From: Alex Holzman <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2013 22:19:24 -0400

A court just determined that the major trade publishers conspired with
Apple (you left the Apple part out and Apple could be labeled the
instigator in the matter, hence the upcoming penalty trial) in a way
that violates antitrust laws and you're suggesting that publishers now
use their influence in a similar way to mitigate DRM by Google?  Care
to help me explain that logic to my university counsel?  Not sure I
can!

More seriously, peel the onion a bit and you could see the Apple case
as one giant vendor trying to undercut its primary rival, with even
the biggest publishers in the country serving as not much more than
oversized pawns.

Kevin, the key phrase in your post is "whatever negotiating leverage
there is."  I don't think you'll see the big trade houses acting in
concert on much of anything in the near future and smaller trade
houses--and heaven knows, university presses--have about the same
leverage with Google and Apple and Amazon as I would if I put a
crowbar under Mount Everest.  The best we can do try to discover the
reasoning behind such policies, then gently persuade.  Such is the
"power" of the twenty-first century book publisher.

Thanks,

Alex





On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 6:58 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: Kevin Smith <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 13:04:48 +0000
>
> One thing that should be clear is that whatever negotiating leverage
> there is that could change this situation, it resides with the
> publishers.  Obviously individual readers cannot negotiate the terms
> or conditions of their e-book experience, but publishers could, when
> they contract to provide content to different platforms.  That
> publishers have influence here is shown by the recent court ruling
> that several major publishers conspired to raise e-book prices.  But
> that influence has so far done nothing to mitigate this nonsense with
> DRM.
>
> So even if it is true that publishers haven't done anything wrong,
> they clearly have not done anything to mitigate this wrong.
>
> Kevin L. Smith, J.D.
> Director of Scholarly Communication
> Duke University Libraries
> P.O. Box 90193
> Durham, NC 27708
>
>
> On Aug 18, 2013, at 8:21 AM, "LIBLICENSE" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > From: Alex Holzman <[log in to unmask]>
> > Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2013 09:43:57 -0400
> >
> > Elizabeth,
> >
> > Whoa!  How did we get from Apple i-Pad and Google Books to blaming
> > this on protecting publishers' investments?  I can't think of a single
> > publisher who would want Jim's or anyone else's books to disappear
> > from their reader just because they downloaded an app in a foreign
> > country that then required re-loading of their books.  Whether Google
> > Books is licensed to do business in a specific country also has
> > nothing to do with publishers.  (Whether a specific publisher's
> > version of a book is available overseas can depend on whether it has
> > licensed English-language rights in that country, something I view as
> > a bad idea for ebooks, but that's a different issue and not relevant
> > here.)
> >
> > By all means, blame us when we do something wrong, but in this case
> > protecting publishers' investments had nothing to do with Jim's
> > frustrating experience.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Alex Holzman
> > Director, Temple Univ. Press
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Aug 16, 2013 at 8:41 AM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >>
> >> From: "Elizabeth E. Kirk" <[log in to unmask]>
> >> Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 13:30:45 +0000
> >>
> >> Fun, no? And try buying a Kindle title from amazon.fr. You can't.
> >> I am stymied at how this protects publishers' investments if you
> >> can't buy their books.
> >>
> >>
> >> Elizabeth E. Kirk
> >> Associate Librarian for Information Resources
> >> Dartmouth College Library
> >> Hanover, NH, USA
> >> [log in to unmask]