Congress is conducting a review of America’s copyright laws, a process that could shape culture and creativity for a generation or more. While the process has so far focused on how to stop piracy, some are asking if Hollywood will try to extend copyright terms once again in order to prevent works like Mickey Mouse from falling into the public domain.

The question came up on the Volokh Conspiracy, a blog popular with legal types, where a law prof proposed starting a pool on whether Congress would extend copyright terms by another 20 years.

While the larger debate has been relatively quiet so far, it could flare up again as it did in the late 1990s when the last 20-year extension led to a bitter legal fight between scholars and librarians on one hand, and Hollywood and the music industry on the other. The entertainment industry ultimately prevailed at…

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Will the Digg Effect make a comeback?

19 August 2013 by particularkev

Gigaom

During the latter half of the naughties (2000s), Digg was one of the premier destinations on the web. If your story ended up on the front page of Digg, then you were rewarded by hundreds of thousands of page views, quite a bounty considering publishers big and small made (and still make money) for page-view based advertising. The traffic bump came to be known as the Digg effect (much like being Slashdotted.) Digg, obviously fell on hard times and it was just over a year ago, it was acquired by New York-based technology and media company, Betaworks.

John Borthwick, chief executive of Betaworks, had a plan — Digg still was a good brand and was an ideal vehicle for his vision of a social-data powered recommendation service and news reader. The early attempt at that social news reader, News.me, hadn’t really gone anywhere and they were ready to shut it…

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Article: Long Novels

19 August 2013 by particularkev

The link below is to an article that considers big book/long novels.

For more visit:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/aug/18/kirsty-gunn-why-big-books-are-back

10 of Literature’s Most Unreliable Narrators

19 August 2013 by particularkev

Apple e-book judge: ‘I don’t need to go into that further’

19 August 2013 by particularkev

Article: Ebook Refunds

19 August 2013 by particularkev

The link below is to an article that reports on the issue of refunds as part of a deal with book publishers over the ebook pricing lawsuit deal in the USA.

For more visit:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/content-and-e-books/article/58729-more-than-23-million-consumer-accounts-qualify-for-e-book-refunds.html

Where to find your next read: Book recommendation sites you should know about

18 August 2013 by particularkev

Gigaom

Looking for new books to add to your summer reading list? You probably already know to check sources like Goodreads and the New York Times book reviews, but that’s not always enough. Here are a few of my favorite non-obvious sources for online book recommendations.

Shelf Awareness for Readers

This free, twice-weekly email newsletter from book trade publication Shelf Awareness launched in 2011 and is still one of my favorite places to learn about new books. The newsletter comes out on Tuesdays and Fridays (or you can read it online) and in each issue, independent booksellers and reviewers recommend 25 books that have just hit stores. While some bestsellers from big authors are included, plenty of books from small presses and debut authors are also included, making this a good place to learn about books you probably wouldn’t have heard of otherwise.