rights

Podcast: Information doesn't want to be free

Wrapping up our series of talks from Tech Forum 2015 is the incomparable Cory Doctorow. In this talk, he describes three laws of information-age creativity, freedom, and business that are woven deep into the fabric of the Internet’s design, the functioning of markets, and the global system of regulation and trade agreements. It’s deep stuff.

A Closer Look at 360

Yesterday, HarperCollins Publishers announced a new “global publishing program”, called HarperCollins 360. In their press release, HarperCollins said: “The goal of the initiative is to ensure that all books published by any division of HarperCollins around the world are available in print or digital format in all English-language markets.”

The Fight Over Formats: All or Nothing

Random House and the Jackal are going at it and I can’t blame them. They are fighting over some very valuable territory. We’ve all read lots about trying to claim backlist ebook rights, about the conflict of interest in becoming an agent-publisher, about single-channel exclusives being a bad idea, blah, blah, blah. This turf war has raised a bigger problem:

Does it make sense to separate ebook rights from print rights?

It doesn’t—at least not if you’re the one who only has print. Here’s why.

Say Hello to the Copyright Modernization Act

New copyright legislation is always a big deal.  Not only does it stand to impact most of our daily lives, whether we’re loading music to listen to on the bus or trying to read a new ebook , but it is also an industry game-changer. For book publishing, a “copyright industry” that’s also trying to bridge the gap between print and digital, the current Copyright Act (unchanged since 1997) is sometimes like the little brother on crutches who can’t keep up when all we want to do is run towards the ice-cream truck (play along with me and imagine that the ice-cream truck is the exciting world of digital distribution).