Why Hasn't The Authors Guild Freaked Out About iPad Ebook Text-to-Speech?

from the inquiring-minds-want-to-know dept

Back in March, we pointed out how odd it was that the Authors Guild hadn't freaked out about the text-to-speech capabilities of the iPad, which would allow for ebooks to be read aloud. Of course, this was the same feature on the Kindle which caused the Authors Guild to freak out (with absolutely no legal basis), leading Amazon to make that feature optional.

It appears others are noticing this strange silence on the part of the Authors Guild. David Pogue, over at the NY Times wonders if the Authors Guild just wasn't paying attention:

This is exactly the feature that debuted in the Amazon Kindle and was then removed when publishers screamed bloody murder. But somehow, so far, Apple has gotten away with it, maybe because nobody's even realized this feature is in there.

Filed Under: copyright, ebooks, ipad, text to speech
Companies: amazon, apple, authors guild

ACLU Allowed Into Lawsuit Over North Carolina's Demands To Hand Over Amazon Purchase History

from the privacy-anyone? dept

Back in March, we noted that the state of North Carolina was demanding all sorts of info from Amazon about what everyone located in the state was purchasing. It was actually scary enough to find out that Amazon was already providing "the date and total price of each transaction, the city, county and ZIP code to which each item was shipped and Amazon's standard product code for each item." Even at that point, that information seems like it could lead to serious privacy violations, but North Carolina wanted more. It demanded that Amazon also hand over names and addresses for every purchase as well -- a clear and blatant privacy no-no. Amazon began fighting this and, in June, the ACLU asked to jump into the case as well, representing some Amazon customers who live in North Carolina, and who believed that their voices should be heard as well.

Thankfully, those voices will be heard. Michael Scott points us to the news that the court has allowed the ACLU to intervene in the case, noting that the Amazon customers the ACLU represents have both 1st and 14th Amendment rights at stake, and that Amazon's interests in the case could diverge from its customers. This is a good first step -- but now hopefully the court correctly recognizes how far beyond reasonable North Carolina's request really is. Meanwhile, if you live in North Carolina, what is your government doing, to demand such personal information?

Filed Under: north carolina, privacy, purchase data
Companies: aclu, amazon

Facebook Picked Up Friendster's Patents For More Than It Cost To Buy Friendster

from the patent-valuation dept

A few years back, there was quite an uproar over the discovery that Friendster had received a patent on the basic concepts of "social networks." The company, which was already becoming an also-ran in the social networking space made a lot of noise about enforcing the patents against competitors, but not much came of it. However, the company did keep collecting patents. We were actually wondering about those patents a couple months ago when Amazon popped up with a patent on some basic social networking concepts. Turns out that just a month earlier Facebook had quietly bought Friendster's 7 patents and 11 patent applications for an astounding $40 million. Of course, it wasn't $40 million entirely in cash, but a mixture of cash, advertising and "payments for virtual goods" (don't ask).

What's impressive here is that the entire company Friendster had been sold just a few months earlier for... $39.5 million. So the buyer has effectively recouped the purchase price in less than a year. Impressive. As for why Facebook just wasted so much money (even if not all of it is "real") on a bunch of patents? As Liz Gannes postulates, it's probably just to keep the patents from getting in the way of an upcoming IPO. For a company currently valued at such insane levels, $40 million to clear an obstacle to an IPO is nothing major -- especially when a portion of the deal is via in-kind services. Hopefully Facebook knows better than to start using the patents offensively, but somehow, I get the feeling this is not the last we'll hear about these patents.

Filed Under: patents, social networks
Companies: amazon, facebook, friendster

Yes, Even Big Professional Journalism Operations Make Mistakes

from the it-happens dept

For the most part, the way this blog works is that we write stories based on what's being reported on elsewhere, and add some analysis or opinion or response to the story. Then, we let the discussion happen. We never claim to be complete, and one of the reasons why we leave the comments so wide open is we fully expect people to stop by and fill in more information. That's why we're always amused that when we respond to a story where the original source got some facts wrong, some commenters snipe in the comments about our failure to fact check, often with some snide comment about how we're what's killing journalism and/or something about how we are biased/covering up the real story, etc. I've never quite understood this, because we certainly don't hide our process. We link to all our sources, and explain our reasoning, and if a story changes, we're more than willing to post an update, always indicating what's changed.

