Japan Digital Books
The other night while watching an installment of HGTV's House Hunters I saw a young professional woman who works as a mortgage broker looking for a small apartment in Manhattan. When she entered one apartment and saw vast walls of built-in bookcases she said the bookcases would be the first thing she took down if she bought the place. Her reason was, "Who reads print books anymore? Didn't these people ever hear of e-books or Kindle?" And this article about how e-books are moving forward in Japan is interesting because it seems to go along with the way reading habits are changing...not to mention the significance of e-books.
The Diet enacted a bill Friday to revise the copyright law to recognize publishing rights for electronic books. Under the revised law, which is set to take effect in January 2015, rights holders will be able to file suits to stop pirated digital books from being distributed on the Internet. Copyright holders of books and other publications have already been allowed to file such suits over electronic versions. The revised law is also designed to promote the distribution of digital books, whose market is growing due mainly to wider smartphone use.
You can read more about it here.
Berenstain Bears' App
For those who have followed my Chase of a Lifetime series the Berenstain Bears are a favorite with Jim and Len's son. The author of the children's books also came from Solebury, PA, which is where I live (New Hope is the main post office for everyone.) And now there's a BB app for Mother's Day.
We Love Our Mom! is designed for 4-8 year olds. The interactive app includes tools to help teach vocabulary, as well as a feature that lets readers record their own narration.
It's interesting to me mostly because I once read on a literary agent's blog that technology and children in publishing would never come together. What that agent failed to understand is that most children between the ages of 4 and 8 can run circles around her when it comes to technology.
You can read more here.
Self-pubbed Bestseller DBW
Divergent has been holding its own on the DBW bestseller list, but it recently slipped in the ranks thanks to a self-published digital book.
Divergent is this year’s runaway top best-selling ebook in the U.S. — but it’s not the best-selling ebook this week. (In the UK, at the London Book Fair, the buzz around HarperCollins is about why Divergent is selling comparatively well abroad.)
The juggernaut has been stopped and sits at No. 2 on the Digital Book World Ebook Best-Seller list, making way for Fixed Trilogy Bundle, a collection of titles by self-published author Laurelin Paige.
It kind of has a Fifty Shades look to it, but I don't know much about it. I just hope it didn't reach this bestseller point due to more gaming. I don't mind a little author/publisher subterfuge, within reason. I don't think anyone selling anything commercial can claim sainthood. But I'm not fond of the all out vicious race we've been reading about and hearing about recently.
More here.
Showing posts with label pirates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pirates. Show all posts
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Saturday, January 4, 2014
10 Most Pirated Films 2014; Rainbow Award Allegations; Guys Wearing Socks
10 Most Pirated Films 2014
In a way, it feels better for some reason to post about those who pirate films instead of books...for a change. This article talks about the 10 most pirated films of 2014. But what's even more interesting is the comment thread where one brave man decided to challenge film piracy and the comments that follow remind me of a lot of e-book discussions I've heard.
The guy's name is Ryan...it's really not me. But I would have said basically what he said...
Out of curiosity, am I the only one who finds no excuse for pirating movies (or games, or music, etc.)? There isn’t a single credible argument in its favor, at least not that I can see. It honestly baffles me that people defend it. I get that it will happen no matter what, but there are just so many people who don’t even have the presence of mind to realize that it is, by definition, wrong. I just don’t get it.
Read more at http://whatculture.com/film/10-pirated-films-2013.php#m6VMB3JKDjmR7x0m.99
It's nice to see someone still has some moral compass left.
Rainbow Award Allegations
The post I'm linking to was written by an author I don't know, but I did read basically the same thing in several other places so I know it's accurate. Evidently, someone accused the Rainbow Awards of "fraud" and book blogger Elisa Rolle put up a detailed statement to disabuse people of any misconceptions/allegations floating around out there.
In part, it states:
The more than 150 volunteering judges are established readers, writers and reviewers in the LGBTQ Romance genre and therefore not completely unbiased, but every effort is made to select the books every judge is given so that affiliations with publishers, genres and categories (for writers) limits the chance of bias.
