Just about every type of publisher making digital content today uses restrictive licenses to deny your rights over the content you buy, but those restrictions are being stripped away in Europe. The French news blog Numerama reported on Thursday that a French court has ruled that French consumers have the right to resell video games bought from Steam, a leading video game retailer.

The lawsuit had been filed by a French consumer rights group several years ago after the group noted that Valve, the company that owns Steam, was not complying with the now seven-year-old "UsedSoft" decision, the seminal court ruling that  said consumers had the right to resell the software they bought.

There had been disagreement over whether the ruling extended to software downloaded from the web, but now it has been clearly established that this is indeed the case.

So why does this matter to ebooks?

One of the key parts of the ruling delved into the rule of exhaustion, finding that it does apply to downloaded content. This rule, also know as the exhaustion doctrine, is the legal principle that limits the restrictions IP holders can impose on products after they have sold it. This applies to content, obviously, but also products made using a patented process or products bearing a trademark.

Here in the US that legal principle (as it applies to copyright) is enshrined in case law as the first-sale doctrine in the Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus decision in 1908. In that situation there was a publisher which tried to impose a license on copies of a print book. The license forbid retailers from selling the book for less than a buck, and this case came about when the retailer Macy’s ignored the license, and the publisher sued the retailer (Straus owned Macy’s at the time).

In France the exhaustion doctrine obviously has different ruling behind it, but the same basic principle applies: the exhaustion doctrine limits how trademark, patent, and copyright holders can restrict how you use your property.

Now the exhaustion doctrine has been established as applying to downloaded games, bringing us one step closer to the same rule applying to ebooks as well

I am looking forward to that day because I for one would like to gift my ebooks to libraries.

image by BdR76 via Flickr

Remember that rebranded Netronix 6.8″ ereader that showed up at the FCC in December 2018, and then went up for crowdfunding on Indiegogo in January?

You can now buy it on Amazon for $264.

The MobiScribe’s 6.8? Notepad is a rare beast among the smaller ereaders. It has both a capacitive and Wacom touchscreen (we see this more on larger models).

It runs on a single-core 1GHz Freescale CPU and has 1GB RAM, 8GB internal storage. It’s powered by a 1.5Ah battery, which should give it battery life comparable to the Oasis or the Kobo Forma. It also has a similar color-changing frontlight to that found on those two ereaders, albeit with a slightly lower screen resolution.

This ereader runs Android. There’s no mention of the version, although the company site does say Android 4.4. BTW, the specs listed on Amazon are generally better than those listed in the product listing on the company’s site, so if you get one be sure to double check your device’s specs.

If the Mobiscribe ran a later version of Android I would honestly say it a serious alternative to the Forma and the Oasis. It has a price in the same ballpark, and its specs give it a couple advantages that would actually make it a better choice for some users.

What do you think of it?

Specs

• CPU: Free scale i.MX6 Processor@1 GHz
• RAM: 1GB of RAM
• Storage: 8GB, microSD card slot
• Screen: 6.8″ E-ink Carta, 265 PPI resolution 
• Frontlight: color-changing
• Touchscreen: capacitiv, and Wacom stylus
• Dimensions: 132mm x 175mm x 9.8mm
• Weight: 8oz
• Battery: 1.5Ah

Amazon

I was working on a blog post this morning on Scholastic ebooks being in OverDrive when I got to thinking about the current uproar over library ebooks.

It seems a lot of people in publishing are convinced that library ebooks are responsible for retail ebook sales being down. This belief has been around for over a year now (since Macmillian first established that trial embargo on library ebooks in July 2018), and it’s now grown to include a concatenating belief that Amazon is the one telling publishers about the supposed connection between library ebooks and retail ebook sales declining.

I still don’t beleive that Amazon is doing that; I think it is an example of gossip spread in the industry before showing up in the media. But I don’t want to debate that today; instead, I want to discuss the underlying premise.

The idea that library ebooks (in and of themselves) have a negative impact on retail ebook sales simply makes no sense to this ebook buyer.

It simply doesn’t match up with my understanding of how people use libraries.

BTW, the last time I pointed out that a common industry belief made no sense was in late 2017 when I debunked the then-current belief that "screen fatigue" was responsible for declining ebook sales. I never got any public kudos for my work, but when was the last time you heard a publishing CEO blame their falling retail ebook sales on screen fatigue?

