E-Books – Page 13 – DigitalKoans

A Guide for the Perplexed Part III: The Amended Settlement Agreement

The American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, and the Association of College and Research Libraries have released A Guide for the Perplexed Part III: The Amended Settlement Agreement.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The guide describes the major changes in the amended settlement agreement (ASA), submitted to the Court by Google, the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers on November 13, 2009, with emphasis on those changes relevant to libraries.

While many of the amendments will have little direct impact on libraries, the ASA significantly reduces the scope of the settlement because it excludes most books published outside of the United States. In addition, the ASA provides the Book Rights Registry the authority to increase the number of free public access terminals in public libraries that had initially been set at one per library building, among other changes.

Looking ahead, the Court has accepted the parties’ recommended schedule and set January 28, 2010, as the deadline for class members to opt out of the ASA or to file objections, and February 4, 2010, as the deadline for the Department of Justice to file its comments. The Court will hold the fairness hearing on February 18, 2010.

Digital Video: The Google Books Settlement: Issues and Options

The UCLA Library has made The Google Books Settlement: Issues and Options, a digital video featuring copyright expert Jonathan Band, available on YouTube.

Preliminary Approval Granted for Amended Google Book Search Settlement

US District Court Judge Denny Chin has granted preliminary approval of the amended Google Book Search Settlement.

Here's the order.

Google Book Search Settlement Amended

An amended version of the Google Book Search Settlement has been filed by the AAP, the Authors Guild, and Google with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The complete amended agreement is available from Google as a Zip file.

Exhibit 1 provides the primary text of the amended settlement agreement.

An overview of the amended settlement agreement is available, as is an FAQ.

"Internet Archive Dishes up BookServer as Digital Books Market Heats Up"

In "Internet Archive Dishes up BookServer as Digital Books Market Heats Up," Nancy Herther discusses the recent BookServer announcement and its implications.

Here's an excerpt:

Using an open architecture and open ebook formats, Kahle and his team intend to see that ebooks are available—for free or a fee—that will work on any device—whether a laptop, PC, smartphone, game console, or dedicated ebook reader. While it is still in development and probably years from completion, the BookServer project is intended to allow users to search book indexes across the web—whether it be on publishers' sites, libraries, bookstores, universities, or other sources—to identify content, compare vendor offerings, and easily download titles.

Stanford University Preparing Proposal for Text Mining Center Providing Access to 30 Million Digitized Books Plus Highwire Journals

In "Possible Text Mining Opportunity at Stanford," Matthew Jockers describes a research proposal being developed at Stanford University for a text mining center that would provide access to 30 million digitized books plus Highwire Journals.

Here's an excerpt:

As I'm sure many of you already know, Stanford has been closely involved with Google's book scanning project, and we (Stanford) are currently preparing a proposal for the creation of a text mining / analysis Center on campus. The core assets of the proposed Center would include all of the Google data (approx. 30 million books) plus all of our Highwire data and all of our licensed content. We see a wide range of research opportunities for this collection, and we are envisioning a Center that would offer various levels of interaction with scholars. In particular we envision a "tiered" service model that would, on one hand, allow technically challenged researchers to work with Center staff in formulating research questions and, on the other, an opportunity for more technically advanced scholars to write their own algorithms and run them on the corpus. We are imagining the Center as both a resource and as a physical place, a place that will offer support to both internal and external scholars and graduate students.

Internet Archive Makes 1.6 Million E-Books Available to One Laptop Per Child Foundation Users

The Internet Archive has made 1.6 million digitized e-books freely available to children who have laptops from the One Laptop Per Child Foundation.

HathiTrust Will Release Search Engine Indexing 1.5 Billion Pages from Digitized Books and Other Materials

Next month, the HathiTrust will release a full-text search engine indexing 1.5 billion pages from digitized books and other materials from 25 member research libraries.

An experimental version of the search engine is now available.

Read more about it at "HathiTrust Launching Full-Text Library of Books."

Internet Archive Launches BookServer

The Internet Archive has launched BookServer.

Here's an excerpt from the home page:

The BookServer is a growing open architecture for vending and lending digital books over the Internet. Built on open catalog and open book formats, the BookServer model allows a wide network of publishers, booksellers, libraries, and even authors to make their catalogs of books available directly to readers through their laptops, phones, netbooks, or dedicated reading devices. BookServer facilitates pay transactions, borrowing books from libraries, and downloading free, publicly accessible books.

