What If You Published Half Your Book For Free Online?

from the interesting-experiments-in-publishing dept

Almost exactly 17 years ago, we wrote about an interesting experiment in the movie world, in which the film Chicken Run freely chose to put the first 7 minutes of the film online (in my head, I remember it being the first 20 minutes, but I'll chalk that up to inflation). I thought it was a pretty clever experiment and am still surprised that this didn't become the norm. The idea is pretty straightforward -- rather than just doing a flashy trailer that may give away much of the movie anyway -- you give people the beginning of the actual movie, get them hooked, and convince them it's worthwhile to go pay to see the whole thing. Of course, that only works with good movies where the beginning hooks people. But... it's also interesting to think about whether or not this kind of thing might work for books as well.

In this always on world, where some fear that people are so hooked on short attention span bits of information raining down from Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat, there's a reasonable concern that people just aren't willing or able to disconnect for long enough to actually read a full book. Some argue that we may be reading more, but getting less out of all of this. But now author/entrepreneur Rob Reid and Random House are experimenting with something similar. If they have to convince people to put down the internet to read a full book, why not go to the internet first. Rob has announced that he (and Random House) has teamed up with Medium to publish the first 40% of his latest novel, After On, which is coming out in full on August 1st.

Now, you may recall, five years ago, Rob came out with a fun book called Year Zero, a hilarious comic sci-fi story about aliens needing to destroy the earth... because of massive copyright infringement (no, really). With that book, we were able to publish a short excerpt, but that isn't always enough to get people hooked. With After On, a massive chunk of the (admittedly massive!) book will be published online in a dozen segments over the next few weeks leading up to the release of the actual book (the first few segments are entirely free -- and after that, they want you to become a "member" of Medium, but you can get your first two weeks free for membership -- or you can just go buy the book by that point.

Rob has written a blog post talking about this experiment and what went into it -- and he'll also be on the Techdirt podcast tomorrow to talk more about it. In this book, while not about copyright, it does touch on a number of other issues that we frequently write about here, including patents, privacy, AI, terms of service and... the general nature of startup culture. The book is super interesting and engaging, but this experiment is interesting in its own way as well:

After putting 7,500 hours of my life into it, I want After On to reach lots of people. But I’m even more interested in reaching the people it will truly resonate with. It’s quirky, costs money, and entails a real time commitment. So if it’s not right for you, I’d rather not take your dollars or hours (which is arguably bad for business — but good businesspeople don’t write sprawling novels for a living). Whereas if it is right for you, I want you to discover it with as little friction as possible. Both goals made a big excerpt on Medium seem like a good idea.

My pitch to Random House evoked the largely bygone practice of US magazines excerpting new books. Licensing fees cost editors less than a major article, and publishers were pleased to generate income while promoting new titles. This practice is now rare. Reasons include the drop-off in print advertising, which has lowered magazine page counts, squeezing content. So why not transplant this pillar of the publishing ecosystem? Without trees to topple or ink to smear, we can release much longer excerpts online. Digital excerpts travel globally, and widespread excerpts will help books reach their most natural audiences. Better fits between books and readers will make reading more delightful, which means more books should sell — and hey, presto, everybody wins!

Anyway, check out the first excerpt that just went a little while ago, in which Rob (or the book's narrator...?) dares you to read the whole damn thing...

Filed Under: always on, books, publishing, rob reid
Companies: medium, random house

Joseph Goebbels Estate Wins Copyright Suit Over Use Of Nazi's Diary In Biography

from the nazis-i-hate-these-guys dept

Decades later, the Nazis, or at least the estate of a long-dead Nazi, gets a win. In a case we had written about months ago, in which the estate of infamous Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels sued Random House Germany over the inclusion of quotes from Goebbels' diary, claiming copyright infringement, we raised the story up as an example of why fair use rights are necessary for the sake of scholarly work. The idea that the estate of an historical figure could censor, or even put up a toll booth, between history and those that would learn from it has to be about as good of an example of what the originators of copyright didn't want as any. The whole point was to proliferate knowledge and the arts. I'm not sure why a Nazi's diary should even be afforded such protections in any respects, nevermind the estate of the dead Nazi be allowed to control the dissemination of history in this way.