No one is mentioning screen fatigue any more; now the bogeyman is library ebooks, and it makes just as little sense as the last bogeyman.

The underlying premise for this belief is that because people can get a library ebook, they won’t buy the retail ebook.  This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of consumer behavior.

We can regard consumer behavior as a decision tree, and in this case the questions near the top are:

• Is this title available in my preferred format?
• Can I afford to buy this title? Is it worth the cost?
• Can I get this title at the library?

Here’s the thing the legacy industry misunderstands about that third question: the consumer is not looking for their preferred format in the library; they are simply checking availability. The consumer cares less about format than about access; if they can borrow a print book, they will read it.

This runs contrary to the legacy industry assumption that if they deny the consumer the library ebook then the consumer will buy a copy of the ebook.

Take me, for example. I only buy ebooks, but when I think the ebook costs to much (or when I can’t tell if it’s worth the expense) I will borrow the print book from the library.

For example, I borrowed Patterson’s Big Bad Amazon novel in print (the ebook was too expensive, and not worth buying in the first place) from the library, but bought Enormity as an ebook because I could get it cheap and in under a minute.

And I’m not the only one to settle for print in a pinch.

What the legacy industry appears to have forgotten is that for the past eight years they have been training library patrons to settle for print books even when we want the ebook. This has been going on ever since the Big Six started imposing checkout restrictions and high prices on library ebooks in 2011. (Sidenote: The Big Six did their best to make library ebooks unavailable while at the same time charging $18 for ten-year-old ebooks, and yet for some reason their ebook sales declined for much of that period. Go figure.)

And now, in 2019, the legacy industry suddenly think adding further restrictions on library ebooks will boost retail ebook sales?

I know that the legacy industry likes to tell itself comforting myths, but the idea that library ebooks affect ebook sales more so  than high retail ebook prices requires a unique level of denial. Y’all are running around talking about how wonderful the emperor’s new robe looks.

Am I the only one who can see he’s naked?

P.S. If I blew your mind and/or forced you to reconsider this myth, I take donations through Paypal (you can expense it as a consulting fee). https://paypal.me/TheDigitalReader

image by sphoto33 via Flickr

Typography is one of the lesser-known modern art forms , but just how much do you know about it?

The following infographic is going to tell you more about typography than the average person would want to know, but in my opinion, it’s rather short on detail (kidding).

Enjoy!

P.S. And yes, I know that Gutenberg is misspelled.

For the past seven years it has been legal to resell software in Europe under what is known as the "UsedSoft" decision, a court ruling that was reaffirmed in a similar case in 2016.

Perhaps inspired by that ruling, a Dutch startup called Tom Kabinet launched a marketplace in 2014 where you could resell ebooks. Tom Kabinet went through a couple years of legal battles before Dutch judges decided they had to seek a ruling EU courts an opinion from EU Advocate General on whether ebook resale was legal under EU law.

That opinion decision was handed down yesterday.

Edit: It’s been pointed out to me that this is an opinion, not a ruling. The opinion has been sent to the judges seeing this case, and the case in question has not been decided yet.

EU Advocate General Maciej Szpunar ruled concluded on Tuesday that while there are sound legal arguments to support the idea that you should be able to resell ebooks, it is not legal under EU law.

Here’s the important part of the ruling opinion.

 The foregoing considerations lead me to conclude that arguments, of both a legal and a teleological nature, are in favour of recognition of the rule of exhaustion of the distribution right with respect to works supplied by downloading for permanent use. In particular, the permanent possession by the user of a copy of such a work shows the similarity of that mode of supply with the distribution of tangible copies. However, I am of the view that, as EU law now stands, the arguments to the contrary should prevail. These are, in particular, the arguments developed in points 36 to 49 of this Opinion, concerning the EU legislature’s clear intention that downloading should be covered by the right of communication to the public, the limitation of the distribution right to acts of transfer of ownership of a copy, and the right of reproduction. Those legal arguments are supported by the arguments of a teleological nature set out in points 89 to 96 of this Opinion.

The "rule of exhaustion" mentioned in the ruling opinion is a legal principle that places limits on the rights of IP owners such as copyright holders.  Once (for example) a print book has been legally sold, the IP owner cannot control how it is resold, lent, or rented.

The exhaustion doctrine has been found to cover software in the EU, but Advocate General Szpunar has concluded the same is not true for ebooks. That has publishers celebrating in the streets, but I would put the cork back in the champagne.

