iBook Store Features Leave Indie Publishers Behind 146
jfruhlinger writes "Apple has introduced some new features to its iBooks store in order to make illustrations and fixed layouts possible — something particularly important for children's books. But at the moment, it seems these features are only available for big publishers, not indies. This is not dissimilar from the controversy that brewed over indie labels' access to iTunes LP."
surprise surprise (Score:1, Informative)
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Granted, it is more ethically sound to extend the same benefits of access to smaller (and less-profitable) publishers as to the 'big names', but since when has Apple marketed itself as
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In lots of countries around the world there are laws against big business negotiating to keep an advantaje out of its rivals reach. As far as I remember, the US is one of those countries.
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Yes, we all said "piss on Windows" a long time ago and haven't looked back.
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They aren't doing this to snub the little guys... (Score:5, Insightful)
I know it's cool to be anti Apple on slashdot these days, but does the hatred have to include loss of logic?
Apple doesn't publish music or books, so in the case of iTunes LP, or the latest iBooks features, they need to work them out fully first. They do this by working with a few big companies, giving them access to rough beta copies of tools and tech specs. By working togther on a few items, Apple can identify and fix issues in a tool or spec before it's widely released. If they just threw out unfinished tools and specs, people would whine about the problems, and also increase Apple's support burden. With a slow and steady rollout, they can do it right, and ensure the mass publishing market has tools or specs that work without requiring direct hand holding via Apple support.
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You suggest Apple are jsut trying to get their house in order, finalizing tools and specs. If that were the case, once Apple were confident in their tech specs, surely they'd allow users of other operating systems to create apps for iOS?
Or perhaps they're going to roll that out in a "slow and steady" manner? I for one won't be holding my breath.
They do allow creation from other platforms (Score:2)
surely they'd allow users of other operating systems to create apps for iOS?
They do. You can generate iPhone apps from Flash. That tool can be run on Mac or Windows. [adobe.com]
Now what you are suggesting is Apple is beholden to make the development tools THEY write for Windows. Why should that be the case? Microsoft doesn't produce Visual Studio for the Mac!
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If that were the case, once Apple were confident in their tech specs, surely they'd allow users of other operating systems to create apps for iOS?
There's no "allow" here, as in Apple acting as the bully keeping you out of its tree fort. Apple would have to significantly increase its development investment in the iOS development tool chain to maintain and QA ports for other desktop platforms. That's money directly diverted from enhancements to the toolchain and to iOS itself. The return on that investment is doubtful at best, and the lost opportunity cost is damning. Personally, I can't foresee any market for this that would justify the ongoing co
Re:They aren't doing this to snub the little guys. (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you been reading Slashdot lately? It's nothing but screeching monkeys and poo flinging at the merest mention of Apple.
People seem to hate Apple nowadays the way they used to hate Microsoft. Heck, half of the things people are saying isn't factually correct -- it's just what they believe. I still see people claiming you can't play MP3s on an iPod.
I think in many cases, logic has gone completely out the window when Apple is the topic.
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Come on, every anti-Apple story has a legion of screeching fanboys coming on to defend the company (though not directly, it's usually couched in phrases like "ohh, you're just hating out of hatred"). There's faulty thinking on both sides.
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Yo, Dawg ... I hear you like to hate, so I installed some hate so you can hate while you're hating. :-P
On that, we agree. =)
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Come on, every anti-Apple story has a legion of screeching fanboys coming on to defend the company (though not directly, it's usually couched in phrases like "ohh, you're just hating out of hatred"). There's faulty thinking on both sides.
Screeching fanboys or just people who are dubious after so much wolf-crying?
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Have you been reading the same slashdot as I have?
It's being used as a platform for all kinds of Apple evangelism, any mention of Win Phone 7, Meego or *gasp* Android will launch a flurry of attacks against from Apple evangelists.
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*laugh* Dude, you're currently moderated as "insightful and troll". That rocks!
I think that pretty much sums up how polarized things are wrt Apple these days. :-P
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Welcome to the /. moderation system. It may not be perfect but it's better then most other systems.
And I too appreciate the irony.
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This just in, companies seek to sell their own products.
Re:They aren't doing this to snub the little guys. (Score:5, Insightful)
Haha, this is the absolute perfect example of misinformation about apple. Who cares about the fact that m4a is actually the MPEG standard designed to succeed the MPEG standard ac3, which itself was designed to take over from the MPEG standard mp3.
