In a recent edition of Scientific American, Ferris Jabr took a look at how technology is affecting the way we read and the differences between reading on screens and reading on paper. Jabr says that though many studies have been conducted across many fields since the 1980s, the matter of digital versus paper is far from settled. Still, he notes, there is compelling “evidence from laboratory experiments, polls and consumer reports” that shows a notable difference in the tactile experience of reading on screens versus paper that leads to navigational difficulties when reading lengthy texts, which may in turn have negative effects on comprehension. There’s also evidence, he says, that reading on screens may be more taxing on our mental resources, making retention a bit more difficult.

Jabr delves into the science behind how our brains process written language and highlights a physical issue with reading on screens:

“Although e-readers like the Kindle and tablets like the iPad re-create pagination — sometimes complete with page numbers, headers and illustrations — the screen only displays a single virtual page: it is there and then it is gone. Instead of hiking the trail yourself, the trees, rocks and moss move past you in flashes with no trace of what came before and no way to see what lies ahead.”

Abigail Sellen of Microsoft Research Cambridge in England and co-author of The Myth of the Paperless Office told Jabr, “The implicit feel of where you are in a physical book turns out to be more important than we realized. … I don’t think e-book manufacturers have thought enough about how you might visualize where you are in a book.”

Jabr takes an in-depth look at several studies that explore the implications of interfering with intuitive navigation of text and inhibiting people from “mapping the journey in their minds.” Though he notes that some types of writing, such as online news articles, web comics, tap essays and data journalism projects, benefit from or even require the digital screen, he concludes that “[w]hen it comes to intensively reading long pieces of plain text, paper and ink may still have the advantage.” You can read his full feature piece at Scientific American.

In related news, The Guardian’s Alison Flood took a look at ebook anxieties arising from the digital revolution. She explores questions emerging in the digital era, from whether or not an ebook can be sold “used” to repercussions of authors being able to endlessly update their work post publication to the fact that page numbers — if they even exist — differ from device to device.

Robert Darnton, scholar, author and Harvard University librarian, called the situation “grave,” pointing out to Flood that “[i]f you’re citing a digital version of a book, often you can’t cite the pages.” He also said that though documents have historically been “slippery,” noting there’s no definitive text of King Lear, the fact that authors can easily make changes to published works means “you take a problem like that, multiply it by 1,000, and that is the world we are in.” You can read Flood’s full piece at The Guardian.

Sunlight Foundation unveils Churnalism US

The Sunlight Foundation unveiled a new Churnalism US tool this week that helps uncover plagiarism of press releases — where instead of writing original copy, a reporter simply revises a press release, or in some cases publishes it verbatim. Rebecca Rosen reports at The Atlantic that the tool “will scan any text (a news article, e.g.) and compare it with a corpus of press releases and Wikipedia entries. If it finds similar language, you’ll get a notification of a detected ‘churn’ and you’ll be able to take a look at the two sources side by side.” She says it will also compare Wikipedia articles against corporate press releases.

Jonathan Gitlin reports at ArsTechnica that the Sunlight Foundation created its database of press releases “from clearing houses like EurekAlert and MarketWire as well as from RSS feeds that capture PR from Fortune 500 companies, important non-profits and think tanks, trade organizations, Congressional offices, and also Wikipedia.” He explains that users have several options to execute a search: enter a URL, copy and paste blocks of text, or use a browser extension. He notes that the tool not only will will identify straight copying of text, but can also “highlight cases where quotes have been selectively edited or used without context.”

You can learn more about the Churnalism tool and how it works in following video:

Building a cookbook in the digital age

In a feature piece at Medium, Chef John Sundstrom detailed his experience writing his recently published cookbook, Lark — Cooking Against the Grain. He teamed up with former chef and now programmer and web developer Jared Stoneberg, and the two decided to take control of the content creation and formed their own production company to produce the book in print and app formats. Sundstrom explains why they opted for the dual media approach:

“Producing both formats simultaneously was an approach we hadn’t seen before. It allows users to enjoy the tactile pleasures of the print book while making their menu plans in comfort, and then, when ready, to bring their tablets with them to the market, check off their shopping lists as they go, and share the results with friends and family.”

The pair gathered a team of 10 people from a variety of disciplines to cover their bases, including: a photographer, videographer, book and graphic designer, app designer, programmers, recipe co-writer and social media manager. Observing that the traditional publishing model prevented the opportunity to involve a cookbook’s potential audience during its creation and development, Sundstrom and Stoneberg chose to launch a Kickstarter campaign for the book to optimize audience engagement from creation through publication.

The group met their funding goal in 10 days and concluded that from beginning to end, they produced the cookbook and its app twice as fast as they could have using the traditional publishing model. You can read Sundstrom’s complete account at Medium.

