Digital dimensions

Will you be hauled up for making personal copies of your favourite paid-for downloads, or for converting them to different formats for private use, under the provisions of the proposed Copyright Amendment Bill? The answer is no. Can you move your books from your Kindle to an iPad or another digital book device? Yes, you can. That’s because the provisions in the amended Bill do not make it illegal to break Digital Rights Management (DRM) as long as you are not violating copyright i.e. making copies for commercial exploitation. Simply put, DRM is the tool used by hardware manufacturers, publishers and copyright holders to control the access — by blocking copying and conversion to other formats — an end-user has to a digital product. It has been a hotly-contested issue world over, with consumers arguing that it allows record, movie and software companies and digital device makers to create a virtual monopoly by restricting the access rights of even a legitimate buyer of a music CD, movie DVD, digital books or computer games.

For instance, in countries like the US, UK, and in the EU, an iPod user cannot transfer songs procured through iTunes — which she has legally paid for and downloaded — to another mp3 device because of encrypted technological barriers, and breaking these codes to make personal copies is illegal. The zone coding of movie DVDs is another example of how DRM limits how and where you can watch a movie that you have paid for: you cannot play a zone 2 DVD on a zone 1 player and vice versa. Critics of the DRM regime are plenty and they’re not just irate consumers . Back in 2007, even Steve Jobs, in an open letter on his company’s website, called for the abolition of DRMs, arguing that they had done precious little to check piracy.

Full report here Times of India

A place for books in digital world

With the excitement around the launch of Apple's iPad and the growing popularity of other digital devices, it is a challenge to retain the romance of the printed book, according to the head of publisher Penguin.

The iPad, a cross between a smartphone and a laptop, is helping foster a market for tablet computers that is expected to grow to some 50 million units by 2014, and with it, also expand the market for e-books, which has been hard to crack.

So far, book publishers like Penguin, owned by Pearson, have struggled to find an online model that works successfully in terms of content and the consumer's propensity to pay, said Penguin's John Makinson on a visit to India.

But with the iPad, book publishers see a new chance to get their electronic offering right and win more bargaining power if the iPad emerges as a viable rival to Amazon's Kindle.

Full report here Times 

Romance of books key in digital age, says Penguin CEO

With the excitement around the launch of Apple's iPad and the growing popularity of other digital devices, it is a challenge to retain the romance of the printed book, according to the head of publisher Penguin.

The iPad, a cross between a smartphone and a laptop, is helping foster a market for tablet computers that is expected to grow to some 50 million units by 2014, and with it, also expand the market for e-books, which has been hard to crack.

So far, book publishers like Penguin, owned by Pearson, have struggled to find an online model that works successfully in terms of content and the consumer's propensity to pay, said John Makinson on a visit to India.
But with the iPad, book publishers see a new chance to get their electronic offering right and win more bargaining power if the iPad emerges as a viable rival to Amazon' Kindle.

Large screen digital devices are opening up bigger opportunities for us: opportunities for interactivity with readers, and around social networking, said Makinson.

There are opportunities not just in a marketing sense, but for actual content and new material, he said.

Full report here Washington Post 

How the iPad will deliver books from boundage

If the iPhone was the “JesusPhone,” as some dubbed it in 2007 in advance of its physical manifestation, then the iPad, by comparison, is the PlaguePad: All the same biblical inevitability but none of the blessings. What, exactly, does one do with an oversized iPod Touch? Will it reduce the digital world as we know it to a withered husk, plus turn our rivers to blood for good measure?

As someone who reads books in many of their current forms (hardback, paperback, on a Kindle and an iPhone), I was curious to see what devastation the iPad would sow in the publishing department. A colleague who scampered to Buffalo to pick up a PlaguePad in the early hours of its U.S. release generously let me explore its e-reading capacity for a few hours. I also made a few phone calls and sent some canny e-mails. Here is what I found out about what Canadian e-reading fans can expect when the iPad is released here later this month.

Full report here The Globe and Mail

Ipad leaves India in two minds

The iPad, Apple’s new touch-screen tablet computer, is expected to reach the India by late summer this year, industry experts say. Apple said international pricing and worldwide availability would be announced later. However, analysts are expecting it to cost above Rs 25,000.


In India, it will be the non-3G version that comes as high-speed wireless data services are not available in the country now.

Unvieled in San Francisco on Wednesday by Apple chief executive Steve Jobs, comes in two versions - one with Wi-Fi and the other with both Wi-Fi and 3G (wireless) capability.
 
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