No, instead we need to have a good bash at apple for trying to get "their" standard through over all others.
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And more's the better if it did - AAC is technically a better codec than mp3. Both have patent and licensing issues, but AAC is an open standard as designed from the start. Mp3 was grandfathered in and is more tightly patent controlled by a single company.
It would be better if AAC took over.
Note that Apple does not control or own AAC - it just uses it as its default format.
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How do you know it's untrue? Have you looked back over recent Apple posts on slashdot? The wealth of disinformation and just plain wrong data that is touted as "fact" is staggering.
This is not just confined to information about Apple, but all of the "unpopular" entities on slashdot - Google, MS, Sony, Apple, Facebook etc. The genuine issues with these large companies (and they all have them) are drowned out by nonsense wailing, gnashing and frothing from people with an axe to grind and whose only desire is
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What, the fact that I've seen people on Slashdot claim iPods can't play MP3? Not hardly. People make all sorts of misinformed statements about what you can and can't do with an iPod -- including that it won't play MP3s or that you have to buy your music from the iTunes music store.
First of all, I don't think endearing you to Apple is important. It may not endear them to you, but you're not their market.
You
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That works if and only if Apple tells everyone that's what they're doing. While it may be likely based on past experience, you cannot safely assume a company will do anything in particular.
Innovation often doesn't come from the big guys. Experience so far with the App Store has certainly shown that. There's no good reason for Apple to only look at large publishing operations for input.
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"does the hatred have to include loss of logic?"
Its usually hard hate if you let logic get in the way.
Like most mob trends, the anti-apple movement has some valid points down below all the posturing and silliness, but most of what you see online fails to convey them.
Is it a surprise? (Score:2, Insightful)
Apple has been going full-on evil lately with a vision for the future that makes even MS's most dominating days pale. They want to control every device you own, and the appliance model is what they like. Devices designed for consumption, not production. You get to pay for everything and can buy it only through the Apple owned store. They will make devices designed to have a short life with features like non-replaceable batteries so that you are always spending money on the newest, trendiest, toy. They get t
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So I am not surprised Apple gets a lot of hatred here. If they don't want that, maybe they shouldn't have such a closed, "The Apple was is the ONLY way," ecosystem. Now if you like that that's fine. I'm not telling you what you should or shouldn't want. It is perfectly ok to say "I like their system, I want my stuff locked down and controlled, because that also implies protected, I am willing to deal with higher prices and less choice in trade for what I feel to be a better overall experience." However unde
Mirror Mirror (Score:2)
Your own post starts:
Apple has been going full-on evil lately with a vision for the future that makes even MS's most dominating days pale
In the face of such epic chicken-little style hype, why would responses not be agressive? Why do you get to be agressive and not expect agressive counter-argument in return?
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Or to phrase it more accurately: you're a hypocrite.
Your hype, frothing and hyperbole aren't that at all are they, it's just righteous anger!
You can't seriously adopt the "all Apple fans are so aggressive and trolling" when your post starts the way it did, and then try to claim it as a pre-emptive strike against the "aggressive" Apple fans that you are expecting to reply to your post.
That's not discussion; that's trolling.
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Not surprised, just wondering why both sides seem to be made up of people incapable of having a civil discussion.
As for the moderation -- friend of a friend status means I see it rated as "+5 Troll" -- you're a highly rated troll. So there's that, at least. :)
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They will make devices designed to have a short life with features like non-replaceable batteries so that you are always spending money on the newest, trendiest, toy.
I never did understand this point. When did requiring a screwdriver make a battery non replaceable? Sure, it's a little bit different then other laptops and phones, but the battery remains a replaceable component inside Apple products.
Missing the point! (Score:3)
OTOH, lots of small publishers are eager to satisfy their clients, but cannot, since Apple chose t
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Mail from Apple contact says: specs are not ready yet, but will be "available in early January".
Still, why the 'closed beta'?
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The link you pointed me to indicates iBooks doesn't support embedded fonts (dated June 23rd), then has an article this month on how to embed fonts. So in that case, it looks like Apple needed iOS 4.x to support embedded fonts properly, but didn't want to hold up the initial iBooks release.