If the EU Advocate General thinks the exhaustion doctrine should also cover ebooks then we are exactly one case away from ebook resale being legal in the EU.

Edit: In fact, that could be this case with Tom Kabinet. We’re not done yet.

Remember, Google Books was copyright infringement right up until it was suddenly fair use, and we could see the same happen to ebook resale. I know that is an unpopular opinion in certain circles, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

I look forward to the day that happens not because I want to resell my ebooks but because of how the ruling would affect libraries.

If the exhaustion doctrine is extended to cover ebooks then it would invalidate the restrictive licenses placed on library ebooks. There would be no more expiring licenses or checkout limitations; you  could buy an ebook, gift it to a library, and they could share it without having to buy an expensive replacement in two years or after 52 loans.

Can you tell me that would not be a benefit to all?

image  by sjpowermac via Flickr

We all know that women and men are described differently when mentioned in the news, so it should come as no surprise that the same would apply to books.

Researchers in Copenhagen fed 3.5 million books through an algorithm designed to identify how characters are described. Their goal was to find out whether there is a difference between how men and women are described in literature. This had been tested before, but never at this scale. This time the dataset included millions of books published in English between 1900 to 2008, including both fiction and non-fiction.

The researchers found exactly what you would expect. Eleven of the adjectives used to describe women referred to their physical attributes, compared to only one of the adjectives used to describe men ("brutish").

For the record, I am counting words like "barren" as describing physical attributes.

“We are clearly able to see that the words used for women refer much more to their appearances than the words used to describe men. Thus, we have been able to confirm a widespread perception, only now at a statistical level,” says computer scientist and assistant professor Isabelle Augenstein of the University of Copenhagen’s computer science department.

These words matter because the books you read influence how you see the world. What this study shows isn’t just related to gender-biased descriptions of women; we are looking at documented proof of the cause of the bias.

You can read the abstract of the study here.

Futurity.org

It is a truism in today’s publishing industry that every problem can be blamed on Amazon. It doesn’t matter if Amazon is not even remotely connected  to the issue or if the issue even exists (see the supposed decline of indie bookstores), one can still blame Amazon and have the industry nodding their heards.

So when Tom Mercer of Biblioteca Cloud Library sent out an email yesterday saying Amazon has data showing that library borrows hurts retail sales, and is showing that data to publishers and authors, I was not surprised.

This begs the next question: if authors and agents are voicing concerns about library lending, where are they getting their data from? I doubt it’s publishers, since a report on library lending is not part of an author’s royalty statement. There is only one company that has access to readers’ digital retail purchases as well as users’ digital library borrowing habits, and that is Amazon.

In 2009, Amazon created a publishing division, Amazon Publishing, which doesn’t sell any of its eBooks or audiobooks to libraries. They have teams of people talking with authors and agents trying to secure rights and make them as exclusive as possible to the Amazon ecosystem. It’s highly probable that they use the data provided by library users to argue that library lending is undercutting retail sales. This is a major concern that we need to understand and to face together as an industry.

As long as data is shared with Amazon by library users, Amazon will spin that data to create concern, and publishers will be forced to alter their digital library lending models or risk losing key authors.

You can read the email here.

I have not heard anything like this from my sources, although I do recall that Tom made a similar claim last month. In that case Amazon was supposedly convincing publishers that library ebooks hurt sales.

No evidence was presented then, either, although Amazon did release a statement denying the claims. “We believe that public library lending is very important to society and, among its many benefits, helps increase literacy and provide[s] authors and their books with broader audiences,” an Amazon spokesperson told LJ. “Publishers make their own business decisions regarding library lending.”

I do not know any author who believes what Tom claims they do, and I have serious trouble accepting the idea that Amazon could influence the decisions of the Big Five.  In fact, based on what I have seen I think it’s more likely that the Big Five publishers would do the exact opposite of what Amazon recommends simply because they do not like Amazon.

If you have experiences to the contrary, I would like to hear it.

As for Amazon being wedded to exclusivity, I would remind you that the rules about having ebooks exclusively in Kindle Unlimited do not apply to the library ebook market.

You can’t have an ebook in Kobo and KU, but you can have the ebook in Overdrive. To give you a few examples, here are a bunch of authors with ebooks in Overdrive. Many of the books on that page are self-published, and if you check the Kindle Store you will find they are in Kindle Unlimited.

