Six Things to Change Publishing But with Video!

Here is the link to the post earlier in the week with the powerpoint presentation:
(Link)

Amazon Sued By Discovery Communications

In what is likely to cause great consternation and discussion on the web here is the Discovery Communications statement:

Discovery Communications Files Patent Infringement Suit Against Amazon.com

March 17, 2009

(Silver Spring, Md.) Discovery Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: DISCA, DISCB, DISCK) today filed a patent infringement suit against Amazon.com, Inc. in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, alleging infringement of a patent issued to Discovery Communications for electronic book technology. Discovery Communications alleges that Amazon's sale of the Kindle and Kindle 2 products and its electronic book delivery system infringe U.S. Patent Number 7,298,851, "Electronic Book Security and Copyright Protection System." A copy of the filing can be found on Discovery's web site: www.discoverycommunications.com.

Discovery Communications and John S. Hendricks were significant players in the development of digital content and delivery services in the 1990's. Hendricks' work included inventions of a secure, encrypted system for the selection, transmission, and sale of electronic books.

Joseph A. LaSala, Jr., General Counsel of Discovery Communications, said: "The Kindle and Kindle 2 are important and popular content delivery systems. We believe they infringe our intellectual property rights, and that we are entitled to fair compensation. Legal action is not something Discovery takes lightly. Our tradition as an inventive company has produced considerable intellectual property assets for our shareholders, and today's infringement litigation is part of our effort to protect and defend those assets."

Discovery Communications is represented in the action against Amazon.com, Inc. by Morrison & Foerster and Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor.

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO VIEW:

Stop Making Sense: RISD Students Visit Random House

Apparently, RISD students have been all the rage at corporations ranging from The Gap to Bank of America and they recently visited Random House. This has to be fake, right? From The Brown Daily Herald.

Last month, a team of RISD students made a consulting trip to the headquarters of Random House, the venerable New York publishing house whose widely-publicized financial troubles earlier this year required company-wide layoffs. Random House CEO Markus Dohle extended a personal invitation to the students, who were paid a six-figure consulting fee and tasked with "re-energizing Random House's artistic mission by challenging our notions of creativity in business settings."

On their first day at Random House, the RISD team - who arrived in Manhattan on blue bicycles, wearing plaid pants and one-shouldered leotards - spent the morning examining the artwork in the offices of several Random House employees. Upon seeing a framed print of Thomas Kinkade's "The Christmas Cottage" hanging above the desk of senior editor Robert Littrell, RISD senior Megan Lafleur-Ramirez pronounced it "beyond tragic," and replaced the Kinkade print with "Awareness of Self and Non-Self Entities," a sculpture consisting of a bag of Cooler Ranch Doritos dipped in honey and tied to a Betamax player. RISD junior David Harrison spent the afternoon replacing many of the Dell computers in the office with cardboard signs reading "COMPUTER + COMP-YOU-TER = THE SIGNIFIED (???)" and sophomore Hannah Benton joined senior Rachel de Compt in the accounts division, where they spent several hours dropping long green threads onto pieces of canvas, attaching them to glass slides and putting the slides in a toaster. The project, de Compt said, was inspired by French surrealist Marcel Duchamp's "Trois Stoppages Etalon," and was meant to represent the plight of America's poor.

Do I label this "business strategy" or maybe comedy.

Kevin Roose has a book coming out: The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University Amazon. (Hat tip Ron Hogan).

Judging Clarity: The AAP, Google, AG Settlement

There has been an increasing amount of discussion – mainly on the Interwebs and via list serves, etc. — about the proposed settlement between Google, AAP and AG. The agreement is set to be approved by the presiding judge in mid-year and there are no indications that the judge will fail to approve the agreement. The agreement itself is so complex that this complexity may be resulting in a lack of coherence to the objections that some parties have; but, as I see it there are several themes to the objections and some of these came out during an open meeting I attended at Columbia University Law School on Friday.

Firstly, at the core of this agreement, is a provision to set up a Book Registry (BR) that will manage bibliographic information, document copyright holder details, as well as enable sophisticated opt out/in functionality and provide for collect and pay. The Registry is being funded initially by Google and will have a board of directors chosen equally between the parties (ex-Google).There is some concern about how this operation will function since the details are not laid out in the document (only its obligations). For example, the Registry will arbitrate between potentially conflicting parties regarding copyright ownership. The exact mechanics of this remain cloudy and so some believe this lack of clarity is cause for concern. Unclear also is how this organization will be constructed, although AAP and AG are among those involved in the upcoming naming of an Executive Director of the Registry. Articles of incorporation will be filed with the State of New York in the next week which assumes the establishment of bi-laws and a board of directors for the BR. A question was asked about the eventual representational breadth of the board beyond members of AAP and AG to which the response was ‘we hope to represent as many groups as possible without it becoming cumbersome.’

Secondly, there is concern about the sales process and the mechanism for determining who pays what. This question was not addressed in full although it is Google who will be selling the books database product to libraries and other institutions. The scope of the customer base is not clear; e.g., it is not clear whether the Library of Congress would be an eligible institutional subscriber. Since this is not Google’s (natural) business, it is assumed the company will find a third party (or more than one) to sell this database for them into this market. One panel member expressed strong concern that monopolistic factors could develop in the sales of the product particularly a monopoly of the content for sale. Even if Google commissioned multiple sales agents, pricing could not diverge from that established by the BR, which would receive input from Google. (There was some under-current of belief that this database of out-of- print, old, ‘orphan’ works is a public good and should, therefore, be open to all).