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GuardianWitness App

In a podcast interview with Ingram, Coleman described his journey into journalism, which started in 2004 with a domain name and a blog that, once he started writing about university news and politics, became one of the most-read outlets for university news and ended up landing him a job with Maclean’s magazine. He eventually returned to his home town to spend a summer working at the local newspaper, which didn’t do much on the web, opening up possibilities for Coleman. “My goal is to build a local news service, where the business model is sustainable for hiring a number of staff … to build a business model around journalism and then expand when I have a base that’s sustainable,” he told Ingram. You can read more about Coleman’s work in Ingram’s report and you can listen to Coleman’s interview in the podcast.

Interestingly, notorious hacktivist group Anonymous has done a very similar thing. This week, the group raised $54,668 in an Indiegogo campaign to establish a news reporting website — the campaign’s original goal was $2,000. “Those of us contributing to [Your Anon News] YAN have always desired to expand our capabilities and to report, not just aggregate, the news,” the group wrote in its campaign description. Megan Geuss reports at ArsTechnica that the “aim is to move some content away from Twitter and Tumblr, where Anonymous has traditionally made announcements and linked to articles. But YAN’s mission is also to become more integrated with the news cycle.” Geuss says it’s unclear whether the site will ultimately pay reporters or depend upon volunteer reporting, noting that “Anonymous itself falls somewhere between ‘decentralized network’ and ‘anarchic identity,’ so exactly who is behind the site could remain as nebulous as it is at the YourAnonNews Twitter feed.”

In related news, the Guardian launched an app this week that aims to crowdsource not the funding but the news itself. Paul Sawers reports at The Next Web that the GuardianWitness app was launched in partnership with UK mobile operator EE and will allow readers to contribute videos, pictures and text to the Guardian’s editorial staff.

The app is available on the web as well as via native apps on Android and iOS. “The Guardian actually posts ‘assignments’, inviting users to post content based on themes,” Sawers writes. “Editors set a range of assignments each week, covering news, sport, culture and life and style.” Sawers also notes that in addition to getting local flavor coverage, the app will be particularly useful for breaking news when the newspaper’s journalists are unable to “cover the sheer scale of it.”

Publishers need to pony up and be willing to fail to survive in the digital frontier

In a post on Medium this week, Aaron Steven Miller had some thoughts on how we can save publishing. He says industry insiders need to wake up to Amazon’s strategy and strike back with more effective counter-moves. He writes:

“We must continue developing alternatives, and some of us who do must hold out when Amazon comes knocking. For that to happen, publishers need to back some of these alternatives. They need to:

1. care about community
2. care about what happens to a book after it’s sold
3. understand that the context of content and authors is as important as they are
4. understand that a seven figure advance for BJ Novak’s book might be a good idea, but so might a $2M investment in a tech startup that helps them with #1, #2, and #3 above.”

Miller says its time for people who care about books, reading and the future of literature need to “pony up and put cash into the future of book.” You can read Miller’s complete piece, along with several thoughtful comments from industry insiders, on Medium.

Author Neil Gaiman had some advice for publishers this week as well: they need to embrace their inner dandelion. Gaiman explained in an interview with Alison Flood at the Guardian that dandelions drop thousands of seeds and let them fly anywhere, and maybe only 100 will sprout. “And I was really using that analogy for today, saying the whole point of a digital frontier right now is that it’s a frontier, all the old rules are falling apart,” he told her.

“When the rules are gone you can make up your own rules,” Gaiman said. “You can fail, you can fail more interestingly, you can try things, and you can succeed in ways nobody would have thought of … You can do all of that stuff but you just have to become a dandelion, be willing for things to fail, throw things out there, try things, and see what sticks.”

Simon & Schuster shows spark of innovation in library e-lending pilot

Simon & Schuster announced this week that it not only would finally test the ebook library lending waters (it was one of the last of the Big Six holdouts), but it also would experiment with a library direct sales portal.

A report at Publishers Weekly states that the publisher will launch a one-year pilot program with the New York Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library, and the Queens Library, in which it will provide its complete catalogue to the libraries. Each ebook can be checked out by one patron at a time for an unlimited number of times for one year, and the entire catalogue will also be available for purchase through each library’s website, with the libraries receiving a share of the proceeds from each sale.

There also was a notable absence of OverDrive participation. The PW report states that 3M will support digital distribution for the New York Public Library and the Brooklyn Library, and BiblioCommons will handle their ecommerce; at the Queens Public Library, Baker & Taylor will handle digital distribution as well as provide ecommerce support.

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Barnes & Noble announced this week it has upgraded and rebranded its PubIt! self-publishing platform and is launching Nook Press to better compete against platforms such as Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. Laura Hazard Owen noted at PaidContent that the major feature update is the web-based authoring tool the company developed in partnership with FastPencil that allows authors to write, format, edit, and preview ebooks in a browser.

“What we are trying to do here is make self-publishing simple,” Theresa Horner, Nook Media’s VP of digital content, told Owen. “You can come to the product, write, edit and publish into EPUB without ever knowing any bit of technology.”

The platform is only available in the U.S. at launch, Owen reported, but authors will be able to sell their work in the U.S. and the U.K.

