Girls Quest - call for books!

There is an organization called Girls Quest, which provides mentoring and other services for New York City girls ages 13-17. On October 17, they are sponsoring a career day for about 40 teenage girls, and they need books!

If you're a publisher with books for teenagers about careers, money management, inspiration, personal growth - please and I can let you know how to donate appropriate titles. Thank you!!!

Q&A with Peter Brantley, Director of the Bookserver Project at the Internet Archive

Google Book Search: Well, That Was Fun - Now What?

Upcoming Events for the Digitally Bookish

• Firebrand Community Conference - October 5-7
• TOC Online Conference - October 8
• TOC at Frankfurt - October 12th
• Publishing Business Virtual Conference - October 29
• Self-Publishing Conference and Expo - November 7
  

ISBNs and ebooks: Part 7624

Yesterday the AAP's Digital Working Group hosted a meeting where Phil Madans of Hachette, Angela Bole of BISG, and I talked about ISBNs and identifying digital content. This came on the heels of Mark Bide's webinar for BISG yesterday on the same subject.

We broke the topic down into three discrete parts: ISBNs and ebooks, ISBNs and chapters, and ISBNs and "chunks". I stopped the presentation after each slide so we could discuss each part before moving on to the next one. And some interesting findings emerged.

Metadata

The primary objection (even more than cost - but of course these were larger publishers who can buy identifiers in bulk at a discount) to assigning an ISBN to each format of ebook is having to track the metadata on each record. Databases begin to bloat with products that are identical except for format, and managing the metadata becomes both repetitive and confusing. 

Furthermore, it became apparent that publishers are not particularly using ISBNs to track royalties and sales - they are using SEVERAL fields, and the ISBN is not even necessarily the most important among them. So the ISBN International Agency's argument that the ISBN is an essential tool for tracking these things falls by the wayside.

We talked a bit about the prospect of third parties assigning ISBNs to different ebook formats - most publishers seem to just want to produce an EPUB file, assign an ISBN to that one, and then send it "into the wild" (as Bide says) for conversion and distribution. The distributors and retailers are primarily book-related and their databases are generally keyed off an ISBN, so those third parties would have to assign ISBNs to whatever formats they are distributing and selling. But the publishers at this meeting did not seem particularly worried about that prospect.

One publisher also stressed that by supporting more than one format, they're contributing to format proliferation and they would prefer very much not to do that.

However, the downside to allowing third parties to assign ISBNs to digital products on an as-needed basis becomes problematic when there are changes to the metadata. If a pub date shifts, if a price goes up, if there are corrections to author names, additions to synopses and reviews - any time you have to edit the metadata on a title, if you've got third parties with their OWN editions of that title, you can't be sure the edited/corrected metadata will reach those editions.

ISBNs and Chapters

Even less popular than the one-ISBN-per-format model is the one-ISBN-per-chapter idea. This expands the metadata bloat exponentially. At present, most publishers who are offering chapters for sale are doing so from their own websites, so ISBNs are not such an issue. However, once retailers begin offering individual chapters of books, the industry will face the same problems it does with different ebook formats. Multiplied by however many chapters are in a given book.

In addition to identification of chapters for the purposes of trading with third parties, there is the issue of tracking royalties. With textbook authors, this is problematic - many authors contribute to textbooks, and determining who wrote which chapters can be daunting. It was generally agreed that without significant market demand, identifying chapters for the purposes of trade is not a high priority.

ISBNs and "Chunks"

First there was the objection to the term "chunks". Which I agree with! It's nasty. But Anna Wintour said the same thing about the word "blog"...and look where that got her! It seems "chunk" is the term we're stuck with, and I am heartily sorry about that.

Second, everyone at the meeting pretty much agreed that this is a vastly esoteric subject and not likely to become a pressing issue anytime soon. Even Amazon does not sell sub-chapter-level content. Licensing content to third parties (such as websites) will likely mean putting together discrete digital assets into various packages, but there seems to be no trade reason right now for ISBNs to be attached to those packages. This may change as the market changes.

We ended with a "watch this space" message, and are now putting together a survey which looks at some of the assumptions behind past ISBN-use recommendations.

US Register of Copyrights on GBS

Marybeth Peters, the US Register of Copyrights, testified before the House Judiciary Committee today regarding the Copyright Office's view of the Google Book Settlement. I've read her testimony - it's a good summary of the problems with the settlement.

Some excerpts:

When the parties announced last fall that they had reached a settlement in what was becoming a long and protracted litigation, our initial reaction was that this was a positive development.  But as we met with the parties, conversed with lawyers, scholars
and other experts, and began to absorb the many terms and conditions of the settlement—a process that took several months due to the length and complexity of the documents— we grew increasingly concerned.  We realized that the settlement was not really a
settlement at all, in as much as settlements resolve acts that have happened in the past and were at issue in the underlying infringement suits.  Instead, the so-called settlement would create mechanisms by which Google could continue to scan with impunity, well into the future, and to our great surprise, create yet additional commercial products without the prior consent of rights holders. For example, the settlement allows Google to reproduce, display and distribute the books of copyright owners without prior consent,
provided Google and the plaintiffs deem the works to be “out-of-print” through a definition negotiated by them for purposes of the settlement documents.  Although Google is a commercial entity, acting for a primary purpose of commercial gain, the
settlement absolves Google of the need to search for the rights holders or obtain their prior consent and provides a complete release from liability.  In contrast to the scanning and snippets originally at issue, none of these new acts could be reasonably alleged to be
fair use.