And no, I'm not an Apple helpdesk guy, but I have worked in various support roles, from consumer support, enterprise support, and developer support. There is always a cost associated with support, and it's much higher wh
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Making rough beta copies of tools and tech specs available on an equal basis to all publishers would work at least as well (Google tends to do this). And if support burden and focus was the concern, even better would be working with a small set of smaller publ
Dammit! (Score:2)
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You might want a proofreader there. It should be passengers' as there's more than one of them.
And next week... (Score:3)
[Apple] is only providing information on how to create fixed layout ebooks for it's store to a select group of publishers and ebook producers."
And a week from now when that information finds its way to the internet the headline will be "All Authors Able to Publish Fixed-Width iBooks"
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That is because you didn't care to format shift the other books into the newer standards. If you kept an ebook collection at whatever media you find most usefull at each time, and shifted the collection every time you migrated to other storage technology, all of them would still be readable.
What, of course, reminds of all that DRM nonsense...
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Steve Jobs hates poor people. (Score:2, Troll)
Why this isn't too much of a problem... (Score:1)
Way too old (Score:2)
I have two year old family members who are able to use parts of the iPhone just fine.
And "children's book" is a pretty broad category, going up almost to the teens...
iTunes LP was made available (Score:4, Informative)
I would expect the same in a few months for any iBooks thing.
If I may quote... (Score:3)
iBooks vs. Standard EPUB (Score:2)
Of course, the International Digital Publishing Forum -- the group behind EPUB -- is also working on that problem, in the open, without distributing closed standards to selected parties.
Apple's not trying to fix problems with EPUB; now that they've used the fact that EPUB was a widely accepted to standard with existing tools and support to build iBooks, they are trying to use their current market power to create a breach between their platform and the standard, so that its more expensive for publishers to s
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Or, as it's commonly known, "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish".
From IBM to Microsoft, and now to Apple. Isn't it cute?
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Not going to double post, but this is far from the classic EEE.
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1918138&cid=34625732 [slashdot.org]
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Or more likely, as they did with iTunes LP and Extras is that they'll release it to everyone when the bugs are ironed out.
Apple's general direction with formats is open: aac, mp4, .mbox, .ics, documented xml (for their productivity apps), and increasing standardisation of WebKit's engine on the WC3's standards for html and css (including future draft specs like html5).
It's a far cry from embrace, extend and extinguish. Just compare it to something like the WMA format, which is just slightly tweaked mpeg4 de
Behind is not out in the cold (Score:4, Insightful)
People would bitch if they did make it available (Score:4, Insightful)
If they did make it available to everyone right away, people would still be bitching. The complaint would be that Apple is trying to hijack the open ePUB standard with their extensions for fixed layout.
The right way to do this is to implement their proposed system, test it on a few books, fix problems found, and end up with a format that works well for this. Only after it is stable and they have had a chance to see what other ePUB stakeholders think should they open it to everyone.
This is how most progress on standards comes about.
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I heard it died faster than Jobs' liver "donor".
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mp3.com? didn't that die as fast as Fred Durst's star power?
Fred Durst had star power?
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Apple is not run for the benefit of their customers, but for the shareholders, executives and their friends.
So they're like 95% of all the corporations out there then?
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100% in fact – it's the duty of the corporation to do their absolute best to make money for their investors.
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People always throw this quote out like it means something, but it doesn't.
Is it the duty for the corporation to do their absolute best to make money for their investors for the next quarter or for the next 10 years?
Do corporations have a duty to do what's best for the investors right now, even if it's going to hurt, or even destroy the market 5 years from now?
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There is also social responsibility.
Social responsibility is good PR, not a legal obligation.
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They fought to acquire the same rights as individuals, they are burdened by the same obligations.
What obligations to corporations in the United States have beyond providing their shareholders with a profit? I ask about US corporations because Apple is one.
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Again : As market share approaches total dominance, it is the obligation of the monopoly to provide access to all elements of the niche they control.
Prove it.
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wha?
lots of people have never bought apple/itunes products in the first place. Things such as buying mp3s, buying ebooks, buying things at set prices, buying video games at retail prices, these are things that most people who are fairly technically savvy have never dealt with and never will. For them, this is much ado about nothing. Also, this tech savvy crowd grows everyday.
