Pull quote: "As expected, the Department of Justice launched an antitrust lawsuit against Apple and several of the major book publishers on Wednesday, alleging collusion and price-fixing behavior on e-books as a result of the “agency pricing” model. As my colleagues Jeff Roberts and Laura Owen have reported, three of the publishers named in the suit have decided to settle while two have chosen to fight the charges, and the states have jumped into the fray as well. The argument from publishers is that they need to be able to set prices on e-books, because otherwise Amazon will increase its monopoly and decimate the book industry. So who should we be rooting for, the giant electronic retailer or the giant publishing houses?"

Hanging out with Publishers [librarian's view of the Digital Book World and Tools of Change conferences] | ALA...

Receive DLTJ Thursday Threads:by E-mailby RSSDelivered by FeedBurner I've been away from DLTJ Thursday Threads for a while, but that doesn't mean the fun hasn't stopped. This week there are stories about the beginning and the end of the Research

Pull quote: "Amazon.com removed more than 4,000 e-books from its site this week after it tried and failed to get them more cheaply, a muscle-flexing move that is likely to have significant repercussions for the digital book market."

Pull quote: "One year ago, when HarperCollins Publishers implemented its 26-loan cap for library ebook lending, the new policy brought down upon the publishing house all the thunder that the library world could conjure — from petitions to boycotts.

But over the past year, as the library market has been further roiled, as other companies, such as Penguin Group, essentially stepped back from the market altogether, HarperCollins has remained not only committed to its model but also to the market. And for this, it is receiving from some librarians, if not praise, at least a sober reappraisal — even from some of those who are holding firm to their boycott."

IEEE blows it on the Security & Privacy copyright agreement [for conference papers] | Freedom to Tinker

Pull quote: "Explicitly modeled on Creative Commons licenses with a similar eye towards simplicity and granularity, Library Licenses could be constructed in several different ways. The most simple example is a straightforward grant, where libraries could acquire and then lend ebooks after they had been on the market for a period of time ranging from instantaneous to some number of years. A somewhat more refined version would grant “performance” licenses, where grants to libraries were triggered once sales fell below a specified threshold."

Receive DLTJ Thursday Threads:by E-mailby RSSDelivered by FeedBurner Last week's DLTJ Thursday Threads theme of ebooks continues again this week, and the top story from last week is the top story again this week: the debate over the limited checkout ebooks

Receive DLTJ Thursday Threads by E-mail!Delivered by FeedBurner It has been a long week, so for many of you this edition of DLTJ Thursday Threads will actually be read on Friday. The spirit was willing, the topics were certainly out there in the past seve

A popular topic coming across my radar screen is the future of reading, and more specifically the role of libraries in the future of reading. Much of commentary seems to have been inspired by the announcement of the Apple iPad device, but it isn't necessa