But the fact is that all sorts of publications get stories wrong, even the big famous ones. For example, reading through my feeds, I recently saw a Reuters report claiming that the Discovery Channel had sued Amazon for patent infringement on July 14th. That struck me as odd since we had written about that identical thing... but back in March of 2009. Looking at the details, it seemed like all that happened was that Discovery set up its own patent holding subsidiary, Discovery Patents, and assigned the patents to that new organization, who took over the case in a procedural move. Big deal.

And indeed, a few hours later, I reloaded the Reuters story, and the story changed, with the new headline saying Discovery says infringement case v Amazon not new, rather than the original which said "Amazon accused of infringing patents with Kindle." I find the new headline amusing, because it's basically saying "hey, we reported on news that wasn't news." But, kudos to Reuters for not just disappearing the story, and admitting (sort of) in the story that it got the original story wrong. Of course, it doesn't fully come out and say it got the story wrong. It just changed the story to now say "Discovery said" that this was just a procedural move, rather than admitting that's exactly what happened. No need for the he said/she said. You can come out and say what actually happened.

Anyway, we're certainly not doing this to mock Reuters, which actually does a lot of good reporting. Just to highlight the fact that lots of media publications make a mistake here or there, and it's no sign of "hiding facts" or "bias." Sometimes a mistake is just a mistake.

Filed Under: journalism, mistakes
Companies: amazon, discovery, reuters

Woot Asks AP To Pay Up For Quoting Woot Blog Post Without Paying [Updated]

from the a-bottle-of-awesomesauce-please dept

There are so many reasons to love Woot, including their recent awesome letter and video about their acquisition. But, even better may be that in today's Woot offering, they mock the Associated Press for its coverage of the Woot acquisition, because the AP just happens to have also copied text from the awesome Woot letter. Now, that's all well and good for most publications, but this is the AP that we're talking about. The same AP that threatens bloggers for copying headlines and snippets. The same AP that insists it needs "hot news" to protect others from "free riding" on its work. And, most importantly, the same AP that has a famously ridiculous pricelist for quoting five words or more from an AP article.

It appears the folks over at Woot noticed this price list, and noticed that the AP report on its acquisition copied more than five words. And thus, the smart folks at Woot calculated that the AP owes Woot $17.50 for quoting Woot without permission (though, they'll take buying today's deal as payment instead). Of course, I would have probably added a "hot news" freerider surcharge as well. After all, people reading the AP story now no longer had any reason to go to Woot directly to find out the news. Hell, at least folks like us linked directly to Woot's letter. But that's far too neighborly a thing for the AP to do. Instead, it just quotes with no link at all.

Update: An apparently upset AP media relations person has contacted us to ask us if it's a "slow news day" (answer: no, not at all -- why do you ask?). Also, according to the AP, the article also shows that the AP spoke to Woot's CEO on the phone, and that, apparently, makes what the AP did okay. If only I had known that the AP's fair use quoting rates had an exception for "we spoke to you on the phone." Unfortunately, I don't see those exceptions anywhere. Perhaps I'm missing them. The AP would also like to remind us that it's reporting on the oil spill in the gulf. No, I don't understand this non sequitur either, but that's how the email concludes. In the meantime, I'm still wondering if the AP paid Woot for the news of reporting on them. If not, isn't the AP "freeloading" on the newsmaker? Or do the rules the AP sets out for everyone else not apply to the AP?

Filed Under: fair use, quoting, woot
Companies: amazon, associated press, woot

Amazon Acquires Woot; Woot CEO Pens Best Acquisition Letter Ever

from the earning-a-living-on-snarky-commentary-and-junk dept

It appears that Amazon is expanding by trying to buy up cool e-commerce companies that have unique and fun cultures that its fans love. I would imagine there are worse strategies out there. We already covered how Amazon bought Zappos, with the company culture playing an important role in the decision-making. Now Amazon has bought Woot (a site, I should admit, that I have a bit of an addiction to). And unlike the lame corporate-speak note that Zappos put out when it was acquired, Woot has handled the announcement in true Woot-like fashion with perhaps the best CEO letter you'll ever read about an acquisition. Here's just an excerpt:

Over the next few days, you will probably read headlines that say "Matt Rutledge revealed to be monstrous pseudo-human creation of Jeff Bezos." You might even see this photo making the rounds. Rest assured that these rumors have nothing to do with our final decision. We think now is the right time to join with Amazon because, quite simply, every company that becomes a subsidiary gets two free downloads until the end of July, and we very much need that new thing with Trent Reznor's wife on our iPods.

