The publisher Hachette Book Group USA, a member of the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), has decided to go with the digital publishing organization's recommended standard for distributing books in digital format.
Starting with its December 2007 launch titles, HBG plans to release its bestsellers in the .epub eBook format, the company announced Friday.
The .epub is an XML file format for reflowable digital books that includes Open Publication Structure (OPS), Open Packaging Format (OPF) and Open Container Format (OCF).
Hachette claims to be the first book publisher in the U.S. to adopt the .epub format. It also said the move will allow them to create eBooks more efficiently.
But the publisher could also just be following the money, as eBook popularity begins to rise.
About $8.1 million in eBooks were sold in the U.S. for the second quarter 2007 compared with $4 million for the same quarter the year before, according to statistics released by IDPF and Association of American Publishers in August.
Since bestseller I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert has already been released digitally, the book will not be re-released in the new .epub format, April Hattori, vice president of communications for HGB, said in an e-mail.
The news follows reports that the Booker Prize Foundation is in negotiations with several publishers and the British Council to get permission to release books on the Man Booker Prize shortlist for free download to anyone in the world. In August, HarperCollins also announced that it would be offering free book excerpts for iPhone owners.
Stephen Colbert
(Credit: Comedy Central)I don't think I've been this psyched for a Colbert Report episode since Stephen Colbert took on the Decemberists. On Wednesday, August 22, an unscripted tiff between the Comedy Central comedian and billionaire Sir Richard Branson, which swirled up quite a bit of chatter in the blog rumor mill, will be shown in that night's episode of the faux-pundit talk show.
The segment, originally cut from the program, depicts Virgin Group mogul Branson dumping a cup of water on Colbert in a manner that was rumored to be less-than-friendly. It was considered particularly out-of-line, considering the close ties between the two geek heroes--one of the planes in the new tech-friendly Virgin America fleet, after all, is called the "Air Colbert."
Sir Richard Branson
(Credit: Virgin Group)A statement from Virgin USA, obtained by FishbowlNY, suggests that there was no delay in airing the segment, contrary to popular belief. The company insisted that "Richard enjoyed his time with Stephen, and the splash was part of the fun."
So, Colbert might no longer be "on notice" with Sir Richard, but YouTube still apparently wants his head on a platter (but a well-designed platter from the Googleplex's all-you-can-eat cafeteria, of course).
Let's see how funny Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are on the witness stand.
The two comedians are apparently being dragged into the copyright fight between their employer and Google. Entertainment conglomerate Viacom, the company behind Stewart's The Daily Show and The Colbert Report filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Google earlier in the year, alleging that Google and YouTube encourage users to pirate copyright material.
The two companies entered the names of people they each wish to depose in court, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York last week. Google, which acquired YouTube last October, wants to depose at least 30 people in addition to Colbert and Stewart. Among them are Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone and CEO Philippe Dauman.
Viacom wants to question YouTube founders Steve Chen and Chad Hurley in addition to Google CEO Eric Schmidt and founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Viacom could argue that interviewing Stewart and Colbert is irrelevant to the case and will try to convince the judge that deposing them is unnecessary. It's customary for corporations to jockey over the depositions of high-level executives or representatives, as Microsoft did with Bill Gates' deposition during its government antitrust trial in Washington, D.C. a decade ago.
"The rules for discovery are very broad," said Mark Litvack, an intellectual property attorney for Manatt, Phelps & Phillips. "But courts don't let you go on fishing expeditions. If people are added for tactical reasons rather than for legal reasons it's almost always scorned."
Google attorneys could argue that the comedians and the producers of their shows have made public statements that are very relevant.
For example, a year ago Colbert urged fans to make him a viral-video star. The comedian stood before a green screen on his show and played with a light saber. He encouraged fans to fill in the background in their own videos and submit them to his show.
"This could go to determining non-infringing uses," Litvack said. "If Viacom used the clips for marketing or promotional purposes Google could argue that Colbert needs to be deposed."
One question Google could ask is whether anyone at Viacom uploaded clips of Colbert or Stewart's shows to YouTube.
Before Viacom began demanding that YouTube remove them, snippets from The Colbert Report and The Daily Show were among YouTube's most popular.
According to court documents, lawyers expect the pre-trial to conclude in December 2008. This would mean that the case may not get to a jury until sometime in the spring of 2009, Litvack said.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has dropped a lawsuit that it filed against Viacom on behalf of a group that posted a parody video of The Colbert Report on YouTube, which Viacom demanded be removed citing U.S. copyright law.
The lawsuit, filed in March in federal court in San Francisco, accused Viacom of misusing the law and infringing on the free-speech rights of the makers of the video--activist group MoveOn.org Civic Action and Brave New Films. When contacted by CNET News.com last month, Viacom claimed that it had not asked YouTube to remove the video. However, Viacom later conceded to the EFF that it was the source of the takedown order and admitted that it erred in asking that it be removed.
Viacom also has agreed to set up a Web site and e-mail hotline that people can use if they want to contest a Viacom takedown order. Viacom has promised that it will review any complaint within one business day and that it will have the video re-posted if the takedown request was made in error.
The tongue-in-cheek clip that was removed and reposted, "Stop the Falsiness," uses snippets from The Colbert Report, a program on Viacom's Comedy Central network, for parody. That approach is permissible under the "fair use" provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
(Credit:
Comedy Central)
Considering he's already pranked Wikipedia and weaseled his way into online polls aplenty, here at News.com we're actually kind of surprised that Comedy Central talk show host Stephen Colbert took this long to instigate a self-promoting "Google bombing" campaign.
Google bombing, in case you're unfamiliar, is a method of directing mass links that contain a particular line of text to a certain site, which then bolsters that site's ranking on Google when that line of text is used as a search query. The most famous Google bomb was probably "miserable failure," which directed to George W. Bush's presidential biography for quite some time before Google switched a few algorithms around in order to eliminate the verbal pranks.
Well, sorry, Google, you've got another "bomber" on your hands, and this one has an insane pack of followers behind him. Earlier this week, Colbert announced on his late-night show, The Colbert Report, that he wanted to rank first on Google's search results for the phrase "giant brass balls." (A tad lewd, yes.) Colbert-idolizing bloggers, however, thought that just wasn't good enough, and decided to try to put him at the top of Google's hierarchy for the phrase "Greatest Living American."
The power of crowds worked, apparently, as a search for "Greatest Living American" now directs to the official Colbert Report Web site, ColbertNation.com. But it might not be there permanently; Google might have to invent a new "algorithm" specifically for Colbert. Unfortunately, that'd probably just inflate his ego even more.
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