Re:Apple did the same with Itunes. BOYCOTT APPLE. (Score:5, Insightful)
What exactly did Apple do to mp3.com? Indie artists are welcome to make their music available through any mechanism they like: youtube, myspace, facebook, etc.
Or rather, they're welcome to sit in obscurity in any way they like. The RIAA is NOT a music industry. It's a promotions industry. They exist to make music famous, a process which costs a vast sum of money. And until relatively recently, it was a profitable business model, which never went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
If they've managed to take hold of the most famous platform for music, that's just what they do. But opening it more for indies isn't going to make them famous, which is what they crave. They can be ignored in iTunes with equal vigor to the way they've been ignored on youtube (and, for that matter, in bars and cafes) for a long time.
The Long Tail is a dream sold to small artists. The technology means that they've been able to raise their income from "nothing" to "next to nothing". Because the thing to remember about the Long Tail is that it's very, very, very long, and you're sitting out there somewhere in the middle of it. You wanna sit on the bigger hump, you spend money to do it. A _lot_ of money.
The independent market never "thrived". The artists were, statistically speaking, all starving. Even some extraordinarily talented ones making great music.
Technological change may be able to kill off the RIAA's fame-producing industry, but it's not like indie artists are in some sort of close second place raring to take over first.
Indies should form the IMAA or United Artists. (Score:2)
Independent music artists association. Independent writers association.
And get into the game.
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Get into what game? The RIAA's game is dying (and good riddance).
Indie artists don't need an association. What would it do? What indie artists need is fewer indie artists, or rather, a mechanism for people to find them among all the vast numbers of other indie artists.
Such things exist, like last.fm, though they'll always lack to "I wanna listen because everybody else is listening" factor that made the RIAA's promotions hot (and so boring).
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I'd like to think so, and I'm sure it happens, but it doesn't produce day-job-quitting revenue.
A decent band produces only a few genuinely good singles a year, and the cost is surprisingly high. It costs at least $1,000 in studio time, and often ten times that much. But even at the low end, if you manage to get your listeners to contribute an average of a dime apiece, you've got to have a small stadium full of followers before you've even paid off the producer. That's a lot closer to the hump side of the
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Dude, you're aware that exceedingly few artists, however famous, have really made any money from the selling of their recordings, right? Even famous ones are starving by that metric. Now the fame brought by the recording industry makes their performances much more profitable, true. Artists make most of their money from performances. By the metric of performance earnings, artists are making more than ever, while the recording industry is suffering. Also, more indies are making more money than ever. And
A FEW POINTS (Score:5, Informative)
YOUTUBE: About two years ago YouTube redesigned their trove system to make it almost impossible for small acts to be found. Try it. You are pretty much stuck with the mainstream stuff they sort to the top in each category. You pretty much have to accidentally find indie acts on youtube.
BARS AND CAFES: As a cafe owner can attest that BMI and ASCAP make it almost impossible to play indie acts. The fees are just too high for small businesses. Even i you make bands sign papers stating they are unsigned acts playing only there own music, BMI and ASCAP still go after you. The first six months we were open we had live music 1-2 nights a week. The minute we posted notices on MySpace we had BMI and ASCAP twisting our arms to buy a annual license. License fees that were far too high to make it even remotely sensible from a business perspective. I would happily support local bands but the system is rigged.
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As a cafe owner can attest that BMI and ASCAP make it almost impossible to play indie acts.
Most venues in my area pay the fees. I've found that the problem there isn't the fees, but the fact that customers prefer to listen to the stuff you have to pay fees for. The bars prefer cover bands: the music is tried and true, if bland.
Cafes can do better, but even if an artist plays mostly their own work, they've got to have at least some standards in the set list. It makes the set list more varied.
Which is why BMI and ASCAP are so anal about it; they know their music is being played. The fact that t
short sighted (Score:2)
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Wthout it you are condemned to obscurity or nearly.
And WITH it, you're condemned to obscurity or nearly. The number of artists who can support themselves from the income they get that way is tiny. Practically all have Real Jobs.
I didn't say you don't get great music out of it. There's lots and lots and lots of great music. So much that people aren't willing to pay terribly much for it.
