Author Archives: Chris Meadows

Alan D. Mutter has another interesting post on his “Reflections of a Newsosaur” blog. He talks about a French study that highlights the differences in worldview between older and younger generations. Whether accidentally or intentionally, the study uses the same term for the younger generation that Nick Bilton does in his book I Live in [...] Continue reading →

The LA Times reports on a Cowen & Co. survey that says Amazon’s Kindle has 76% of the e-book market, and is expected to have sold $701 million worth of Kindle e-books by the close of 2010—up 195% from the previous year. The report notes that the iPad (and other platforms that have the Kindle [...] Continue reading →

Publishing consultant Mike Shatzkin has posted an entry about some of his experiences at the Frankfurt Book Fair, reflecting on the “e-book gap” between America and the rest of the world. For a number of reasons, most notably that the US represents “300 million people in a single developed economy with a single currency and [...] Continue reading →

On his blog, author Joe Konrath has posted a guest column by his friend and collaborator Blake Crouch. It focuses on the subject of rights reversion—the idea, written into contracts, that once certain conditions are met (or fail to be met), the rights to an author’s books revert back to him, meaning he is free [...] Continue reading →

One big story that broke yesterday was that the CBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, has come out with a new policy prohibiting the use of Creative Commons-licensed music in any of its podcasts. Predictably, the conspiracy theorists came out in force, especially where the story was reported on BoingBoing and Slashdot. But it turns out that [...] Continue reading →

Publishing Perspectives has a piece looking at one agent at the Frankfurt Bookfair expressing concern that publishers might be using e-book deals to undermine book territorial rights in general. Andrew Nurnberg seems to be relatively alone in his concerns, however. “The big thing that’s in the air all the time,” Nurnberg said, “is that territoriality [...] Continue reading →

Last week, Helienne Lindvall published a column in The Guardian whose point seemed to be to say, “Look at how all these people such as Cory Doctorow, who advocate giving stuff away for free, charge large fees for speaking appearances! Isn’t that funny?” Mike Masnick at Techdirt wrote that Lindvall completely missed the point of [...] Continue reading →

The Guardian has an interesting report on the mixed blessings that smartphones bring to newspapers. A study by British telecom company Orange shows that a significant number of smartphone users (14%) read fewer newspapers, but almost as many (13%) read more newspaper content online. (Interestingly, 16% of those surveyed read fewer magazines, but none said [...] Continue reading →

Hey, everyone, it’s that time again! What time, you say? Time to write to the government about copyright policies! A while ago we covered Obama’s new copyright czar’s request for guidance on what stakeholders thought the role of her office ought to be. Then we covered the responses (here and here). Now the U.S. Commerce [...] Continue reading →

Ars Technica has a report on a new form of e-paper that could offer the same low power consumption rate as the e-ink used in current e-readers, but at a much higher refresh rate and better screen reflectiveness. Gamma Dynamics’s e-paper screen uses layers of oil and pigment that can be induced to change places [...] Continue reading →