Update: A bunch of people have told me that the KU rule does apply to library ebooks.  (That is not what I was told by Amazon PR, sorry.)

I don’t know about you, but that page would seem to contradict Tom’s claims, and support Amazon’s public statements.

Then again, I don’t have all the facts. What do you know that I do not?

image by uberculture via Flickr

When detractors complained after Audible launched Audible Captions last month, I asked myself how anyone could know that this feature infringed on copyrights when no one had seen it yet or really knew how it worked.

This hasn’t stopped the AAP.

On Friday the Association of American Publishers announced that it was filing sut against Audible and Amazon. The filing names seven AAP members as plaintiffs:

• Hachette Book Group
• HarperCollins Publishers
• Macmillan Publishing Group
• Penguin Random House
• Scholastic
• Simon & Schuster
• Chronicle Books

You can find the filing here as a PDF. I also have the statement given to the press.

“We are extremely disappointed by Audible’s deliberate disregard of authors, publishers, and copyright law,” said AAP President and CEO Maria A. Pallante. “In what can only be described as an effort to seek commercial advantage from literary works that it did not create and does not own, Audible is willfully pushing a product that is unauthorized, interferes and competes with established markets, and is vulnerable to grammatical and spelling inaccuracies —it is a disservice to everyone affected, including readers.”

Audible Captions is a new feature that uses machine-learning to convert the audio in an audiobook into text. That text is shown a few words at a time to readers. Here’s a video from Audible showing Audible Captions in action:

The problem with this case are several. Leaving aside the arguments made about the accuracy of the conversion (said arguments have zero legal relevance) and the heavy editorializing (you would think I had written it), the AAP filing also repeats the claim that Audible distributes the entire converted work.

This is demonstrably false based on all public info available, but even if it were true this lawsuit still has the odds stacked against it.

The thing is, we already have legal casework that suggest that Audible Captions is fair use.

I am of course referring to the Google Books case. When The Authors Guild filed suit in 2005, Google’s project to scan books in university libraries was obviously copyright infringement, but by the time the dust settled Google Books was ruled to be fair use because, in part, it was a transformative use that did not replace the function of the original work.

Audible Captions is clearly transformative, and Audible Captions is clearly not a practical replacement for the original works (nor, thanks to the AAP’s complaints about the accuracy , is it a replacement for the related ebook).

This case is being tried in the same court that gave us the Google Books ruling, and my bet is that Audible is going to win this case without trying too hard.

Who wants to take my money?

Kobo’s newest ereader showed up on the FCC website on Friday, and it is very likely going to be called the Libra H2O.

This morning I got an email from a helpful little bot which told me that Netronix, Kobo’s Taiwan-based hardware partner, had filed new FCC paperwork. Almost all of the interesting details have been embargoed, but I can tell you that the device carries a Kobo model number and that Kobo is mentioned in the paperwork  in numerous places, including in a screenshot from the device.

I can also tell you that the new device is probably going to be called the Libra H2O.

After I got the FCC notice, I immediately started searching online for additional info. Putting the Kobo model number (N873) into Google turned up several web pages that mentioned a name for the device, Libra H2O.

What probably happened was that a database leaked somewhere, and these sites created pages automatically based on the data they could retrieve (this is actually a standard practice).

This could turn out to be a placeholder name, but there’s a better than even chance it is the name of the new Kobo ereader that will launch in the next few weeks.

Stay tuned.

FCC

I was working with a client on their website today when they happened to mention that they were having trouble reading on their Kindle (this blog comes up a lot in my day job). It seems my client was having trouble with reading and looking up definitions on their Kindle. Like me, they have old eyes, and use a larger font size to read, but the definition’s font size was too small for them.

I could appreciate that (I have abandoned print books because the text was too small), and what’s even better was that I know a solution.

This might not be common knowledge, but the dictionary on your Kindle is actually an ebook. You may only see a single definition at a time, but thanks to Kindle ebooks having their origin in Mobipocket ebooks, there’s still a dictionary ebook in your Kindle somewhere,.

If the definition that pops up when you read is too small, you can open the dictionary ebook and see the definition there. Here’s how.

And while I am at it, I should probably tell you how the same trick works in the Kindle apps.

Kindle Fire & Kindle apps for Android/iOS

Accessing the Kindle dictionary via a definition in the Kindle app for iOS or on the Kindle Fire is relatively easy.