Barnes & Noble Announces nook, Its Wireless E-Book Reader

Barnes & Noble has announced nook, its wireless e-book reader, which will go on sale at end of November for $259.00

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

nook features many industry firsts as it is the first Android™-based eBook reader and the first to offer a color touch screen for navigation along with a best-in-class E Ink display for an immersive, enjoyable e-reading experience. For fast connectivity, nook is the first eBook reader to provide, at no additional costs to customers, both 3G wireless access on AT&T's mobile broadband network and access to Wi-Fi for Barnes & Noble in-store browsing and enjoyment. And to help friends share their joy of reading, nook is the first eBook reader to offer digital lending for a wide selection of eBooks. . . .

The centerpiece of Barnes & Noble's strategy to deliver any book, any time, anywhere, nook was created expressly with the reader in mind, with features and functionality to create an immersive, seamless and fun experience:

A Gripping Read, by Design: nook's sleek, minimalist design puts the focus on the content, not the technology, and the combination of color and touch make navigation intuitive and simple. nook feels great in hand and features a contoured, easy-to-hold back. About the size and weight of a paperback book, nook is thin, small and portable. Its best-in-class E Ink Vizplex™ display is easy on the eyes with text as clear and crisp as a printed book. And with no glare or backlight and adjustable text size, you can read comfortably for hours without straining your eyes.

Color Touch for Easy Navigation: The beautiful lower color touch screen offers an immersive experience, inviting you to virtually browse through brilliant cover art, flip through an expansive library, or search using a virtual keyboard. nook presents the controls, navigation and keyboard you need, only when you need them.

Download eBooks Wirelessly: With fast 3G wireless and Wi-Fi access, nook is the most-connected eBook reader. Browse and instantly download eBooks, magazines and newspapers simply and seamlessly on AT&T's 3G wireless network, the nation's fastest, with no set-up required or additional wireless costs. Connect to the complimentary Wi-Fi, provided by the AT&T Wi-Fi network, in Barnes & Noble stores and download at broadband fast speeds.

Lend eBooks to Friends: With nook's breakthrough LendMe™ technology, lend a wide selection of eBooks to friends free of charge, for up to 14 days at a time. Just choose the book you want to share and send it to your friend's nook or iPhone, iPod touch, select BlackBerry® and Motorola smartphones, PC or Mac® with Barnes & Noble eReader software.

A Continuous Reading Experience: With "Reading Now" your virtual bookmark, nook brings you back to the last book you've read, right where you left off. And it works across a range of devices. If you forgot your nook at home, Barnes & Noble's free eReader software on your iPhone, select BlackBerry and Motorola smartphones or laptop lets you pick up where you left off, including annotations. And when you're reunited with your nook again, the Reading Now page will be updated and ready to go.

A Wealth of Content, in the Palm of Your Hand: nook can hold up to 1,500 eBooks and other printed content, and the sky's the limit for your digital library when you use nook's expandable memory slot. A 16GB MicroSD card holds up to 17,500 eBooks.

Portability and Personalization: You can also easily transfer PDF-format documents from your computer to access and read business documents, legal contracts and travel information on your nook. And transfer your photos to create custom screensavers. . . .

Over One Million eBooks, Newspapers and Magazine

As part of nook's introduction, Barnes & Noble has further expanded its wide selection of content to satisfy every reader.

Expanded eBookstore: From fiction to horror and romance to thrillers, with the launch of nook, Barnes & Noble's eBookstore now offers the most eBook titles—over one million—with most bestsellers and new releases for just $9.99.

Your Daily Newspapers on nook: Read your "morning paper" any time, anywhere you go. Barnes & Noble now offers subscriptions to more than 20 newspapers, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. Barnes & Noble expects to offer, in digital form, subscriptions to every major U.S. daily.

Read Your Favorite Magazines: As the nation's second largest retailer of magazines, Barnes & Noble is now pleased to offer its customers digital subscriptions. Enjoy reading publications including Forbes, Newsweek and The Nation on your nook, at home or on the go.

Google to Launch Google Editions

At the Tools of Change conference, Google's Amanda Edmonds announced the launch of Google Editions by June 2010. In the service, e-books will be able to be accessed using a Web browser. Using Google Editions, customers will be able to purchase e-books from either Google, selected retailers, or publishers.