According to Owen, B&N reports that self-published titles account for 25% of Nook ebook sales each month, and Amazon has previously reported 25% of the top 100 Kindle e-books in 2012 were self-published through its Direct Publishing platform. But how is this publishing democratization affecting the industry?

In a BrandVoice post at Forbes, SAP’s Susan Galer highlighted the success of self-published Wool author Hugh Howey and noted the risks and rewards. Quoting from Howey’s recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Galer noted that Howey managed to pull in “seven figures” on his own. But while some authors may be more successfully navigating self-publishing waters with new tools and by learning new skills in marketing and distribution, the real issue with self-publishing — especially the growing trend of digital-only self-publishing — may lie in reader access.

Galer quoted from a conversation she had with Watertown Free Public Library director Leone Cole, who pointed out the digital divide problem: “… we don’t want to have a situation where our digital have-nots only have access to print resources when so much is being published electronically. Howey could have easily decided that he wasn’t going to go the print route at all.” Galer points to the list of Internet access levels by country, noting the "sobering" percentages of the world’s population with little access, but it’s important to also consider that many of the low- or no-access countries have limited access to print resources as well.

Experiments in content subscriptions

Waterstones founder Tim Waterstone is getting ready to enter a new ebook venture called Read Petite, a digital streaming service for short-form fiction and non-fiction, including journalism works. John Harris reports at the Guardian that users will pay a monthly fee (“a few pounds,” Waterstone told him) to have unlimited access to “texts of around 9,000 words or under.” Waterstone stressed the focus of the service would be on quality content. Harris writes:

“… this is no literary Spotify, offering hundreds of thousands of items with little quality control: Waterstone is insistent the service will be ‘curated’ to ensure a high standard. Authors will have appeared in traditional print, and have been brought to Read Petite by a publisher. ‘The individual short story, or whatever it is, may not have been published, but the author will be an established, published writer,’ he says, drumming his fingers on the table to emphasis those last three words. ‘The whole point is to avoid a slush-pile of material. What we’ll guarantee is quality writing.’”

Read Petite will premier at the London Book Fair next week and will launch to the public this fall.

In related news, the Toronto Star has been testing the ebook subscription waters as well. Its Star Dispatches subscription platform launched in November, and Ryerson University journalism student Eric Mark Do reports at PBS Media Shift that the experiment thus far has proven a success. Readers subscribe to long-form journalism content for $4.33 plus tax per month and receive one emailed link per week to download the newest ebook.

Star Dispatches’ editorial director Alison Uncles told Do that feature writers have authored most of the newspaper’s ebooks so far, but that titles from all areas are lined up for future publication. Uncles and Sandy MacLeod, vice president of consumer marketing at the Toronto Star, wouldn’t reveal their number of subscribers, Do said, but they did note a subscriber retention rate of 90% and a 20% conversion rate of free trial participants to subscribers.

BitTorrent wants authors to “hack publishing”

It wasn’t so long ago that author Megan Lisa Jones launched a promotion for her book Captive on BitTorrent, and author Tim Ferriss’ partnership with BitTorrent for his book The 4-Hour Chef was big news last fall. Its experiments so far have proven successful, and now BitTorrent wants more business from the author crowd.

Ingrid Lunden reports at TechCrunch that BitTorrent has “published an informal how-to guide for authors, encouraging them to ‘hack publishing’ and market their books like startups, complete with ‘iterative release schedule and spreadable, targeted content.’”

The guide, which is based largely on Tim Ferriss’ use of BitTorrent, highlights the platform’s reach:

“If you want everyone to read your book, let everyone read your book. Placing content within the BitTorrent ecosystem has the effect of sampling, radio play, or TV advertising. It’s just at infinite scale. … We can build books for sharing. We can sample at scale. We can give readers a stake in distribution. We can open up exchange between artist and fan, beyond the sales transaction. And we can do this in a way that drives creative profitability. Ferriss’s experiment with distributed, startup style publishing proves there’s more than one option for authors looking to hack bestseller lists.”

Lunden notes that BitTorrent’s courting of authors is part of a “multi-year mission” to establish itself as a legitimate partner for content creators. As I noted in a post last fall, “BitTorrent’s 2013 New Year’s resolution is to ‘to align itself with the entertainment industry and legally distribute movies, music and books online.’”

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Data is becoming a driving force in the era of digital content. From subscription strategies to target marketing and advertising to content curation and methods of consumption, data is increasingly becoming the backbone of new publishing models.

Mashable’s Lauren Indvik took an in-depth look this week at the role data is playing in the Financial Times’ success in its digital first campaign. Last year, the newspaper notably reported its number of digital subscribers surpassed its number of print subscribers, and today, Indvik reports, the revenue from subscriptions accounts for more than 50% of the Financial Times’ revenue, compared to 39% from advertising.