The German courts appear to disagree, however, having found in the favor of the Goebbels estate.

The Munich district court ruled in favor of the estate's claims, although it pointed out that the royalty rights to Goebbles' writings would expire at the end of 2015, 70 years after his death. Random House intends to appeal the case at the German Supreme Court. If it is successful, [Random House's attorney Rainer] Dresen says, other media organizations could be examining the royalties they have been paying the Goebbels estate for their publications. "The court's ruling would declare the estate's position null and void, necessitating refunds," he says.

As Mike noted in the last post, there are so very many arguments against why this ruling shouldn't have occurred. The first is that Germany ought to have something like Fair Use protections, which would have tossed this whole thing out immediately. Does Germany really want the estate's of historical figures to control historical scholarship in this way? Do we really need to trot out the whole "those who don't learn from history are deemed to repeat it" mantra?

And beyond that, it's not even clear that the Goebbel's Estate has the rights it's been selling anyway. When the US seized the original publishing house, it took control of the publishing rights for Mein Kampf, so why not Goebbels' diary as well? On top of that, it turns out Goebbels may have sold his own publishing rights to the Nazi regime, meaning the Bavarian government would now be the ownership party, not his estate. If that's the case, the Bavarian government is playing very, very dumb.

Dresen has pointed to evidence from a journal entry from 1936 when Goebbels sold the rights to Nazi state publishers. He believes this should transfer the copyright to the Bavarian government. "Bavaria is not interested," he told Newsweek, "'Show me the author's contract' they said, knowing the archives were destroyed at the war's end."

Either way, pending the appeal, count this as a loss for historical scholarly work. And from a court in a country that really, really should know better than this.

Filed Under: copyright, diary, germany, history, joseph goebbels, research
Companies: random house

Author Claims Copyright Over Interview He Gave 20 Years Ago

from the that's-not-how-copyright-works dept

A bunch of folks have alerted me to this bizarre story of author Bill Bryson, known for his "humorous books on travel," along with his publisher Transworld (a division of Random House), who are apparently claiming that Bryson holds the copyright on an interview he gave 20 years ago to Mike Gerrard, who published it in the literary magazine Passport (where Gerrard was the publisher). Thinking people might be interested in that interview, Gerrard (smartly) dusted it off and republished it as a Kindle e-book (it sounds like a Kindle Single, but that's not made clear anywhere). Amazon has since taken the book down. No one seems to have published the actual takedown letter from Transworld, but the initial story on it does say it's a copyright claim:

According to Bryson's publishers Transworld, a division of Random House, you may not. Transworld wrote to Gerrard stating that Bryson did not authorise additional publication of the interview, or sale as an e-book beyond the contemporaneous interview for the magazine.

Furthermore, Transworld's lawyers argue that Bryson remains the owner of the words spoken by him.

That last line is not true. As plenty of people have pointed out, if that were true, it would basically make journalism impossible, because anyone who didn't like a quote could demand it be taken down. That's not how copyright law works.

Furthermore, Gerrard has been pointing out repeatedly that many of Bryson's own books involve him quoting others, and jokingly wonders what would happen if one of those people sought to claim copyright on one of Bryson's books. From the initial story in World Travel Market (linked above), it appears that Gerrard is willing to fight back over this claim. He's talking to lawyers to better understand what he can do.

Of course, Gerrard oddly quotes a US legal precedent against having a copyright in your own words, but it appears that both he and Bryson are based in the UK, so I'd imagine that any legal discussion would be under UK law which, tragically and stupidly, doesn't have fair use like American law has. Still, it does have fair dealing, though that should only come into play if Bryson has a legitimate copyright interest in his spoken words, and that seems unlikely -- though, having some UK copyright experts chime in would be nice. From a quick glance, it looks like there's no legitimate copyright interest here, and even if there was, there would either be a fair dealing defense for the purpose of journalism, or an implied license or some sort in the granting of the original interview.