University of Michigan Press Partners with HathiTrust to Provide Free Access to Over 1,000 Books

The University of Michigan Press is working with HathiTrust Digital Library to provide free access to over 1,000 books by the end of 2009.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Launched in 2008, HathiTrust is a digital preservation repository and research management tool for the world's great research libraries, focused on providing scholars in the digital age with the largest collection of electronic research material this side of Google Book Search and large-scale, full-text searching and archiving tools to manage it.

"Presses have had online previews and PDFs of sample chapters, tables of contents, and sometimes entire books on their Web sites for years," said Phil Pochoda, director of the U-M Press. "The HathiTrust partnership is something entirely new that takes into account the actual pursuit of broad dissemination of scholarly information.

"Security restrictions are in place to protect the integrity of the product, but with HathiTrust, a full view of the material is there. It's searchable and it's available to anyone with access. If you want to either search for or happen to come across Michigan Press books, you can look through them onscreen anywhere, anytime."

In keeping with the U-M's leadership role in the use of digitization and print-on-demand technology, U-M Press seeks to push the boundaries of the rapidly changing publishing world to position its resources where many different kinds of audiences can find them, Pochoda said.

Utilizing the latest technology, readers and researchers will find multiple ways to find what they are looking for. HathiTrust links to the U-M Press site allow for fast online purchasing.

In addition to a partnership with HathiTrust, content on Amazon and hundreds of U-M Press books in Google Book Search (in which the U-M Library was one of the original participants), U-M Press has had a "Look Inside" feature on its own book Web pages for several years.

With text search ability powered by Google, the "Look Inside" feature on the U-M Press Web site is another tool for viewing each title without damaging the integrity of the product. It currently contains thousands of table-of-contents and sample chapter views, with more than 100 complete titles available for full viewing and hundreds more complete titles planned for full view by the end of 2009.

Google Books Settlement Status Conference Reports

Kenneth Crews and James Grimmelmann have posted blog reports about the Google Books Settlement status conference on October 7th. An amended agreement is anticipated to be filed by November 9th.

Here's an excerpt from the Grimmelmann's post:

Judge Chin is trying to move this case, and his overall attitude seemed to be that he wants as clean a record as possible, and soon, so that he can act on it. That would incline me to think that he is hoping to be able to approve the settlement, or at the least to kick some of the legal issues upstairs to the Second Circuit for its guidance.

Read more about it at "Amended Google Deal Targeted for November 9."

Gawronski v. Amazon.com: Amazon's New Kindle Deletion Rules

As a result of the settlement of the Gawronski et al. v. Amazon.com Inc et al. case (about the deletion of George Orwell e-books), Amazon.com will comply with new rules regarding deletion of digital works on Kindles.

Here's an excerpt:

For copies of Works purchased pursuant to TOS granting "the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy" of each purchased Work and to "view, use and display [such Works] an unlimited number of times, solely on the [Devices] . . . and solely for [the purchasers'] personal, non-commercial use," Amazon will not remotely delete or modify such Works from Devices purchased and being used in the United States unless (a) the user consents to such deletion or modification; (b) the user requests a refund for the Work or otherwise fails to pay for the Work (e.g., if a credit or debit card issuer declines to remit payment); (c) a judicial or regulatory order requires such deletion or modification; or (d) deletion or modification is reasonably necessary to protect the consumer or the operation of a Device or network through which the Device communicates (e.g., to remove harmful code embedded within a copy of a Work downloaded to a Device). This paragraph does not apply to (a) applications (whether developed or offered by Amazon or by third parties), software or other code; (b) transient content such as blogs; or (c) content that the publisher intends to be updated and replaced with newer content as newer content becomes available. With respect to newspaper and magazine subscriptions, nothing in this paragraph prohibits the current operational practice pursuant to which older issues are automatically deleted from the Device to make room for newer issues, absent affirmative action by the Device user to save older issues.

E-Book Collections, SPEC Kit 313

The Association of Research Libraries has published E-Book Collections, SPEC Kit 313. The table of contents and executive summary are freely available.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has published E-book Collections, SPEC Kit 313, which examines the current use of e-books in ARL member libraries; their plans for implementing, increasing, or decreasing access to e-books; purchasing, cataloging, and collection management issues; and issues in marketing to and in usage by library clientele. . . .