Financial Times CEO John Ridding told Indvik the digital subscriber success stems from collecting reader data at their paywall to map reader behavior leading up to a subscription, and requiring readers to register to access up to eight free articles per month allows them to gather user-specific data to better target potential subscribers. Their data-driven approach also is helping to target advertising and marketing, and to give advertisers highly detailed reports on a particular campaign’s performance. “We can prove in real-time quite effectively what advertising is working and put that data in front of advertisers,” Ridding told Indvik.

The newspaper also tracks user data to help inform future editorial products and coverage to keep readers engaged. You can read Indvik’s full report at Mashable.

In a guest post at PaidContent, Roger Wood, founder of the (Art+Data) Institute, and Evelyn Robbrecht, a content design fellow at the Institute, looked at how data could be used to determine the content readers will consume — and change the content and its display based on a reader’s reading behavior. Wood and Robbrecht argue that we’re “on the cusp of an era of incredible evolution: one where the design of information changes in real time in response to data about the readers consuming it.” What’s more, the content itself will become a data-gathering tool, what they dub “Intelligent Content.” They argue:

“In a way, books and magazines of the future will act as sort of human compilers, translating your reading desires into pure machine language that tells the publisher how to present the material for faster and more pleasurable absorption. … The content itself will be designed to gather information about the reader, mash it up with data about others interested in related subjects, authors, or publishers, then decide what content to present to you next. This is what we mean by Intelligent Content.”

Wood and Robbrecht also predict the big data gathered from readers will be used to help publishers produce successful content on demand, and they argue that algorithms will replace content editors and curators. You can read their full piece at PaidContent.

Court rules in favor of Capitol Records

A much anticipated ruling (PDF) in the Capitol Records v. ReDigi case was handed down this week. Jonathan Stempel and Alistair Barr report at Reuters that U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan in Manhattan ruled in favor of Capitol Records, holding that ReDigi’s business platform, which allows users to buy and sell “used” digital music tracks purchased from iTunes, infringes on Capitol Record’s music copyrights. Stempel and Barr note the gist of the judge’s decision:

“To sell music bought from iTunes on ReDigi, a user ‘must produce a new phonorecord on the ReDigi server,’ Sullivan wrote. ‘Because it is therefore impossible for the user to sell her ‘particular’ phonorecord on ReDigi, the first sale statute cannot provide a defense.’”

New York Law School professor James Grimmelmann reports at Publishers Weekly that Judge Sullivan used a Star Trek analogy to clarify: “When Kirk stands on the transporter on the Enterprise, is the person who materializes on the planet still Kirk?” ReDigi argued the answer is yes, but Judge Sullivan disagreed “because the new Kirk-copy is a different ‘material object’ than the old one, made up of different atoms, stored on a different hard drive.”

Grimmelmann says this is where we stray from real-world consequences on which copyright law should be based: “Whether Copy A is the ‘same’ as Copy B, and if so in what senses, is not a question that anyone ought to care about.” He suggests we might stay more on track if we address the questions of digital resale with fair use rather than “first sale.” You can read his full piece at Publishers Weekly.

Reporting on the case at Wired, David Kravets highlights the potential wide-reaching effects of the case’s outcome: “Judge Sullivan’s ruling, if it withstands appellate scrutiny, likely means used digital sales venues must first acquire the permission of rights holders.”

A national library as a platform prepares for launch

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) announced its launch this week. According to the press release, the library will launch April 18 with a goal “to make the holdings of America’s research libraries, archives, and museums available to all Americans — and eventually to everyone in the world — online and free of charge.”

Reporting on the announcement at The Verge, Tim Carmody notes that the DPLA’s project differs from Google Books’ efforts. “[T]he DPLA doesn’t hoover up institutions’ documents to be stored on its own servers,” he writes. “Its primary goal is to support coordinate scanning efforts by each of its partner institutions, and to act as a central search engine and metadata repository.” Carmody also highlights the openness of the project and its aim to be a "library as a platform":

“The DPLA has been equipped with a rich API for developers, artists, and others to engage, adapt, and revisualize art and text. ‘The DPLA’s terms, if you look at them, are extremely permissive,’ [DPLA Executive Director Dan Cohen] adds. ‘We are really fighting for a maximally usable and transferrable knowledge base. Everything, where possible, will be CC-zero licensed. If you’re Google, you can come right in and take everything. It’s just like Wikipedia. You can grab this stuff and use it as you want.’ Text mining, mapping, art projects — it’s all open for business.”

Carmody also explores the DPLA’s competitive goal to catch up with platforms like Europeana, and says the hard part — coming into existence — is done. “The only things the brand-new institution will have to navigate are getting money, finding talented developers, fostering public awareness, and balancing the interests of a wide range of stakeholders, both public and private, commercial and noncommercial, with the collected cultural heritage of a nation in the balance,” he writes. “But while those obstacles are formidable, they’re small compared to the inertial forces that could have kept the DPLA from ever getting off the ground.” You can read Carmody’s full piece at The Verge.

