A Textbook Case for the Kindle

Digital downloads of music are all the rage. However, e-books have not quite been as successful. Amazon.com’s Kindle has helped increase numbers, partly because it can be used to download both books and periodicals.

But, would you buy one if it meant cheaper textbooks?

Amazon is eying the huge college textbook market as it develops next generation models of its Kindle eBook reader, an analyst who spoke the company has concluded. “There are already several new, improved versions of the Kindle in the works,” McAdams Wright Ragen analyst Tim Bueneman said in an email to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Amazon sees a “big opportunity” in the student market, he says…

Tackling the college crowd certainly makes sense, at least in terms of numbers. Sales of e-textbooks increased 28 percent from 2006 to 2007, according to the Association of American Publishers. And as our sister site, Ars Technica, notes, there is also a growing trend of downloading texts via bit torrent and offering open source versions online.

Publishing costs are one of the biggest overheads to textbook sales. The minute a book is released, it’s nearly obsolete, and they are generally larger, which add to the costs. So, a publisher could run an entire printing of a textbook and then have to reprint it a year or two later.

ITunes Tax Back From the Dead in California

Here’s a conundrum: should digital media be taxed? In some states, physical items that you purchase on Amazon.com or eBay are subject to state sales taxes. However, for some reason, there is this mentality that the internet stands for “free stuff”, and so I guess the argument is that it could be worse… you could be stealing the music off the internet, so to be rewarded you should get it tax-free?

The fundamental problems with the proposal are all the same. For one thing, it would penalize the few rare customers who legally buy movies and music online while file swappers would get away scot-free. It could also push entertainment companies to flee the state.

Aside from the problems with the bill itself, Calderon also took some heat for the way he tried to get the tax approved — he basically circumvented the state legislature by asking the Board of Equalization to write up the regulation. In fact, one member of the BoE — San Francisco democrat Betty Yee — called the bill offensive.

Calderon earned equal ire from republicans, too — California Sen. Tom Harman said the tax is still “a terrible idea,” and criticized Calderon for trying to sneak it past the legislature, calling it a “cynical hijacking” of the legislative process. “California has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. The iTunes and Internet tax bills illustrate a complete disregard for sustaining a healthy and vibrant business climate in California. These measures stem from an arrogant assumption that the government must find a way to tax because of overspending legislators’ own fiscal irresponsibility. In order for our state to retain our global leadership edge in digital media and the online market, we must maintain competitive pricing. This measure penalizes companies who operate and provide jobs in California by crippling them with added taxes,” said Harman, by e-mail.

My opinion, if you were to buy a CD or a game at the store, the state would tax it. If you were to go to Half Price Books or some other used media store, you would get taxed for buying a cassette tape, an LP, an 8-track, etc. If you were to buy a book at the store, the state would tax it. Why is digital media so sacred that it can’t be taxed? The argument about how file sharers wouldn’t be affected is an interesting one, but that’s like saying we shouldn’t tax liquor because somebody somewhere could be operating a still and drinking moonshine.

Should there be a special tax for digital media? No, but the state should absolutely be allowed to charge standard sales tax on digitally-transmitted products. They already tax your cable, by the way.

Google Ordered to Unmask Mystery Blogger

In the United States, defamation on the internet is kind of a new offense. It’s not new from the sense that people suddenly started defaming other people on the internet… that’s gone on since the mid-’90s. However, defamation in the legal sense has only recently been enforced.

It’s interesting now to see how laws overseas can affect domestic companies who run foreign web sites. In the past, there have been stories about the Chinese government pressuring MSN and Yahoo! to stop dissidents from publishing anti-Communist propaganda on the web. This is the first time I’ve heard pressure coming from a private entity.

Google has been instructed to reveal the identity of an anonymous blogger in a defamation lawsuit filed by an Indian construction company against them, reports the Wall Street Journal… An angry blogger expressing his opinion anonymously online? Sounds like pretty standard fare for the Web. But the case may force Google to re-examine their business in India, and the issue raises questions about the future of free speech and anonymity online.

John Watson, associate professor at American University specializing in communication law, says this case is not unusual, considering the location. “One of the most common places for people to sue, because they will generally win, are nations that are or have formerly been part of the British Commonwealth, where there is no First Amendment, and the law looks more toward protecting the reputation of people than protecting the free speech of speakers,” Watson told Wired.com. “Google which is an American corporation enjoys a great deal of protection here in the United States, but in the rest of the world, it’s subject to the laws of wherever these articles or communications are published,” he added.

This could potentially become an issue for bloggers bashing folks overseas, and set an example for cases regarding anonymity. On the positive side, maybe it will encourage citizen journalists to back up their posts with more researched and trustworthy information.

Praying on a Rising River

With hurricane season hitting the Atlantic and southern states recently, as well as our own issues with flooding earlier in the summer, I thought this would be appropriate to share:

In an Associated Press article, writer Allen Breed writes that “Brian Wiegand, 48, of Oakville, was sandbagging the levee Monday evening near a drainage pumping station. He was concerned about more flooding as water began lapping to within a foot of top of sandbag wall. “The Bible says the prayer of one man, God hears,” Wiegand said. “Here’s my prayer: I ask for the strength of God to fight this flood, and I ask for the grace to accept whatever happens.”

Brian’s prayer reminds me of the Apostle Paul who had seen God do miracles, who knew what it meant to experience the help of God, and who had learned– above all– to count on the sustaining grace of God to face “rising waters” that would have otherwise ruined him (2Cor 12:8-9).

Let’s keep all these people in our prayers in the coming week.