Either way, it seems like yet another attempt to abuse copyright law for censorship, rather than any legitimate purpose.

Filed Under: bill bryson, copyright, interviews, mike gerrard
Companies: amazon, random house, transworld

Turns Out When Random House Said Libraries 'Own' Their Ebooks, It Meant, 'No, They Don't Own Them'

from the words-have-meaning dept

Earlier this week, we talked about how publishing giant Random House had very explicitly stated that when libraries buy their ebooks, the libraries "own" those ebooks, rather than license them. They left no doubt about it. Skip Dye, Random House's VP of library & academic marketing and sales was explict: "when libraries buy their RH, Inc. ebooks from authorized library wholesalers, it is our position that they own them... this purchase constitutes ownership of the book by the library. It is not a license."

This raised some questions, such was whether this was true of everyone else who purchased Random House ebooks. Peter Brantley asked a bunch of questions and finally got Dye on the phone for a discussion, where he learned that when Random House says "own," they mean "not own." In fact, at best, when they say "own" they mean "if you fit into this limited category, you have the right to move your ebooks from one approved platform to another approved platform." This is, contrary to Dye's claim, a license. It is not ownership.

As many surmised, the key phrase in Random House’s communications is “authorized library wholesalers.” In the context of the LJ article, Random House was using a definition of “ownership” that you won’t find in Webster’s dictionary, conveying rights where none exist. In fact, Random will not sell directly to libraries or library consortia, although Mr. Dye reiterated that they continue to evaluate many alternative library business models. RH’s approach in the library market is to vet potential library market distributors for auditing, accounting, security, and other business functions, and then permit libraries to acquire titles from that short list of approved bureaus. In Random’s view, libraries “own” the titles they purchase to the extent that they should be able to migrate their ebook catalogs from one platform, such as Overdrive, to another, such as 3M.

That’s very nice. It’s just not ownership. It’s licensing, with benefits. Library customers of RH titles do not have the ability to transfer their titles to an unapproved platform, such as Califa or Open Library; they cannot resell or donate their ebooks; and there is no mechanism for libraries to receive ebook donations directly from consumers. All that libraries “purchase” from Random House is a verbal commitment to assist libraries in moving their Random House ebooks from one approved commercial platform to another. This is the kind of “perpetual license” that academic libraries have traded for ownership. Academic libraries now employ licensing specialists, and see the world through the lens of contracts. In consequence, faculty have begun to develop open access models that revolutionize scholarly communication from within.

In other words, Random House's claims were a load of bull. That's not surprising, but still disappointing. Brantley goes on to say what kind of ownership should be allowed for libraries when it comes to ebooks:

Public libraries seek a different kind of ownership – the kind that appears in the dictionary. The Internet Archive, Douglas County Libraries, Califa, and a growing number of other library systems are running their own ebook platforms, providing their own auditing, accounting, and security. We want to keep ebooks in our communities, run our own services, safeguard the privacy of our users, and be free from overreaching licensing regimes that threaten our services. And increasingly, we are finding publishers who are willing to sell to us directly, seeing the benefits of handing management of digital titles to libraries. Libraries can market e-books to the people that want them, and gather usage statistics in a privacy-protecting manner to help inform other libraries – as well as publishers – about what titles are popular, and where. These are rights and responsibilities that publicly funded libraries should not hand over to commercial distributors that must navigate between the Scylla of publishers and the Charybdis of Amazon. Readers First is an example of the larger movement articulating libraries’ desire to re-forge a partnership between publishers and libraries.