In related news, the New York Public Library announced the first release of its Digital Collections API this week. The announcement release on the New York Public Library blog states that the API will allow “software developers both in and outside of the library to write programs that search [the library's] digital collections, process the descriptions of each object, and find links to the relevant pages on the NYPL Digital Gallery.” You can read more about the API, along with thoughts on the project from Doug Reside, digital curator for the performing arts at the Library for the Performing Arts, on the library’s blog.

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The whiplash-inducing headline this week was Amazon’s announcement late Thursday that it has acquired book discovery and sharing site rival Goodreads. Industry response to the announcement was “swift and laced with skepticism,” Leslie Kaufman reported at the New York Times. She quoted Edward Champion tweeting, “Say hello to a world in which Amazon targets you based on your Goodreads reviews. No company should have this power.” Kaufman also noted part of the bigger picture: “The deal is made more significant because Amazon already owned part or all of Goodreads’ competitors, Shelfari and LibraryThing.”

Wired’s Marcus Wohlsen expanded on the targeting issue Champion mentioned. He highlighted Amazon self-published success story author Hugh Howey, who was quoted in the Amazon press release saying, “I just found out my two favorite people are getting married. The best place to discuss books is joining up with the best place to buy books.” Wohlsen pointed out that “even as Amazon provides Howey an ‘independent’ platform to spread his work, his success also makes him a valuable Amazon product” — and now Goodreads readers will become valuable Amazon products as well.

Forbes’ Jeff Bercovici broached one of the bigger questions at hand: “whether an Amazon-owned Goodreads will continue to drive customers to other retailers.” Goodreads, Bercovici noted, dropped Amazon’s API in 2011 because of its restrictive terms that require all sale links to go to Amazon. He pointed out, though, that “with a new anti-trust lawsuit accusing it (and the six biggest publishers) of wielding too much control over the e-book market, this isn’t the time to be seen as acting like a monopoly.”

In an interview with PaidContent’s Laura Hazard Owen, Goodreads CEO Otis Chandler answered the question of retailer links, saying “If users really want those links [to other retailers], then those links will probably still be there.” Owen also talked with Amazon’s VP of Kindle content Russ Grandinetti, who said regarding book review integration, “Our mentality here is to first do no harm, and make sure that if we’re going to do integrations, users genuinely find it to be a big benefit.”

What book discovery needs is a proper blind date

There has been much discussion recently on the problem of book discovery — whether it’s a reader or publisher problem, and whether or not it’s even the right problem to focus on at this point. Suw Charman-Anderson chimed in this week, arguing that discovery isn’t the problem at all — it’s discrimination, “deciding which books are worth reading,” which is “compounded by the vast choice on offer.”

Charman-Anderson addressed the heuristics, “or rules of thumb,” we use to filter our choices in books, including star ratings, reviews, and plot summaries (to name a few on her list), and argued that for the most part, these filters are flawed for one reason or another. She suggested a solution for publishers to help readers: let us start reading the books. She wrote:

“I’d love to see a site that lets us go on proper blind dates with books. Strip out all the flawed heuristics, just give me the first chapter and nothing else. No cover, no author name, no publisher, no reviews, no star rating. Just text. … And when I find a book I love, let me marry it, or at least buy it in whatever format I want.”

A site hosting these book blind dates could gather whatever reader data it likes during the date, Charman-Anderson said — how much of the first chapter was read, how much time was spent on each date, etc. — but the only way readers can know if they’re going to like a book is to begin to read it: “…if publishers want us to fall in love with their books,” she argued, “they have to make at least the first chapter available for free online.”

A bailout for bookstores in France, and U.K. libraries will get ebooks

Across the pond, indie bookstores are seeing something of a government bailout. Barbara Casassus reported at The Bookseller that French Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti announced plans to “shore up independent booksellers,” establishing a fund of €5m for loans to booksellers with cash flow problems and increasing the budget of the ADELC, which subsidizes booksellers, to €7m. A safeguard will be established to handle any unforeseen problems, Casassus noted: “Filippetti added that an independent book industry mediator would be appointed to settle disputes as an alternative to avoid costly litigation.”

Over in the U.K., libraries are getting a boost from the results of a government review of ebook lending. Reporting at The Guardian, Alison Flood quoted William Sieghart, who headed the review: “It is plain that an inability to offer digital lending will make libraries increasingly irrelevant in a relatively short time. Library services therefore do not have the luxury of waiting any longer to expand, or in many cases start, their provision of digital lending.”

To address publisher fears that readers will simply borrow books for free instead of buying them, the panel members who conducted the review offered several suggestions, including adding a “buy now” option to digital loans, limiting the lending to one reader at a time per digital copy, limiting the lending period, and limiting the number of times a digital copy can be borrowed. The review also address author-related fears to loss of revenue: the panel recommended expanding the existing Public Lending Right, which compensates authors for the physical copies of their works borrowed from libraries, to include digital copies.