According to survey responses, most institutions entered the e-book arena as part of a consortium which purchased an e-book package. The earliest forays occurred in the 1990s but the majority of libraries started e-book collections between 1999 and 2004. Purchasing at the collection level allowed libraries to acquire a mass of titles with a common interface, reducing some of the transition pains to the new format. The downside of collections is that libraries find they are often saddled with titles they would not have selected in print; also, each collection might have a different interface, adding to user frustration.

Those libraries reporting success with individually selected e-book titles cope with other problems: lag time between print and electronic publication (with electronic the lagging format), restrictive digital rights management, loss of access by ILL, and limited printing top the list of concerns. However, responses indicate a preference for title-by-title selection as a more efficient use of funds.

This SPEC Kit includes documentation from respondents in the form of collection development policies, e-book collection Web pages, e-book promotional materials, training materials for staff and users, and e-book reader loan policies.

New York Public Library and Kirtas Technologies Make Half-Million Public Domain Books Available

The New York Public Library and Kirtas Technologies are making a half-million public domain books available for sale as digitized or printed copies.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Readers and researchers looking for hard-to-find books now have the opportunity to dip into the collections of one of the world's most comprehensive libraries to purchase digitized copies of public domain titles. Through their Digitize-on-Demand program, Kirtas Technologies has partnered with The New York Public Library to make 500,000 public domain works from the Library's collections available (to anyone in the world).

"New technology has allowed the Library to greatly expand access to its collections," said Paul LeClerc, President of The New York Public Library. "Now, for the first time, library users are able to order copies of specific items from our vast public domain collections that are useful to them. Additionally the program creates a digital legacy for future users of the same item and a revenue stream to support our operations. We are very pleased to participate in a program that is so beneficial to everyone involved."

Using existing information from NYPL's catalog records, Kirtas will make the library's public domain books available for sale through its retail site before they are ever digitized. Customers can search for a desired title on www.kirtasbooks.com and place an order for that book. When the order is placed, only then is it pulled from the shelf, digitized and made available as a high-quality reprint or digital file.

What makes this approach to digitization unique is that NYPL incurs no up-front printing, production or storage costs. It also provides the library with a self-funding, commercial model helping it to sustain its digitization programs in the future. Unlike other free or low-cost digitization programs, the library retains the rights and ownership to their own digitized content.

Mining a Million Scanned Books: Linguistic and Structure Analysis, Fast Expanded Search, and Improved OCR Grant Awarded

The NSF Division of Information & Intelligent Systems has awarded a grant to the Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval at UMass Amherst, the Perseus Digital Library Project at Tufts, and the Internet Archive for their "Mining a Million Scanned Books: Linguistic and Structure Analysis, Fast Expanded Search, and Improved OCR" proposal.

Here's an excerpt from the award abstract:

The Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval at UMass Amherst, the Perseus Digital Library Project at Tufts, and the Internet Archive are investigating large-scale information extraction and retrieval technologies for digitized book collections. To provide effective analysis and search for scholars and the general public, and to handle the diversity and scale of these collections, this project focuses on improvements in seven interlocking technologies: improved OCR accuracy through word spotting, creating probabilistic models using joint distributions of features, and building topic-specific language models across documents; structural metadata extraction, to mine headers, chapters, tables of contents, and indices; linguistic analysis and information extraction, to perform syntactic analysis and entity extraction on noisy OCR output; inferred document relational structure, to mine citations, quotations, translations, and paraphrases; latent topic modeling through time, to improve language modeling for OCR and retrieval, and to track the spread of ideas across periods and genres; query expansion for relevance models, to improve relevance in information retrieval by offline pre-processing of document comparisons; and interfaces for exploratory data analysis, to provide users of the document collection with efficient tools to update complex models of important entities, events, topics, and linguistic features. When applied across large corpora, these technologies reinforce each other: improved topic modeling enables more targeted language models for OCR; extracting structural metadata improves citation analysis; and entity extraction improves topic modeling and query expansion. The testbed for this project is the growing corpus of over one million open-access books from the Internet Archive.

The Google Books Settlement: Who Is Filing And What Are They Saying?

ACRL, ALA, and ARL have released The Google Books Settlement: Who Is Filing And What Are They Saying?.