Of course, I'd also argue that this goes way beyond just libraries. Users want to own their own ebooks as well, just like they own physical books. That means they don't want to worry about having the company they bought their books from suddenly lock them out of their collection for reasons they won't explain. It means they want to be able to move those ebooks from platform to platform without permission. It means they want to be able to lend those ebooks to a friend. Some smaller publishers get this, provide DRM free ebooks, and make it easy for this to happen. Random House, on the other hand, doesn't seem to understand the issue at all.

Filed Under: copyright, ebooks, libraries, license, ownership
Companies: random house

Random House Says Libraries Own Their Ebooks, Really

from the but-what-about-users dept

We've discussed, many, many times, how copyright holders in the digital age like to play fast and loose with the definition of what is "sold" and what is "licensed." Just today, we've seen Amazon wipe out a woman's ebook collection. As we've joked, many copyright holders like to play Schrodinger's download in which they'll argue that it's a license in some cases, and a sale in other, based on what benefits them the most at that instance. So it's a welcome surprise to find out that publishing giant Random House is unequivocal in making the statement that libraries who buy Random House ebooks own those ebooks. Michael Kelley, at the Library Journal, spoke to Skip Dye, Random House's VP of library & academic marketing and sales, and Dye left no doubt about it:

"We spend a lot of time discussing this with librarians, at conferences and elsewhere, and it’s clear that there is still some confusion out there around whether libraries own their ebooks," Dye said. "Random House's often repeated, and always consistent position is this: when libraries buy their RH, Inc. ebooks from authorized library wholesalers, it is our position that they own them."

He went on to make clear the distinction with licensing:

"This is our business model: we sell copies of our ebooks to an approved list of library wholesalers, and those wholesalers are supposed to resell them to libraries. In our view, this purchase constitutes ownership of the book by the library. It is not a license."

Of course, this raises a question: does that also apply to the public? It would seem inconsistent if it were just for libraries. If I buy a Random House ebook, do I "own" it, or have I licensed it? And... then how does that fit with various ebook retailers, such as Amazon, whose terms seem more like a license? Either way, it's good to see a company like Random House take such a clear position on this matter, when most big copyright holders prefer to avoid the question entirely.

Filed Under: ebooks, libraries, license, ownership
Companies: random house

Top Pirate Party Member Has DMCA Takedown Notices Issued In Her Name

from the thinking-it-through dept

Julia Schramm is one of the rising stars of the German Pirate Party: in April, when she was just 27 years old, she was elected to the national party's executive committee. No surprise, then, that she is against copyright: in a podcast she described intellectual property as "disgusting" (original in German.) More surprising is that, despite this, she signed a contract with Knaus-Verlag, part of the publishing giant Random House group, to write a book. Perhaps the $130,000 advance had something to do with it.

The book is called "Click me: confessions of an Internet exhibitionist", and sells for around $22 ($18 for the Kindle version), which seems a bit pricey for just 208 pages. That wouldn't matter if the contents were of particularly high quality. Alas, it seems that many feel they are not: at the time of writing, the book has 10 one-star reviews on Amazon.de, some of which are pretty damning -- "it's really a shame about the trees that were cut down for this book" -- just two five stars, and one three stars. The German magazine Der Spiegel called the book "a disaster."

Schramm can probably live with the reviews (after all, she still has that $130,000 advance.) What's slightly more problematic for her career as one of the top Pirates is the fact that just one day after the book appeared, her publisher sent a takedown request to a site that was hosting a, er, pirate copy -- and in her name:

"This file is no longer available due to a takedown request under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by Julia Schramm Autorin der Verlagsgruppe Random House."

Given her background and stated views, some might say that's pretty, well, disgusting....