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Headline news this week was the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of the student textbook seller in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., in which the court upheld the “first sale” doctrine in the case of copies of copyrighted material lawfully made outside the U.S. Jeff John Roberts reported the gist of the ruling at PaidContent:

“Writing for the majority, Justice Stephen Breyer rejected John Wiley’s argument that the phrase ‘lawfully made under this act’ implied a geographic limitation. He also cited the concerns of library associations, used-book dealers, technology companies, consumer-goods retailers, and museums — all of which had urged the court to reject the restricted notion of ‘first sale.’”

Andrew Albanese rounded up reactions to the ruling in a post at Publishers Weekly. Wiley president and CEO Stephen M. Smith said, “It is a loss for the U.S. economy, and students and authors in the U.S. and around the world.” Tom Allen, president and CEO of the Association of American Publishers lamented the decision as well:

“We are disappointed that today’s copyright decision by the US Supreme Court ignores broader issues critical to America’s ability to compete in the global marketplace…The decision will have significant ramifications for Americans who produce the books, music, movies and other content consumed avidly around the world…”

New York Law School professor James Grimmelmann took an in-depth look at the ramifications of the decision in a post at Publishers Weekly, noting the consequences weigh most heavily on publishers, but could have a negative impact on readers as well:

“If Kirtsaeng can import international editions, so can Amazon, or anyone. The price differential between the two will collapse. Publishers will be reluctant to create inexpensive editions for those in less affluent countries who can’t afford the eye-watering prices (some) Americans can. That’s bad for readers around the world, and could make it infeasible to publish some books at all.”

Grimmelmann also noted that Justice Kagan’s concurring opinion could point to a compromise — namely, “if Section 109 [of the Copyright Act] first sale were to protect domestic distributors under Section 106 [distribution right], but not international importers under Section 602 [import right], the sky might not fall on anyone.” Grimmelmann wrote, “there is some wiggle room here for either the Court or Congress to recreate territoriality without gutting first sale, were they so inclined.”

Internet industry analyst Larry Downes noted in a post at Harvard Business Review that the reach of the decision goes beyond geographic pricing implications:

“Kirtsaeng, for better or worse, may put an end to geographically-based differential pricing for books. But it’s also important for what it says about digital content, especially when that content is embedded in physical products. The majority was notably concerned about the implications of Wiley’s argument in a time when nearly every product bought and sold on world markets has embedded within it some piece of copyrighted software or packaging. That’s because software, like books, is protected by copyright.”

Downes reported that Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the majority, noted that Wiley’s interpretation of “first sale” would end up preventing someone from reselling his or her used foreign car, for instance, without first getting the permission of every copyright holder of every copyrighted piece of the car’s software, which, Downes wrote, "would spark a revolution." You can read Downes full report at Harvard Business Review.

School of Data Journalism returns for a second year

The big news in journalism this week was the announcement of the second annual School of Data Journalism that will take place during the International Journalism Festival April 24 to 27 in Perugia, Italy. Lisa Evans reported at PBS’ Media Shift Idea Lab that the School of Data team from the Open Knowledge Foundation along with the European Journalism Centre will run workshops each day during the festival. There also will be daily panel discussions, including a discussion of the state of data journalism in 2013 on April 24 and a discussion on covering emergencies in the age of big data on April 27.

According to Evans’ report, journalists leading the sessions and discussion panels include representatives from The Guardian, Wired Italy, The New York Times, and Reuters, among many others. You can read more about the event at PBS.org and at the Open Knowledge Foundation blog, and you can register by submitting this form.

Who will own publishing’s digital future?

In a post at Wired this week, Evan Hughes took a look at the state of publishing for publishers and noted that for all the digital optimism for the industry as a whole, “it’s not clear that traditional publishers are well positioned to own the digital future.” He highlighted the underlying issue publishers face in struggling to remain relevant and necessary to the publishing process:

“In the long term, what publishers have to fear the most may not be Amazon but an idea it has helped engender — that the only truly necessary players in the game are the author and the reader. … At a time when a writer can post a novel online and watch the revenue pour in by direct deposit, the publishing industry’s skill at making books, selling them by hand to bookstores, and managing the distribution of the product threatens to become irrelevant.”

Though at the moment the writer-as-publisher phenomenon is largely limited to previously unknown authors, Hughes noted, “[t]he real danger to publishers is that big-ticket authors, who relied on the old system to build their careers, will abandon them now that they have established an audience.” He pointed to Stephen King, who recently experimented with bypassing his publisher by publishing his latest essay as a Kindle Single. You can read Hughes’ full report at Wired.

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I had a chance to sit down with Johnson to talk about the future of publishing and fear of change. He said the beauty of it is that the publishing industry can change and adapt to continue to give readers and consumers what they want. The important thing, he said, was for publishers and writers to continue to connect to and engage with their readers:

“The publishing industry has always been changing. This is not something new; change is not new to the publishing industry. It’s been pretty wild — when Mr. Gutenberg starting doing his publishing, it’s not like it has always stayed the same. I think people are always scared of change because they’re not exactly sure what’s going to happen, but the reason why the publishing industry has been so vibrant, the reason why it has literally affected our present and will affect our future is because it can change. Where will it go? I think it will follow those screens; I think it will follow what people want; I think that when you grow up with a smart phone in your pocket, it’s very different than growing up with a book in your pocket. But you still need publishers, you still need writers, and how you connect with those people will continue to change. I think that’s it — if the publishing industry continues to change and to engage people, then [its future] is very bright.” (At the 4:20 mark.)