While reading a book, simply press and hold on a word until the definition pops up, and then click the "full definition" link to open the dictionary ebook itself. Once you’re here you can change the font size just like in any other ebook; simply press and hold in the middle of the screen to bring up the menus, and then look for and open the Aa menu.

Kindle

The dictionary look up function works a little differently on Kindle ereaders than on the Kindle apps; there’s an extra step in opening the dictionary. (Also, older Kindle models that lack touchscreens each have their own quirky way to access the dictionary.)

Here’s how you open  the dictionary on a current Kindle ereader. Press and hold on a word until the definition pops up, and then select the 3-dot menu beside the search icon (magnifying glass). Choose the option Open Dictionary. This opens the dictionary as a regular ebook where you can adjust the font size to whatever works for you.

It’s that simple!

Do you know a cool trick for the Kindle that you’d like to share?

A reader just tipped me to a new section in Play Books that contains around 200 ebooks you can rent (Thanks, Tom!). All the ebooks appear to have been republished by Open Road Media, and are a mix of fantasy, mystery, and SF, with a dash of historical non-fiction thrown in.

Rental prices range from $1.79 to $2.69.

Like the other major ebook retailers, Google has rented textbooks for many years now.

Every so often they have also tested renting fiction. Back in 2016, for example, Google tested renting novels in Play Books, offering romance novels from Harlequin and then Harper Teen for $0.99. That beta test only last for a few weeks, with unknown results.

This time around the rental period is three days. Is this another test, or a permanent feature?

I wish I knew, but right now all I know is that the ebooks are available.

I did query Open Road Media about this, but I have not gotten a response.

Play Books

Amazon sent out an email on Tuesday, informing users that it was shutting down the service that converted blogs' RSS feeds into daily ebooks delivered to your Kindle.

Thank you for using our Blog service to publish your Blog on Kindle. We are writing to let you know that on August 19, 2019 we are discontinuing support for all Blogs on Kindle due to low usage. Your blog(s) THE DIGITAL READER BLOG will no longer be available for sale in the Kindle store and you will no longer be able to manage blogs through kindlepublishing.amazon.com. This change will not impact any related publications that you manage outside of Kindle. If you have any questions or believe you have received this communication in error, please reach out to us at [email protected].

Kindle Publishing for Blogs is a service that launched with the Kindle in 2007. It was designed to deliver blog content to the Kindle, and give owners another reason to use their device.

Amazon is now known for its market-dominating Kindle Store, but many forget that this was just one of Amazon’s many attempts to distribute digital text. (I used to have a post on the various Amazon ebookstores that predate the Kindle Store, but I think my blog ate it.)

Most of the unsuccessful ebook projects (such as Kindle Worlds) were shut down, but at least one was abandoned in place, deprived of tech support and customer service and left to die alone in the dark.

I am referring to Kindle Publishing for Blogs. I’ve had my blog on that service since 2010, but never paid it much attention because revenues never amounted to much. Also, I tried the service one or twice but canceled because the content delivered to the Kindle just wasn’t very appealing.

On the one hand I am surprised Amazon is shutting it down, but on the other hand I am not. When I last looked at the service in December, I found signs the admin pages had not been updated in years.

I actually spent a week trying to access my blog's listing via the admin pages, but I never succeeded because Chrome was not a supported browser. I was told I should use Firefox 2.2 or above. Firefox 2 was released in 2006, which should give you an idea of just how long it’s been since  anyone worked on the portal. (The lack of support for Chrome suggests that the portal had last been worked on in, say, 2012.)

Oh, and no one was answering the customer support emails, either; I had to bring the problems to the attention of Amazon PR.

Amazon did fix the access issues, though. I took that as a sign they were going to keep the service going, but it was pretty clear at that point that both Amazon and bloggers had forgotten that the service  even existed.

The service was dead in December 2018, so for me the really interesting part of today’s story is that Amazon took another 8 months to decide to kill the service after I reminded them it existed.

Remember a couple months back when I reported that Google was insisting that authors sign up for an account with Play Books even though the author’s ebooks were distributed through an aggregator?

I think I just found out why Google wants that connection.

About 3 weeks ago Google announced a new pricing policy for its ebookstore, Play Books. Anyone who accepts the revised ToS will now earn 70% royalty on ebooks sold in the USA, Canada, and Australia.  (And unlike Amazon, Google will not charge a bogus "delivery fee".)

eBooks sold in Play Books in other countries will still earn a 52% royalty.

