull Kindle out of China
2 June 2022 (Reuters)
After Amazon’s deep, decade-long effort to curry favour in Beijing, China had become Kindle’s largest global market, “accounting for 40%+ of our world device sales volume”. It did not give a specific reason for pulling out.
Physical Bookselling Gains on Digital Retail in Italy
1 June 2022 (Publishing Perspectives)
The growth of online sales in Italy appears to have been halted. Bookstores accounted for more than half of all sales with 52.4 percent, online sales settle at 43 percent, and large scale distribution drops further to 4.6 percent.
The merging of Comixology and Kindle has created a hell I’d like to escape
30 May 2022 (The Verge)
Amazon has taken two distinct mediums — digital comics and digital books — and smashed them together into an unholy blob of content that is worse in every single way. Apparently, if you let one company acquire a near-monopoly in the digital books and comics spaces, it will do terrible things that make the experience worse.
e-book subscription service Bookclub Millie files for Korean IPO
30 May 2022 (Korea JoongAng Daily)
Based in Seoul and still booking substantial losses, Bookclub Millie was established in July 2016. About 110,000 pieces of audio content and e-books from 1,400 publishers are available through the service, according to the company. Bookclub Millie began to offer Korea’s first monthly subscription plan for e-books in 2019, and has garnered over 4.5 million subscribers as of April, up 50 percent from a year earlier.
China releases national standards for digital textbooks in primary, middle schools
30 May 2022 (Xinhua News Agency)
The standards stipulate basic procedures for publishing digital textbooks which will be used in primary and middle schools, make quality demands for their contents, propose inspection processes and methods, and put forward an overall plan for the education and publication sectors.
More Ebook Industry News (back to Aug 2017)