Other than that, we plan to continue to run Woot the way we have always run Woot -- with a wall of ideas and a dartboard. From a practical point of view, it will be as if we are simply adding one person to the organizational hierarchy, except that one person will just happen to be a billion-dollar company that could buy and sell each and every one of you like you were office furniture. Nevertheless, don't worry that our culture will suddenly take a leap forward and become cutting-edge. We're still going to be the same old bottom-feeders our customers and readers have come to know and love, and each and every one of their pre-written insult macros will still be just as valid in a week, two weeks, or even next year. For Woot, our vision remains the same: somehow earning a living on snarky commentary and junk.

We are excited about doing this for all sorts of reasons. One, our business model is so vague that there's no way Amazon can possibly change what it is we're truly doing: preparing the way for the rise of the Lava Men in 2012....

And then there's this lovely rap video Woot staff put together to explain the acquisition. The video even ends by noting "the preceding video does not represent the view or opinions of Amazon.com. Obviously." Let's just say that it's not your standard bland "hey we've been acquired" announcement: Taking a step back, it's pretty interesting to see Amazon acquiring companies with such unique cultures and then leaving them alone and letting them act entirely independently. It will be worth watching to see if that lasts (or if it can last). But for now, it's cool to see.

Filed Under: acquisitions
Companies: amazon, woot

Amazon Patents Predicting Computing Resource Usage

from the prior-art-anyone? dept

Slashdot points us to the news that just last week, Jeff Bezos and Amazon were granted a patent (7,743,001) on "Dynamic Pricing of Web Services Utilization." Much of the Slashdot writeup compares this to old computer timesharing, but if you look at the patent, that's not really what it's about. Instead, it's about effectively predicting computing utilization, and then doing dynamic pricing based on those predictions. Obviously, this is an attempt by Amazon to do more dynamic pricing for its web services offerings.

As you go through the claims, however, it's difficult to see how any of them pass the non-obvious test. If you know anything about predicting usage and/or dynamic pricing, all of this seems to simply repeat all of that. Oh, and if you're looking for some prior art, how about this paper from the 1968 Communications of the ACM by Ivan Sutherland -- no slouch on these sorts of computing issues. Actually, if you compare that paper from over 40 years ago to the patent issued last week, which one actually teaches people how to do something useful? And which is a jumble of words that doesn't teach anything? Every time we hear patent attorneys claim that patents are important because they help teach people how to do stuff, I think of patents like this one which clearly do no such thing.

Either way, later today many people expect the Supreme Court to finally rule on Bilski (today is the last day of the term, and the Supreme Court is expected to finally issue rulings on all of its remaining cases -- though, technically, it doesn't need to). The Supreme Court has taken its sweet time on deciding Bilski and I've heard compelling arguments for how this is good or bad no matter where you stand on the issue. My guess (based on little more than what was said during the oral arguments) is that the Supreme Court will try to craft a narrow ruling that wipes out some really weak business method patents, but leaves software patents mostly legit. Where this Amazon patent falls since it's basically a business method patent with software hooks? That may depend on where the Justices draw the line. We shall see soon enough...

Filed Under: business methods, computing usage, jeff bezos, patents, predictions, software
Companies: amazon

ACLU Jumps Into Case Where North Carolina Wants Detailed Info On Your Amazon Purchases

from the privacy-anyone? dept

Back in March, we wrote about the surprising effort by the North Carolina government to force Amazon to hand over a list of details on every purchase made by anyone in the state. Amazon already provides a ton of information to the government. In fact, I think many would argue it provides too much info:

It routinely provides the Revenue Department with "voluminous information" about its sales to North Carolina addresses as part of routine audits of the company's compliance with sales and use tax laws. The information includes the date and total price of each transaction, the city, county and ZIP code to which each item was shipped and Amazon's standard product code for each item, which allows officials to see the description of every product purchased.