I'm also not defending the RIAA's practices. I think they're horrible, and I'm glad they're dying. I'm just saying that independent artists aren't about to move in to ta
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Those numbers sound about right. But I can show you literally hundreds of very, very good bands who would happily sell their musical souls for $40k. You get bands like Radiohead who get to give away their music after that, because the studio did the heavy lifting of making them famous, something they couldn't do on their own no matter how good.
The situation with the writers is different. You're right that there's no merch market for the writers, but they don't end up in the same kind of indentured servit
Re: dramatic (Score:4, Insightful)
While inspiring, I just have a tough time really assembling behind your battle cry.
Before Apple, big labels and publishers have been working to screw over independants and/or exploit them in any means possible, so I find it hard to really find "Boycotting Apple" as the solution to the actual problem. Apple is just riding the bandwagon, tagging along, trying to get a piece of the pie.
I would much rather have more people go independant (as the music trend seems to be, more and more bands are leaving the big labels, or starting their own labels, or indie labels supporting other indie bands). It's not so much that people need to boycott certain publishers, its that the artists, authors, musicians, etc etc - they need to stop feeding the publishers with content to sell. Starve them out on content, not sales. Because consumers are idiots, there will always be people willing to buy the shiniest product, or spending for the sake of spending. There is no real way to cause a boycott that way. But once the Indie market thrives because thats where the best content is, with the best delivery system - thats when we'll see real progress.
I will usually hear a song from a band I like on the radio. Whether or not they are on iTunes doesn't make a huge difference to me, I won't like them less because I can't get their tracks through that ONE distribution method. Best Alternative? Have a website, where they handle their own song/download/transactions - as some bands have started doing, or even better, if they offer the CD for free knowing it'll drive Concert sales. There's so many ways to deliver content around iTunes its baffling that it has as much sway as it does.
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>>>BOYCOTT APPLE.
Nah. My blacklist is long enough:google, yahoo, microsoft, sony, comcast, ..... Besides Christmas is almost over, so too late to sell my Apple Mac on ebay (I wouldn't get anything). I think I'll just keep it for now. It has 8 gigabytes; that ought to be enough for anybody* and last me a long, long time. Anyway I will not boycott Apple - not just yet.
*
* Course I said the same thing about my 8MB Mac Quadra. Hmmm.
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How can a holiday which has not even begun be "almost over"?
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The Christmas *selling season* is almost over.
That's what I meant. Sorry. For online selling and catalog selling the peak time ends about five days before December 25, because people can't be sure they will get the gift shipped in time. Instead they shop at physical stores where they can get the product immediately. So selling on Ebay now would not gather as many or high bids as if I sold the 2-3 weeks immediately after Thanksgiving.
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I still have my Quadra 650. It had 12 MB of RAM. Still runs and handles Photoshop 2.5/Illustrator 5.5 just fine as well. I can't throw it out as I've never had any problems with it.
Re:Apple did the same with Itunes. BOYCOTT APPLE. (Score:5, Informative)
The case was regarding whether the website had the right to use copyrighted music to make ad revenue.
I find your claim particularly curious since this case was on or about 2000, and the iTunes store did not launch until 2003.
Re:Apple did the same with Itunes. BOYCOTT APPLE. (Score:5, Informative)
Never let those pesky "facts" get in the way of a good Apple-bashing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3.com [wikipedia.org]
[MP3.com] was shut down on December 2, 2003 by CNET, which, after purchasing the domain name (but not MP3.com's technology or music assets), established the current MP3.com site.
On January 12, 2000, MP3.com launched the "My.MP3.com" service which enabled users to securely register their personal CDs and then stream digital copies online from the My.MP3.com service. Since consumers could only listen online to music they already proved they owned the company saw this as a great opportunity for revenue by allowing fans to access their own music online. The record industry did not see it that way and sued MP3.com claiming that the service constituted unauthorized duplication and promoted copyright infringement.
Judge Jed S. Rakoff, in the case UMG v. MP3.com, ruled in favor of the record labels against MP3.com and the service on the copyright law provision of "making mechanical copies for commercial use without permission from the copyright owner." Before damage was awarded, MP3.com settled with plaintiff, UMG Recordings, for $53.4 million, in exchange for the latter's permission to use its entire music collection. Later, the firm no longer had sufficient funds to weather the technology downturn. MP3.com was subsequently bought and the new owner did not continue the same service.