The ebooks have to be priced between $2.99 and $9.99 (USA and Canada) or $3.99 and $11.99 (Australia) to get the special royalty rate, but any ebook sold under the new terms will get the one thing that has annoyed authors and publishers for years: said ebook will be immune to Google’s policy of automatic price cuts.

You can find out more from Google’s help pages.

For almost as long as I have been tracking pricing policies, authors have been complaining about how Google would automatically cut the price of the ebooks they sold in Play Books. Since Amazon and other ebook retailers watch each other like a hawk, Google cutting the price inevitably lead to Amazon matching the price in the Kindle Store.

Authors had a practice of raising their ebook prices in Play Books as a counter to Google’s automatic price cut policy, but now they will no longer have to engage in that song and dance.

The talk around the water cooler is that Google is getting serious about competing in the ebook market. I am not yet convinced that is the case; this could just as well be Google finally getting around to ending a policy that never accomplished anything.

What do you think it means?

The hot news in the book world this week is the sale of Barnes & Noble. Elliot Advisors, majority owner of UK bookstore chain Waterstones, has completed its $683 million acquisition of the struggling retailer. The deal was closed weeks ahead of schedule and only involved one lawsuit. (I was surprised; I expected B&N to fire at least 1.2 CEOs before Daunt took up the reins.)

Now that the deal is done, Daunt has said he will be spending about 75% of his time in New York City. Kate Skipper, COO of Waterstones, will run the chain in his absence, although I don’t see why that would be necessary; with modern telecommunications, one is never more than a Skype call away from a meeting.

Once Daunt settles in, he will have the unenviable task of turning around a retailer that has, in recent years, changed its policies about as often as the average person buys coffee while playing musical chairs with the CEO seat. At the same time. B&N lost over a billion dollars in market value in the past five years as the stock price was dragged down by bad earnings reports.

So how is he going to do it?

According to the NYTimes, Daunt is going to focus on the stores, giving them a degree of independence that is virtually unheard of in US retailing.

The changes have filled Waterstones’ 289 shops, mostly in Britain, with books that customers actually want to buy, as opposed to the ones that publishers are eager to sell. And store managers have been given plenty of leeway to transform their shops into places that feel personally curated and decidedly uncorporate.

“He’s essentially created a series of independent bookstores,” said Tom Weldon, the chief executive of Penguin Random House Books U.K., “with the buying power of a chain.”

So what does this mean for the Nook?

Barnes & Noble’s ebook division has lost most of its value in the past five years, going from $264 million revenue in FY2015 to $92 million in FY2019. At the same time B&N has released new Nooks at a snail’s pace, updating the Nook ereader an average of every other year.

What do you think Daunt will do? Will he invest in Nook, and give us a new ereader this year, or will he cut his losses and sell off the customer lists to Kobo?

I am hoping for a new Nook; yes, it is simply rebranded Netronix hardware, but there’s still an opportunity for B&N to launch a new model as the focal point for its digital revival as it turns around its fortunes.

So tell me, do you think we’re going to get a new Nook this year?

image by NCinDC via Flickr

Readers and authors are used to thinking of fonts as ways to improve the reading experience, but on occasion activists use them to make a point. A few years back a designer at the Rhode Island School of Design developed a font intended to thwart text recognition apps, and now someone has created a font to bring your attention to our current problem with US Congressional district boundaries.

The font is called Ugly Gerry, and is available as a free download.

The word gerrymander was coined in 1812 to describe the district lines drawn by then MA governor Eldritch Gerry. One of the districts in the city of Boston vaguely resembled a salamander, and after a political cartoon called it a "gerrymander", the name stuck.

As they explained in a press release, the font’s creators, James Lee and Ben Doessel, created Ugly Gerry to raise awareness and provide a way for voters to protest partisan gerrymandering.

After seeing how janky our Illinois 4th district had become, we became interested in this issue. We noticed our district’s vague, but shaky U-shape, then after seeing other letters on the map, the idea hit us, let’s create a typeface so our districts can become digital graffiti that voters and politicians can’t ignore.

Each of the characters in this font represents a different Congressional (for the most part). A few of the characters like the letter X are composed of two adjoining districts, other letters such as N, S, and U represent single districts.

Ugly Gerry