Already that seems like a privacy violation. However, to state officials, that's not enough info. They want actual names and addresses of who bought what and have threatened Amazon if it does not comply. The ACLU has now stepped in to defend Amazon, noting that North Carolina's demands from Amazon are unconstitutional violations of users free speech, anonymity and privacy rights. Specifically, the ACLU has filed a case against the state on behalf of six anonymous North Carolina residents who don't believe the government should have a right to look at what they purchased:

• Jane Doe 1, who purchased books on self-help and how to get a divorce and a restraining order after her former spouse developed substance abuse problems and threatened to kill her;
• Jane Doe 2, the general counsel of a global corporation, who has purchased books and movies with overt political leanings as well as books that may reveal her religious beliefs;
• Jane Doe 3, who has purchased books on mental health in order to better understand the conditions afflicting her former spouse, including "Stop Walking On Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone Your Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder," as well as books about cancer, including "Cancer: 50 Essential Things To Do: Revised and Updated," by Greg Anderson. She has also purchased books on atheism. She is not public about her personal beliefs and doesn't want others to find out;
• Jane Doe 4, who has received several politically-charged items through Amazon from her parents, including "Obama Zombies: How The Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation," by Jason Mattera. Jane Doe 4 is a law school student who would like to one day work in the public sector, and she is concerned that her career prospects may be impaired if her personal and political beliefs are disclosed;
• Jane Doe 5, the parent of Jane Doe 4, who is a Florida resident, but whose information has been caught up in NCDOR's request. She does not want the government to know which books she has decided to purchase for her child;
• Jane Doe 6, whose purchases include books with sensitive and potentially controversial subject matters; and
• Cecil Bothwell, an elected city official, author and proprietor of a publishing house who has both purchased and sold potentially controversial books on Amazon. He is an atheist, which his political opponents seized on following his election because of a provision in the North Carolina Constitution that purports to prohibit anyone who "shall deny the being of Almighty God" from holding public office. He is joining the lawsuit on behalf of himself and his readers and customers, whose information has also been sought by NCDOR.

It's really amazing that North Carolina has not backed down on this yet, but I guess that a bunch of states these days have decided that tax revenue (what this case is really about) is more important than citizens' rights.

Filed Under: north carolina, privacy
Companies: aclu, amazon

Pakistan Orders Internet Ban On Google, Yahoo, Bing, Hotmail, YouTube, Amazon & MSN

from the have-fun dept

Perhaps Pakistan should just turn off its internet connection? We've already had stories recently about how courts have ordered that both Facebook and YouTube be blocked -- but supposedly both bans had been lifted. Then came the news that there were attempts to put Facebook's founders on trial, potentially for a death sentence, because some users had posted stuff people in Pakistan didn't like. The latest, sent in by Ali, is that a Pakistani court has ordered a whole bunch of popular websites be blocked from access. You may have heard of a few of these: Google, Yahoo, Bing, MSN, YouTube, Amazon and Hotmail. Who are they missing? Ebay? Twitter? I'm sure those will be blocked soon enough...

Filed Under: bing, blocks, hotmail, msn, pakistan
Companies: amazon, google, microsoft, yahoo, youtube

Amazon 'Friends' Patent Office: Gets Social Networking Patent

from the one-click-friending? dept

You may recall a few years ago that many people were up in arms over the ridiculousness of Friendster, the social network that kicked off the social networking craze (though it was hardly the first in the space), which got a patent (7,069,308) on the basics of social networking (claiming "a system and method for connecting users in an online computer system based on their relationships within social networks"). Lots of people pointed out the rather ridiculous amount of prior art on this patent, and feared that Friendster (by then very much an also-ran in the social networking world) was about to turn patent troll. Since then, the company has picked up a few more patents on some other aspects of social networking as well.

So, we were a bit surprised to see lots of folks sending over the news (first highlighted at Slashdot), that Amazon has been awarded a patent, 7,739,139, on a "Social networking system."

Even though it was only filed in 2008, that's not actually the relevant date. It's a continuation patent -- a dreadfully bad part of the patent system that is regularly abused to create "submarine" patents. While patent system defenders will deny this, the continuation process is regularly used to adjust what a patent covers over time, to make sure that it really covers more modern inventions than when it was originally filed. The Patent Office tried to stop this abuse by limiting continuations a few years ago, but a court eventually told them the USPTO couldn't actually do that. In this case, this patent isn't just a continuation patent, it's a continuation patent of a continuation patent of a continuation patent of an original patent filed back in 1997.

And, because of that, we get patents like this one. Since the priority date in November of 1997, all the fancy social networking stuff actually invented elsewhere doesn't count as prior art, but given how many such systems were built between now and then, it's hard to see how the specific claims in this patent could possibly pass the obviousness test. Tons of companies came up with identical systems over the years, suggesting that it was clearly the next obvious progression in this area.

Filed Under: patents, social networks
Companies: amazon, friendster