I've personally been a juror for the Rainbow Awards since its beginning and I can personally back this statement up on my small scale. I've also gone that extra proverbial mile and I've requested they don't send me books to judge by authors I know, or publishers with which I'm affiliated. In other words, the eight books I judged this year were written by authors I'd never read before, never met anywhere before, and knew nothing about. I also read books outside of my genre. In addition to this, I don't enter any of my books at all. So the books really are carefully selected to help keep things more objective. And it's all in writing through e-mail exchanges in case anyone ever wants to challenge me. I learned to never assume anything a long time ago and I plan ahead, in writing, just in case.
The name of the person who made these allegations was not disclosed. At least I haven't seen it anywhere.
You can read more here.
Guys Wearing Socks
This link is here just because it's fun. There's a photo of adorable men wearing nothing but socks, and they aren't wearing the socks on their feet if you get my drift. I like it so much I left my own comment. And I have to find out how this blogger gets permission to post photos like this. Is there something I'm missing about copyright laws? Or does he/she just contact each person and ask for permission in writing. I've taken down all past images I wasn't sure about...thousands...this past year for copyright infringement reasons. I don't want to take any chances. But I'm starting to think some bloggers have figured ways around this. Maybe it has something to do with advertisers. I've been contacted by underwear companies and they've given me permission to use their photos.
You can get there from here.
My photo above is listed in the public domain and I found it here.
In a way, it feels better for some reason to post about those who pirate films instead of books...for a change. This article talks about the 10 most pirated films of 2014. But what's even more interesting is the comment thread where one brave man decided to challenge film piracy and the comments that follow remind me of a lot of e-book discussions I've heard.
The guy's name is Ryan...it's really not me. But I would have said basically what he said...
Out of curiosity, am I the only one who finds no excuse for pirating movies (or games, or music, etc.)? There isn’t a single credible argument in its favor, at least not that I can see. It honestly baffles me that people defend it. I get that it will happen no matter what, but there are just so many people who don’t even have the presence of mind to realize that it is, by definition, wrong. I just don’t get it.
Read more at http://whatculture.com/film/10-pirated-films-2013.php#m6VMB3JKDjmR7x0m.99
It's nice to see someone still has some moral compass left.
Rainbow Award Allegations
The post I'm linking to was written by an author I don't know, but I did read basically the same thing in several other places so I know it's accurate. Evidently, someone accused the Rainbow Awards of "fraud" and book blogger Elisa Rolle put up a detailed statement to disabuse people of any misconceptions/allegations floating around out there.
In part, it states:
The more than 150 volunteering judges are established readers, writers and reviewers in the LGBTQ Romance genre and therefore not completely unbiased, but every effort is made to select the books every judge is given so that affiliations with publishers, genres and categories (for writers) limits the chance of bias.
I've personally been a juror for the Rainbow Awards since its beginning and I can personally back this statement up on my small scale. I've also gone that extra proverbial mile and I've requested they don't send me books to judge by authors I know, or publishers with which I'm affiliated. In other words, the eight books I judged this year were written by authors I'd never read before, never met anywhere before, and knew nothing about. I also read books outside of my genre. In addition to this, I don't enter any of my books at all. So the books really are carefully selected to help keep things more objective. And it's all in writing through e-mail exchanges in case anyone ever wants to challenge me. I learned to never assume anything a long time ago and I plan ahead, in writing, just in case.
The name of the person who made these allegations was not disclosed. At least I haven't seen it anywhere.
You can read more here.
Guys Wearing Socks
This link is here just because it's fun. There's a photo of adorable men wearing nothing but socks, and they aren't wearing the socks on their feet if you get my drift. I like it so much I left my own comment. And I have to find out how this blogger gets permission to post photos like this. Is there something I'm missing about copyright laws? Or does he/she just contact each person and ask for permission in writing. I've taken down all past images I wasn't sure about...thousands...this past year for copyright infringement reasons. I don't want to take any chances. But I'm starting to think some bloggers have figured ways around this. Maybe it has something to do with advertisers. I've been contacted by underwear companies and they've given me permission to use their photos.
You can get there from here.
My photo above is listed in the public domain and I found it here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)