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: click me, copyright, dmca, germany, julia schramm, pirate party
Companies: random house

Excerpt From Rob Reid's Year Zero; Plus A Chance To Win The Book

from the techdirt-book-club dept

As we announced a few weeks ago, the July Techdirt Book Club book is Year Zero written by Rob Reid and which comes out today, published by Random House. Rob will be joining us in a few weeks to talk about writing a comic sci-fi novel about the mess that is copyright law... but in the meantime, he's provided the following excerpt, which is Chapter 1. There is a "prologue" before this, which you can read here, or you can just watch this video, which more or less covers the prologue info: As part of this, Rob and Random House have agreed to do another give away, this time just for Techdirt readers, which will go to five commenters on this post, based on your voting scores on the comments. We'll give one copy of the book each to the highest ranked "funny" and "insightful" comments, and then the three highest total scores other than the top ranked (so either funny or insightful). There are a few conditions: you have to be in the US or Canada. I know this sucks for those of you not in those places, but there's nothing we can do about it. Also, to win, we obviously have to be able to contact you, which means (a) you need to be logged in when you comment, so we can email you and (b) you have to respond to our email informing you of your win within 24 hours of our email. Also, you can't win twice -- if you score the highest in multiple categories, you get a prize in one and the others will go to the runners-up. We'll keep the voting open until Wednesday night and then tally the votes. So, get to work with your funny/insightful comments...

CHAPTER ONE: ASTLEY

Even if she'd realized that my visitors were aliens who had come to our office to initiate contact with humanity, Barbara Ann would have resented their timing. Assistants at our law firm clearout at five-thirty, regardless -- and that was almost a minute ago.

"I don't have anyone scheduled," I said, when she called to grouse about the late arrival. "Who is it?"

"I don't know, Nick. They weren't announced."

"You mean they just sort of . . . turned up at your desk?" I stifled a sneeze as I said this. I'd been fighting a beast of a cold all week.

"Pretty much."

This was odd. Reception is two key-card-protected floors above us, and no one gets through unaccompanied, much less unannounced. "What do they look like?" I asked.

"Strange."

"Lady Gaga strange?" Carter, Geller & Marks has some weird-looking clients, and Gaga flirts with the outer fringe, when she's really gussied up.

"No--kind of stranger than that. In a way. I mean, they look like they're from . . . maybe a couple of cults."

From what? "Which ones?"

"One definitely looks Catholic," Barbara Ann said. "Like a . . . priestess? And the other one looks . . . kind of Talibanny. You know -- robes and stuff?"

"And they won't say where they're from?"

"They can't. They're deaf."

I was about to ask her to maybe try miming some information out of them, but thought better of it. The day was technically over. And like most of her peers, Barbara Ann has a French postal worker's sense of divine entitlement when it comes to her hours. This results from there being just one junior assistant for every four junior lawyers, which makes them monopoly providers of answered phones, FedEx runs, and other secretarial essentials to some truly desperate customers. So as usual, I caved. "Okay, send 'em in."

The first one through the door had dark eyes and a bushy beard. He wore a white robe, a black turban, and a diver's watch the size of a small bagel. Apart from the watch, he looked like the Hollywood ideal of a fatwa-shrieking cleric -- until I noticed a shock of bright red hair protruding from under his turban. This made him look faintly Irish, so I silently christened him O'Sama. His partner was dressed like a nun -- although in a tight habit that betrayed the curves of a lap dancer. She had a gorgeous tan and bright blue eyes and was young enough to get carded anywhere.

O'Sama gazed at me with a sort of childlike amazement, while the sister kept it cool. She tried to catch his eye -- but he kept right on staring. So she tapped him on the shoulder, pointing at her head. At this, they both stuck their fingers under their headdresses to adjust something. "Now we can hear," the nun announced, straightening out a big, medieval-looking crucifix that hung around her neck.

This odd statement aside, I thought I knew what was happening. My birthday had passed a few days back without a call from any of my older brothers. It would be typical of them to forget -- but even more typical of them to pretend to forget, and then ambush me with a wildly inappropriate birthday greeting at my stodgy New York law office. So I figured I had about two seconds before O'Sama started beatboxing and the nun began to strip. Since you never know when some partner's going to barge through your door, I almost begged them to leave. But then I remembered that I was probably getting canned soon anyway. So why not gun for YouTube glory, and capture the fun on my cellphone?