The pricing formula seems to be susceptible to black box determination and isn’t clear. In the document specific prices per title are noted (in the context that x number should be priced at y price and z number priced at w price, etc). It would seem logical that there will be an all in price per some recognized measure (such as enrollment or population served). Having said that, there may need to be some type of sliding scale resulting in some of the larger universities and institutions paying a proportionately larger amount than smaller schools but how (or if) this will develop may have more to do with experimentation that anything. Any customer is going to want some clarity regarding the price they are being offered and how their price compares with another similar institution. There is also the question of what types of libraries are eligible for subscription; e.g., would libraries within hospitals qualify? The mechanic's library? It may come down to anyone with cash.

Pricing assumes there is value in this database and, in the aggregate this is probable. And perhaps as the books are progressively interlinked (assuming this will form some of their development), then value will increase. In the final analysis, academic libraries are going to view this as a must-have database and will be pressured by their faculties and researchers to subscribe. Publishers with many titles in the database will make some money but the average author is unlikely to make much at all. (This doesn’t negate the benefit that their intellectual work will now be far more easily accessible). As an aside, in pricing this database, I believe the emphasis will be to price it as high as possible in case usage proves the product is only marginally useful.

No one at this meeting mentioned the Elsevier complaint that purchases are often “all or nothing” deals: In this case, it would be interesting if Google provided access to anyone wanting the database and then charged only for usage. The students at the small agricultural college in Texas are not going to access too many of the political science titles from Michigan and maybe they shouldn’t have to pay for them. (There is language in the agreement about domain-specific compilations — e.g., "biology" or perhaps "biological sciences" - but it is not spelled out how that would be implemented).

This is only a US deal and there will be no international access to this database. International publishers (particularly) have felt disenfranchised, since many books published overseas have been scanned as part of this process.

Regardless, Google and AAP emphasize the points that they have made every effort to enable copyright holders to participate in or opt out of the database. They have promised functionality that will enable wide flexibility from expunging the content to free access – with significant gradations with respect to access and pricing between these two points.

Google says they have spent $10-15mm (by their own declaration more than in any other class action suit) to educate the potential rights holders of this agreement. Even so, there haven’t been too many ‘reclassifications’ of books once considered “orphan”.

This will not be the last of this discussion.

Note: Thanks to Peter Brantley for his help and here are his thoughts (and the Twitter Stream) on the same meeting.

Six Things to Change Publishing

Michael Tamblyn's presentation on change in publishing is excellent. Each one is great, but I especially like number one and in number six he touches on some of the innovation concepts I noted in my presentation at Frankfurt last year. In comparison, I was far more heavy handed than his elegant delivery.

Michael Tamblyn - 6 Projects That Could Change Publishing for the Better

View more presentations from booknetcanada.

Related: Presuming No Book

Related: Edelweiss: Above the Treeline

Related: Future of Bibliographic Databases

No 1 Detectives

I saw the poster in Times Square and she saw it in the subway. I thought, "Crap, we are going to have to get HBO". Casually, over dinner, I mention: "I'm thinking we might want to get HBO." She says, "Oh really, I think so to." I say "Why would you agree?" She says "You know why."

Oh, well at least there's Bill Maher.

UK Retail Magazine Distribution Upheaval

The Guardian reports (and Dawson confirms) that Frontline a joint venture of three magazine publishers has decided not to renew their distribution agreement with Dawson Holdings. The agreement that covered approximately 1,000 magazine titles that were distributed to newstands, agents and stores across the UK will be split between Smith News and Menzies. While the change will not happen for 12mths some observers are suggesting a duopoly may not be in the best interests of the market.

Dawson Holdings provides distribution for various types of media content including distribution into the UK library market. The company indicated that this contract is worth £116 million and compares to total revenues for Dawson News of £690 million. Since the contract still has 12mths to run the company is in the process of determining its options.

Publishers in many markets are looking for improved efficiency and this situation in the UK is another example of that. As the Guardian writes:

The move is part of an efficiency drive by Frontline, jointly owned by Bauer Media, the FHM publisher, Haymarket, whose titles include the advertising industry bible Campaign, and BBC Magazines. In common with other publishers, they are trying to cut costs by reducing the number of local and regional wholesalers used to deliver titles to the 55,000 retailers in the UK that stock them.

Frontline and its competitors, which include Comag and Seymour, deliver from their printing presses to regional warehouses owned by distributors. The industry used to be dominated by a network of local and regional distributors, many of which had monopolies in certain parts of the country, but in recent years the big magazine companies have tried to rationalise their distribution operations.

In the US, readers will be aware of a similar set of circumstances involving Anderson News and Source Interlink which sought to extract more money from publishers for distribution. With a declining marketplace and increasing costs publishers and distributors are aggressively looking for efficiencies and consolidation -thereby spreading costs across more publications - is a viable option. Whether this places too much market power in the hands of SmithNews and Menzies remains to be seen.