Here's an excerpt:

The Association of Research Libraries, the American Library Association, and the Association of College and Research Libraries have prepared this document to summarize in a few pages of charts some key information about the hundreds of filings that have been submitted to the federal district court presiding over the Google Books litigation. The Google Books Settlement is the proposed settlement of a class action lawsuit brought against Google, Inc. by groups and individuals representing authors and publishers who objected to Google’s large-scale scanning of in-copyright books to facilitate its Book Search service. The Settlement would bind not only the groups who sued Google, but also most owners of copyrights in printed books ("class-members"), unless they choose to opt out of the Settlement. Class-members who opt out retain their right to sue Google over its scanning activities, but will not be part of the collective licensing scheme created by the Settlement. Under the Settlement, participating class-members will get a one-time payment in compensation for past scanning as well as a share of Google’s future revenues from its scanning activities. A new, non-profit entity called the Book Rights Registry will represent rightsholders under the Settlement going forward.

Kenneth Crews on the U.S. Department of Justice Google Book Search Settlement Filing

In "Justice and Google Books: First Thoughts about the Government's Brief," Kenneth Crews, Director of the Copyright Advisory Office at Columbia University, discusses the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division's filing on the Google Book Search Settlement.

Here's an excerpt:

The filing is remarkable for its lucid dissection of select issues. It is diplomatic, and it holds out repeated hope for the continued talks among the parties to the case. But clearly the DOJ does not like what it sees.

IREX Technologies Launches IREX DR800SG E-Book Reader

IREX Technologies has launched the IREX DR800SG e-book reader.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

IREX Technologies today wrote a new chapter in digital reading, combining technology that provides a traditional reading experience with an open approach to buying and transferring content. The company unveils the IREX DR800SG—a sleek, 8.1-inch, touch-screen eReader that offers multi-mode 3G wireless capabilities.

Complementing the modern design of the device, users can purchase books, newspapers or magazines from a wide variety of sources. In addition, IREX supports multiple formats including industry standard ePub format and multiple DRM solutions, rather than a single, "closed" proprietary format that locks content to a specific device.

The IREX device is supported by key partners Barnes & Noble, Inc., Best Buy, Qualcomm and Verizon Wireless, which together provide access to the content, retail presence and the most reliable wireless network in the country, setting the DR800SG apart in an increasingly competitive market. . . .

The IREX device includes the Barnes & Noble eBookstore from Barnes & Noble, the world's largest bookseller, giving users access to more than 750,000 titles, including new releases and bestsellers at $9.99. Barnes & Noble expects its eBookstore (www.bn.com/ebooks) will increase to well over one million titles within the next year, inclusive of every available eBook and eBook originals from book publishers. . . .

3G wireless connectivity for the IREX device is powered by Verizon Wireless' network — the nation 's largest and most reliable wireless network. With wireless connectivity, customers can purchase and quickly download an eBook from an airport gate, couch or coffee shop — without being tethered to a PC.

Google Book Settlement Fairness Hearing Postponed

U.S. District Judge Denny Chin has postponed the October 7th fairness hearing for the Google Book Search Settlement; however, a status conference will occur on that date.

Here's the ruling.

"Copyright as Information Policy: Google Book Search from a Law and Economics Perspective"

Douglas Lichtman, Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law, has self-archived "Copyright as Information Policy: Google Book Search from a Law and Economics Perspective" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

The copyright system has long been understood to play a critical role when it comes to the development and distribution of creative work. Copyright serves a second fundamental purpose, however: it encourages the development and distribution of related technologies like hardware that might be used to duplicate creative work and software that can manipulate it. When it comes to issues of online infringement, then, copyright policy serves two goals, not one: protect the incentives copyright has long served to provide authors, and at the same time facilitate the continued emergence of innovative Internet services and equipment. In this Chapter, I use the Google Book Search litigation as a lens through which to study copyright law’s efforts to serve these two sometimes-competing masters. The Google case is an ideal lens for this purpose because both the technology implications and the authorship implications are apparent. With respect to the technology, Google tells us that the only way for it to build its Book Search engine is to have copyright law excuse the infringement that is today by design part of the project. With respect to authorship, copyright owners are resisting that result for fear that the infringement here could significantly erode both author control and author profitability over the long run. I myself am optimistic that copyright law can and will balance these valid concerns. The Chapter explains how, discussing not only the formal legal rules but also the economic intuitions behind them.