You can view Johnson’s full interview in the following video:

All keynotes and video interviews from TOC NY 2013 can be found on the TOC 2013 YouTube playlist.

“Putting section numbers to the side, we ask whether the ‘first sale’ doctrine applies to protect a buyer or other lawful owner of a copy (of a copyrighted work) lawfully manufactured abroad. Can that buyer bring that copy into the United States (and sell it or give it away) without obtaining permission to do so from the copyright owner? Can, for example, someone who purchases, say at a used bookstore, a book printed abroad subsequently resell it without the copyright owner’s permission?

“In our view, the answers to these questions are, yes. We hold that the ‘first sale’ doctrine applies to copies of a copyrighted work lawfully made abroad.

I reached out to transactional and intellectual property attorney Dana Newman (@DanaNewman) to find out what the ruling means in the short term and what broader implications the decision might hold. Our interview follows.

What are the immediate copyright implications from the Kirtsaeng decision?

Dana Newman: The Court held that the “first sale” doctrine, which allows the resale of legally purchased content without the authorization of the copyright holder, applies to copies of a copyrighted work lawfully made outside the U.S. It was a question of statutory interpretation, and the majority found that “lawfully made” under the stature means made “in accordance with” or “in compliance with” the Copyright Act, and that there were no geographical limitations.

The decision is a win for consumers, small businesses, online marketplaces, retailers and libraries — basically, everyone but the content publishers and software makers. Had the court ruled the other way, the burden of having to verify the origin of goods would have killed the resale market for goods sold online and in discount stores, and made it very difficult for museums and libraries that contain works produced outside the U.S.

Do you anticipate the ruling shaping other first sale/copyright rulings? Could it have an effect on digital resale, such as in the Capitol Records vs. ReDigi case?

Dana Newman: While the decision didn’t address the difference between the resale of physical copies and digital copies directly, the majority opinion did note the concerns of technology companies that other products such as cars, appliances, mobile phones, tablets and computers contain copyrightable software programs made abroad, and found that “A geographical interpretation would prevent the resale of, say, a car, without the permission of the holder of each copyright on each piece of copyrighted automobile software.”

The Kirtsaeng ruling is definitely a win for resellers and online marketplaces, and represents an expansive view of the “first sale” doctrine. However, the ReDigi case focuses on a different issue: whether the resale of digital materials is a license or a sale — is the seller an “owner” of that media or a licensee, and is she merely making a copy, which is not protected under the first sale doctrine.

What are the big-picture considerations of the decision — do you think it will have an effect on how/where copyrighted goods are produced, for instance? Something else?

Dana Newman: Yes, from the content producers’ perspective, this ruling could have a big impact on the pricing of copyrighted works around the world. There is now a disincentive for publishers to sell versions of their works at different prices in different regions, which may result in higher prices overall. The Court recognized this, but basically stated that copyright law doesn’t protect rights holders on that point, leaving it up to Congress to address.

Could ebook lending be affected by this or other “first sale” case rulings?

Dana Newman: Certainly, how the courts decide the application of the “first sale” doctrine in the digital environment will impact ebook lending. Currently, libraries (and individuals) are constrained by license terms in the ways they are able to provide access to their ebooks. The Copyright Office established a committee to review the copyright law exceptions for libraries under Section 108 to make it better suited to the digital age, so change may come through legal reform rather than a court ruling.

With the recent patents filed by Apple and Amazon to create used digital resale platforms and digital resale company ReDigi’s ongoing court case that will weigh in on the legality of reselling used digital goods, many are concerned about how digital resale would affect revenues for publishers and authors. MediaShift’s Jenny Shank checked in on author concerns and talked with John Scalzi and Ayelet Waldman to get their thoughts — both writers expressed deep concerns that if allowed, digital resale would create insurmountable revenue issues for most writers.

“I think all the ways we chip away at the possibility of writers to earn a living ultimately makes it less likely that we’ll have a chance to read a wide variety of works,” Waldman told Shank. Scalzi wrote in a related blog post that he’d rather readers pirate his books than buy them used; he explained to Shank, “If you’ve made the determination that you’re not going to pay me for the book, I don’t see why [Amazon CEO] Jeff Bezos or anyone else should get paid.” You can read Shank’s full in-depth report at MediaShift.

Brian O’Leary took a look at several assumptions behind Scalzi’s and Waldman’s opposition to reselling ebooks and argued the points. He noted that “when Apple convinced labels to offer DRM-free versions of iTunes songs, the company was able to raise its iTunes prices as much as 30%,” allowing that that wasn’t for content you could resell, but arguing it pointed a way forward — “if people gave an eBook they could resell a higher value, copyright owners and authors would gain.”