Weakened financially, MP3.com was eventually acquired by Vivendi Universal in May 2001 at $5 per share ($23 below the IPO share price) or approximately $372 million in cash and stock. Jean-Marie Messier, then-CEO of Vivendi Universal, stated "The acquisition of MP3.com was an extremely important step in our strategy to create both a distribution platform and acquire state-of-the-art technology. MP3.com will be a great asset to Vivendi Universal in meeting our goal of becoming the leading online provider of music and related services.
Vivendi had difficulties growing the service and eventually dismantled the original site, selling off all of its assets including the URL and logo to CNET in 2003.
For comparison, Apple opened the iTunes Music Store in April 2003--23 months after Universal got MP3.com. CNET bought mp3.com in November 2003.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/apr/28musicstore.html [apple.com]
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1008275/cnet-buys-mp3com [theinquirer.net]
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Mp3.com was doing fine until Itunes came along and sided with the RIAA ruining the thriving independent market. It seems they are at it again, siding with big businesses over artists, writers, and consumers.
Mp3.com got into trouble in 2000, when it branched out from offering downloads of independent music made available with the artist's permission to making available music from the major labels without permission (it was trying a new and untested legal theory that if the downloader owned the CD, it was OK for mp3.com to let them download copies it made). It failed at that theory.
This was before iTunes the software or iTunes the store even existed. Mp3.com settled with the record company that had sued it for a
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Will they accept you at all? (Score:3)
Apple accepts book from anyone who can generate ePub. Is the same true of the Kindle? It would be nice for Apple to also release details on the format enhancement but if they are exactly as open as any other company, and then merely add some other capability on top of that Apple restricts - why is Apple evil when they help out indies as much as any other company?
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Nope.
Kindle accepts
nook and most everybody else will accept epub, though. Smashwords has some interesting agreements with ebook retailers, where they will submit your book to several different outlets for a (rather reasonable) cut of the sales.
Once I finish editing my book, I think I may well go with them.
Full-page illustrations in EPUB (Score:2)
Apple accepts book from anyone who can generate ePub.
Which brings us back to the question of the article: For a book composed mostly of full-page illustrations, what's the best way to format that as an EPUB?
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Epub is an XML derivative, I think, so if you want a particular layout you'll have to keep that in mind--and the only way to ensure that is to make the book a series of pictures.
You can still do illustrations in ePub (Score:2)
ePub would suck indeed if you could not add images - but you can.
It's just a question of letting the reader flow the text in relation to the images, what is in question is being able to have a totally fixed layout, to say that THIS text is HERE on the page in relation to THIS image. It's actually a bad idea for most things because it eliminates a number of ways a reader can improve reading on the device, but some things (like childrens books) it's a must.
Note this does not stop people from publishing fixed
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Political incorrectness.
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The biggest irony? The Turner Diaries aren't available on iBooks :(
I've still not read them, though I hear they are poorly written and deal with some kind of farfetched race war. Still, they seem like a part of pop culture, so I might as well.
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You mean, other than the millions of customers they have now and the new ones they get every week?
Why, practically nobody.
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All those new customers are merely hipster posers who hang out at Starbucks, have handle bar mustaches and ride penny farthing bikes.They couldn't program in assembly on a TMS9900 if you set their feet on fire and had a ring of naked women throwing pickles at them. In other words, total losers who make more money then they know what to do with. If they had any sense, they woulda' donated to Firefly fandom so that it wouldn't have been canceled.
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I'm not sure I could either, to be honest. :-P
However, if anybody has anything to support an invocation of Rule 34 [urbandictionary.com], then I'd be interested. For, um, academic purposes.
I for one welcome our new naked, pickle-throwing overlords.
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Fuck "trendy" ... I'll stick with "works".
Do you really think most people buy Apple stuff because its "trendy", or do you think they might be "trendy" because they do what the users want it to?
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50/50 I reckon.
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If it were so, they'd be just as "trendy" around the world rather than merely where they spend the most in marketing. That is not the case.
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Shock horror, they sell stuff in the markets where they advertise, and don't sell stuff where they don't!
There are a few exceptions to this - namely when the iPhone came out, and people were buying them in the US and selling them overseas for a large markup, and again when the iPad was launched, into markets that Apple wasn't targeting specifically with marketing. Other than that, they advertise in markets where they sell products.