 

She goes on to compare Google's scanning to services provided by cable companies and the like - "compulsory licenses":

At very least, a compulsory license for the systematic scanning of books on a mass scale is an interesting proposition that might merit Congressional consideration.  As stated above, various compulsory licenses have been carefully crafted over the years after extensive deliberation and consideration of the viewpoints of all affected stakeholders, though none apply to books or text.  Among the issues Congress would want to consider are the pros and cons of allowing copyright users, rather than copyright owners, to initiate the digitization of copyrighted works; the rate of compensation that should be paid to copyright owners; and whether the same license terms should apply to mass digitization activities undertaken for the public interest by non profit organizations such as libraries, and for profit purposes by commercial actors.  Congress also would want to consider whether all books merit the same attention, or whether differences can be drawn from the date of publication, the type of publication, or such facts as whether the rights holder is likely to be alive or deceased. 

Here, she explains that "out of print" is not the same as "out of copyright":

The activities that prompted the plaintiffs to file suit against Google – the wholesale scanning of  books, electronic indexing and snippet display – are activities as to which reasonable minds might differ when considering whether such activities are acts of infringement or are, for example, fair use.  However, the same cannot be said of the new uses that the settlement agreement permits Google to make of out-of-print works.  We do not believe that even Google has asserted that, in the absence of this class action settlement, it would be fair use to undertake the new activities that Google would enjoy risk-free as a result of the settlement.  In essence, the proposed settlement would give Google a license to infringe first and ask questions later, under the imprimatur of the court. 

Also, "orphan works" are not the same as "out of print":

As a side note, the Copyright Office would like to underscore for the Committee that out-of-print works and orphan works are not coextensive.  Orphan works are works that are protected by copyright but for which a potential user cannot identify or locate the copyright owner for the purpose of securing permission.  They do not include works that are in the public domain; works for which a copyright owner is findable but refuses permission; or works for which no permission is necessary, i.e. the use is within the parameters of an exception or limitation such as fair use.  Many out-of-print works have rights holders who are both identifiable and locatable through a search.  In fact, the U.S. works covered by the proposed settlement would all be searchable, at a minimum, through Copyright Office records because the settlement includes U.S. works only if they are registered. 

Problems the BRR cannot solve:

The Office also notes that while the BRR might well provide a place for rights owners to come forward with contact information, it is also likely to have the unfortunate effect of creating a false database of orphan works, because in practice any work that is not claimed will be deemed an orphan.  Many rights holders of out-of-print books may fail or refuse to register with the BRR for very good reasons, whether due to lack of notice, disagreement with the Registry’s mission or operations, fear (e.g. privacy concerns) or confusion.  The fact that the rights holder is missing from the BRR may also mean that he has no interest in licensing his work.

And...the French (and everybody else outside the US):

We are troubled by the fact that the proposed settlement implicates so many foreign works even when they have not taken steps to enter the United States market.  While it would be appropriate to allow foreign nationals to participate voluntarily in licensing programs that may be developed by the BRR or other collectives, they should not be automatically included in the terms of the settlement.  Moreover, we are aware that some foreign governments have noted the possible impact of the proposed settlement on the exclusive rights of their citizens.  Indeed, many foreign works have been digitized by Google and swept into the settlement because one copy was in an academic research library in the United States.  As a matter of policy, foreign rights holders should not be swept into a class action settlement unknowingly, and they should retain exclusive control of their U.S. markets.  

Read it!

FiledBy works with Cambridge Univ. Press

FiledBy announced today that it is helping Cambridge University Press by providing a platform for over 100 authors' websites. According to the press release sent out this morning:

A pilot program was designed to register 50 Cambridge authors on FiledBy and provide them with powerful premium web tools. Given the success of the pilot program, Cambridge elected to expand with an additional 65 author sites in August.  Since FiledBy websites are pre-assembled and all published authors and their books are represented, the sites are easy for an author to claim and enhance with photo, biography, videos, documents, podcasts and links.

New pricing for ISBNs

I just received this from Andy Weissberg, VP of Identifier Services at Bowker:

 In 2010, the U.S. ISBN Agency will change its pricing models for ISBNs to accommodate the digital identification needs of authors, publishers, libraries and the supply chain at large.  Unit prices for all ISBN prefixes will be discounted by as much as 50% from the currently established rate structure, with additional discounts applied to large volume purchases.

At Bowker, we recognize the emergent need for a more economical solution for the practical and responsible identification of digital content and products.  ISBN price decreases, however, are one of many necessary paradigm shifts for the supply chain to effectively identify and catalog digital assets for discovery and trading purposes.

Most importantly, as new digital formats and capabilities proliferate and diversify, end-users (consumers) must be able to differentiate one digital product form from another during discovery and the digital point of purchase, particularly when differentiated usability, access rights and functionality are key considerations to be made during a purchasing decision.

The ISBN standard has a proven track record as a supply chain identifier in the book industry, and the U.S. ISBN Agency is committed to maintaining this standard in the digital publishing supply chain.  We encourage publishers and content owners to continue to leverage the ISBN for identifying digital products, and strongly discourage the use of alternative, non-standardized identifiers that will ultimately cause for confusion in trading and discovery.

More specific details regarding forthcoming ISBN pricing changes, as well as new value-added discoverability solutions that will be made available in conjunction with ISBN purchases, will be made available to the public before year end.