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Too Busy Working to Blog

Category: Copyright Law, Google, Metadata, Publishing

Right, so we won’t call October our most productive month ever, blog-wise, though work-wise there’s a whole lotta shakin’ going on. But there are some good things to report: Muze is looking for a few . Muze is a fun company to work for – I enjoyed my time there considerably.

Google continues its steamrolling of the book industry. On 10/27, several librarians in the CUNY system and I gave a presentation at BMCC, where we each tackled a separate facet of the Google presence in libraries. This is an ongoing project (in other words, more presentations, articles, etc.), but in the short term you can access my bit of it here. (Thanks, Hamid!)

The Charleston Conference is next week, and I will be on the Batphone on Saturday discussing publishers and ISBN-13.

We’re treading water here, not suffering from lack of business but from lack of FUN NEWS!  us your squibs, people – Tess and I can’t do it alone….

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Posted by Laura Dawson, 5:03 pm, Comments (0), permalink

Who’s Your Copyright Holder?

Category: Copyright Law, Google, Publishing
PW Daily reports that the AAP has filed suit against Google, joining the Author’s Guild in defining the next step in copyright law. Notes PW:

As a way of accomplishing the legal use of copyrighted works in the Library
Project, AAP proposed to Google that they utilize the ISBN numbering system
to identify works under copyright and secure permission from publishers and
authors to scan these works. Google rejected the offer.
And given the past history of technology/copyright/antitrust lawsuits, judges are notoriously bad at understanding issues like this. Will Google have the right to put copyrighted materials in a database for the purpose of search only, without obtaining permission from the copyright holder, or will they have to go around and solicit individual permissions for this purpose? And will that prove prohibitively expensive in terms of time and resources?

Cool.

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Posted by Laura Dawson, 12:00 pm, Comments (0), permalink

October17, 2005

Category: E-commerce, Metadata

Still haven’t managed to figure out the Google-AOL-Yahoo business, and now Barry Diller goes on and acquires MySpace.com. While Murdoch puts in a bid for…no, wait, it’s MURDOCH who bought MySpace.com, while Diller’s…actually not done anything new, but is now explaining what the f* he was thinking about his AskJeeves.com acquisition.

Mad shuffle on the West Coast. Glad to be in NY, where life is all about 13-digit ISBNs and how to sell books in grocery stores.

The truth is, grocery stores are in some jeopardy themselves…from the big boxes like WalMart which are also selling food. And if the Times Select thing would work for me – it keeps sending me in circles, all of which involve taking my credit card information and none of which ultimately result in my actually GETTING the article – I’d have some nifty quotes for you on the subject of supermarkets in peril. Stupid Times. At any rate, trust me on this one – the Times is never wrong except when it comes to WMD, datelines and bylines, and…well, yeah, okay, don’t deflate me before I’ve said anything.

The point is, more and more books are being sold in what the business calls "non-traditional outlets" – in other words, not in bookstores. Groceries are a significant chunk of that change. (Of course, books only represent less than 1% of that particular market – they mean far more to us than we do to them.) If that market dries up, and is taking over by price-bulldozing WalMarts and Costcos and what have you, where does that leave the book market?

(Of course, if supermarkets did item-level tracking – merchandising by SKU rather than by price – they’d be able to actually COMPETE with those big-box stores…but that’s too haaaaaaaaaaard.)

Yes, this NY Times business has made me cranky. First rule of thumb for e-commerce: MAKE SURE YOUR FRIGGING FEATURES WORK BEFORE YOU LAUNCH THEM.

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Posted by Laura Dawson, 6:17 pm, Comments (0), permalink

Okay okay okay

Category: Google

Yes, yes, I know. I KNOW. I’ve been out slaying dragons and I haven’t had two seconds to think. Thanks to the goddessly , whose gentle proddings interrupted the snicker-snack of my vorpal blade and reminded me that it’s been ELEVEN DAYS since my last post, an unforgivable lapse in blog-land.

And what has gone on in those last eleven days…My brother, a hardware engineer for Sun, hints at big things to come with the Google/Sun partnership – bypassing the need for Microsoft altogether, a longtime dream of Scott McNealy. Google’s expressed an interest in AOL – having an in with AOL’s subscribers would allow Google to…well, continue taking over the world. The boys at ZDnet have got it all figured out here, though personally I find that sort of figuring to resemble John Madden scribbling on a blackboard – thoroughly incomprehensible.

All this tectonic shifting of software/portal/search engines will inevitably result in an earthquake. The blogs are filled with salivating puppies wagging their tails in anticipation of THE BIG SHAKEOUT. Predictions abound. Yawn.

On the Google Print front: a great article posted on the BBC website. Cogently argued, this piece advocates changing copyright law to allow for scanning entire books for the purposes of search – that trying to have the Google Print debate in the current legal environment is trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. The landscape has shifted, and the law needs to account for that.

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Posted by Laura Dawson, 11:05 am, Comments (0), permalink

Making Mama Happy

Category: Copyright Law, Google, Publishing

8 minutes ago, the AP released this juicy little tidbit:

Internet powerhouse Yahoo Inc. is setting out to build a vast online library of copyrighted books that pleases publishers — something rival Google Inc. hasn’t been able to achieve.

"That pleases publishers" – good luck. At any rate, the Open Content Alliance is the name of this project, which Yahoo is building in conjunction with a number of other partners. Says the Yahoo spokesman (interestingly named Mandelbrot):

Much of the material will consist of copyrighted material voluntarily submitted by publishers and authors.

Which means the archive will be rather small. But Pat Schroeder is happy, and we all know when Mama’s happy, everybody’s happy.

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Posted by Laura Dawson, 11:28 am, Comments (0), permalink
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