O’Leary also addressed the assumption that people will strip DRM so they can resell an ebook without deleting the original files and the assumption that ebooks don’t degrade like printed books — “Try using Stanza, the pioneering eBook reader no longer supported by Amazon, on any iOS device,” O’Leary wrote. You can read his full piece on his company blog.

O’Reilly publisher and GM Joe Wikert addressed the used ebook issue from a publisher perpective and said worries about cannibalization are short-sighted and argued that opportunities in digital resale outweigh the risks. He noted that publishers need to consider “the added-value aspects of a used digital content platform” and not just focus on the low-price versions of used ebooks.

Wikert suggested bundling reader- or author-written summaries to business books, for instance, and reselling at a higher price than the original, noting that if the publisher owned the resale platform, they’d capture 100% of the revenue stream and be able to share a cut with the author. “So let’s stop thinking of the used ebook market as yet another step towards the race to zero content valuation,” Wikert wrote. “This is different from the used print book market and it represents some very interesting opportunities for publishers who are willing to embrace a new model.”

Google Reader Roundup

Headline news this week was the dustup caused by Google’s announcement it would kill off its Google Reader come July 1. As the news circulated, many pleaded with Google to change its mind, some signed a petition begging Google to reconsider, and others suggested the company open source the product. Porter Anderson has a nice roundup of the collective woe on this week’s Writing on the Ether post.

Zachary M. Seward at Quartz noted that there’s a more serious side to the death of Google Reader — “the real tragedy is likely to be felt in countries like Iran, where Google Reader is used to evade government censorship,” he wrote.

Marco Arment pointed out that perhaps we’d become complacent in our comfortable reliance on a single product to manage our RSS clients and that Reader’s death could spur a flurry of innovation as companies vie to be the next great reader. To that end, Digg stepped up and said it would build a replacement.

In the meantime, many outlets came through with alternative suggestions for replacement readers. Looking at Forbes, Gizmodo and Lifehacker — which represent a very small drop in the bucket — it looks like the top choices for free alternatives for the most Google Reader-like replacements can be narrowed down to NewsBlur (which at the time of writing is still struggling with a crushing rise in site traffic), NetVibes, The Old Reader, and Feedly. For Mac users there’s also a paid option called Reeder for Mac ($4.99), iPhone ($2.99) and iPad ($4.99).

Alex Kantrowitz at Forbes noted that the Google Reader shutdown is a “sobering reminder that ‘our’ technology isn’t ours,” so no matter what alternative you choose, you might not want to get too comfortable.

A look at the Financial Times’ data-driven success

Nieman Journalism Lab’s Ken Doctor took a look at the Financial Times and argued that amongst its news publishing peers, the company is “clearest-eyed about its roadmap and its future” and “ahead of the curve in harnessing data on its customers — both readers and advertisers — to optimize revenue.”

Noting that the Financial Times is the first newspaper to see its number of digital subscribers surpass print subscribers, Doctor highlighted several aspects of the Financial Times’ business model that have contributed to its digital success, including building direct business-to-business sales relationships, charging more for digital subscriptions than print subscriptions, and monetizing mobile traffic, to name a few. He also highlighted the company’s data-driven nature:

“The [Financial Times'] data team has about 30 people, organized into three groups: Data Analytics & Campaigns, Data Product Development, and Data Technology. … the FT recently restructured its data capability ‘to remove the distinction between digital/web analytics and everything else we do with data, because we found that the distinction wasn’t valid any longer since everyone has to think about digital data.’ The FT merged its web analytics team and customer analytics group to form a single combined team, covering both print and digital.”

Doctor also pointed out the newspaper has a data science team and a data intelligence team, and that there’s a “strong focus on ‘revenue optimization’ spread across all teams.” You can read his full report at Nieman Journalism Lab.

Tip us off

News tips and suggestions are always welcome, so please send them along.

Related:

• Amazon’s used ebook store?
• Apple’s used iBookstore?
• Why I’m drinking from the Spundge firehoses
• How one newspaper rebooted its workflow with Google Docs and WordPress
• More Publishing Week in Review coverage

“I think it’s going to continue to be an environment in transition. I think it will continue to be about both physical and digital, and I think it really is going to require all of the participants. We talk about being brave, not stupid — it’s a time for people who are brave and willing to take some calculated risks. There’s no way around it; if you want to be a leader in this environment, you’ve got to make some calculated bets about the future. In my case, we’re doing it, and I feel very fortunate to have a good team that can help me to stay on the brave side and not fall over into stupid.” (At the 5:08 mark.)

Ingram also addressed ways his company is changing and innovating to meet the needs of its customers and how skillset requirements are changing along with the industry. You can view Ingram’s full interview in the following video:

All keynotes and video interviews from TOC NY 2013 can be found on the TOC 2013 YouTube playlist.