Morning Coffee – 5 April 2021
Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning.
- A bill which would require mandatory ebook licensing for libraries clears the Maryland legislature. That is exactly what should happen.
- HarperCollins is acquiring HMH’s trade division for $349 million.
- This hat shows just how Anglocentric book publishing really is.
- Troy Hunt has a fascinating (albeit highly technical) tale about how he is fighting back against websites that try to mine cryptocurrency in their visitors' web browsers.
- Not only are we pronouncing the words wrong when performing Shakespeare’s plays, but we’re also getting the rhythm wrong.
P.S. If you need a tech VA or help with your website, email me at [email protected]. Got a story that I should include in next week’s list? Shoot me an email.
P.P.S. Today is my birthday. I am now the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything years old.
Comments
Disgusting Dude April 5, 2021 um 8:08 am
About the Maryland law: Lots of billable hours to follow. For consitutional lawyers, to boot. Should be anice boost to *their* economy.
Angelic April 5, 2021 um 9:09 am
Happy birthday! Any new developments on that for-writers book review thing you were working on pre-COVID?
Nate Hoffelder April 5, 2021 um 12:00 pm
Alas, that ended up not going anywhere. As much as I liked the idea I could not bring myself to actually follow though and run the site.
Allen F April 5, 2021 um 10:56 am
On the Maryland bill, all the publisher has to do is set the cost too high for the libraries to want to consider them (and can they legally 'force' self publishers not in Maryland that sell on Amazon to go through the hoops to sell to their libraries? I wouldn’t mind my ebooks in libraries, but I’m not so sure of any law forcing me to …)
“a publisher who offers to license an electronic literary product to the public to also offer to license the product to public libraries in the State on reasonable terms that would enable public libraries to provide library users with access to the electronic literary product.” (and who gets to say what these 'reasonable terms' are?)
And before they try to say "Amazon must comply", Amazon is merely a reseller of most of what they sell – not a publisher. (Yes, Amazon has a publisher arm as well, but they publish very few a/e/p/books compared to what Amazon sells.)
Disgusting Dude April 5, 2021 um 11:15 am
Lawyers love "reasonable terms".
Billable hours galore.
For that matter, who would consider Macmillan or Penguin terms "reasonable"?
Meaningless ADS pandering.
They’d do way better setting up a statewide purchasing agency to replace the spineless library shoppers unwilling to leverage their purchasing power.