As I considered this, the nun fixed me with a solemn gaze. "Mr. Carter. We are visitors from a distant star."

That settled it. "Then I better record this for NASA." I reached across the desk for my iPhone.

"Not a chance." She extended a finger and the phone leapt from the desk and darted toward her. Then it stopped abruptly, emitted a bright green flash, and collapsed into a glittering pile of dust on the floor.

"What the . . . ?" I basically talk for a living, but this was all I could manage.

"We're camera shy." The nun retracted her finger as if sheathing a weapon. "And as I mentioned, we‘re also visitors from a distant star."

I nodded mutely. That iPhone trick had made a believer out of me.

"And we want you to represent us," O'Sama added. "The reputation of Carter, Geller & Marks extends to the farthest reaches of the universe."

The absurdity of this flipped me right back to thinking "prank" -- albeit one featuring some awesome sleight of hand. "Then you know I'll sue your asses if I don't get my iPhone back within the next two parsecs," I growled, trying to suppress the wimpy, nasal edge that my cold had injected into my voice. I had no idea what a parsec was, but remembered the term from Star Wars.

"Oh, up your nose with a rubber hose," the nun hissed. As I was puzzling over this odd phrase, she pointed at the dust pile on the floor. It glowed green again, then erupted into a tornado-like form, complete with thunderbolts and lightning. This rose a few feet off the ground before reconstituting itself into my phone, which then resettled gently onto my desk. That refuted the prank theory nicely -- putting me right back into the alien-believer camp.

"Thank you very kindly," I said, determined not to annoy Xena Warrior Fingers ever, ever again.

"Don't mention it. Anyway, as my colleague was saying, the reputation of Carter, Geller & Marks extends to the farthest corner of the universe, and we'd like to retain your services."

Now that I was buying the space alien bit, this hit me in a very different way. The farthest corner of the universe is a long way for fame to travel, even for assholes like us. I mean, global fame, sure -- to the extent that law firms specializing in copyright and patents actually get famous. We're the ones who almost got a country booted from the UN over its lax enforcement of DVD copyrights. We're even more renowned for our many jihads against the Internet. And we're downright notorious for virtually shutting down American automobile production over a patent claim that was simply preposterous. So yes, Earthly fame I was aware of. But I couldn't imagine why they'd be hearing about us way out on Zørkan 5, or wherever these two were from.

"So, what area of the law do you need help in?" I asked in a relaxed, almost bored tone. Feigning calm believably is a survival tactic that I perfected as the youngest of four boys (or of seven, if you count our cousins, who lived three doors down. I sure did). It made me boring to pick on -- and useless as a prank victim, because I'd treat the damnedest events and circumstances as being mundane, and entirely expected. It had also helped me immensely as a lawyer (although by itself, it had not been enough to make me a successful one).

Sister Venus gave me a cagey look. "It's sort of . . . an intellectual property thing."

Filed Under: aliens, book club, contest, giveaway, rob reid, year zero
Companies: random house

Random House Invests In Creative Commons 'Free' Textbook Publisher Flat World Knowledge

from the are-they-getting-it? dept

We've written a few times in the past about Flat World Knowledge, a textbook publisher that really seems to have embraced the sort of business models we discuss. It gives away digital versions (the infinitely abundant kind) of its textbooks for free, but charges for the scarcities, such as printed copies. It puts the books up under a Creative Commons license as well, letting anyone improve upon the works as well. Thus, it's interesting to see that established publishers are taking notice. Apparently Random House has now invested in the company. Of course, some may point out that Random House doesn't publish textbooks, but perhaps it can learn a thing or two about how FWK has embraced openness and free as a part of a larger business model.

Filed Under: investment, open source, textbooks
Companies: flat world knowledge, random house