Pamela Samuelson: "DOJ Says No to Google Book Settlement"

In "DOJ Says No to Google Book Settlement," noted copyright expert Pamela Samuelson examines the U.S. Department of Justice's Google Book Search Settlement filing.

Here's an excerpt:

Among the most significant recommendations DOJ made for modifying the Proposed Settlement is one to ameliorate the risk of market foreclosure as to institutional subscriptions. DOJ suggests the parties should find a way to "provide some mechanism by which Google's competitors could gain comparable access to orphan works." That is, DOJ is recommending that Google, the Authors Guild and the publishers find a way to let firms such as Amazon.com and Microsoft get comparable licenses to out-of-print books, particularly to orphans. Google has previously denied that it was possible to include competitors in any license granted through the settlement. It will be interesting to see if the litigants want the settlement badly enough to conjure up a way to extend the license to firms other than Google.

U.S. Department of Justice Files Objection to Google Book Search Settlement

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed an objection to the Google Book Search Settlement.

Here's an excerpt:

Nonetheless, the breadth of the Proposed Settlement—especially the forward-looking business arrangements it seeks to create—raises significant legal concerns. As a threshold matter, the central difficulty that the Proposed Settlement seeks to overcome—the inaccessibility of many works due to the lack of clarity about copyright ownership and copyright status—is a matter of public, not merely private, concern. A global disposition of the rights to millions of copyrighted works is typically the kind of policy change implemented through legislation, not through a private judicial settlement. If such a significant (and potentially beneficial) policy change is to be made through the mechanism of a class action settlement (as opposed to legislation), the United States respectfully submits that this Court should undertake a particularly searching analysis to ensure that the requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 ("Rule 23") are met and that the settlement is consistent with copyright law and antitrust law. As presently drafted, the Proposed Settlement does not meet the legal standards this Court must apply.

This Memorandum sets forth the concerns of the United States with respect to the current version of the Proposed Settlement; these concerns may be obviated by the parties' subsequent changes to the agreement. Commenters' objections to the Proposed Settlement fall into three basic categories: (1) claims that the Proposed Settlement fails to satisfy Rule 23; (2) claims that the Proposed Settlement would violate copyright law; and (3) claims that the Proposed Settlement would violate antitrust law. In the view of the United States, each category of objection is serious in isolation, and, taken together, raise cause for concern. . . .

This Court should reject the Proposed Settlement in its current form and encourage the parties to continue negotiations to modify it so as to comply with Rule 23 and the copyright and antitrust laws.

Google Signs Agreement with Maker of Espresso Book Machine Giving it Access to over Two Million E-Books

Google has signed an agreement with On Demand Books, maker of the print-on-demand Espresso Book Machine, giving it access to over two million public domain e-books.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

This unprecedented number of reading options is in addition to the current 1.6 million titles already available directly to consumers via the Espresso Book Machine®. The Espresso Book Machine® is a small, patented high-speed automated book- making machine. In a few minutes it can print, bind and trim a single-copy library- quality paperback book complete with a full-color paperback cover. "ODB, in effect an ATM for books, will radically decentralize direct-to-consumer distribution," says Jason Epstein, Chairman and co-founder of ODB."With the Google inventory the EBM will make it possible for readers everywhere to have access to millions of digital titles in multiple languages, including rare and out of print public domain titles."

"This is a revolutionary product," says Dane Neller, CEO and co founder of ODB."Instead of the traditional Gutenberg model of centrally producing, shipping and selling we sell first, then produce. In a matter of minutes you can get a paperback book identical to one you can get in a store at point of sale. In addition to readers, On Demand Books will bring substantial benefits to authors, retailers and publishers. It has the potential to change the publishing industry."

The Espresso Book Machine® is powered by EspressNet, a proprietary and copyrighted software system that connects EBM to a vast network of permissioned content. Using industry-standard encryption methods EspressNet assures the security of publishers' titles, tracks all jobs, and provides for payments to publishers. Content owners retain full ownership and control of their digital files. . . .

Espresso Book Machines® already are up and running in bookstores, libraries and trade and campus bookstores such as the University of Michigan Shapiro Library Building in Ann Arbor, MI, the Blackwell Bookshop in London, UK, the Bibliotheca Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, VT, the University of Alberta Bookstore in Edmonton, Canada and Angus & Robertson Bookstore in Melbourne, Australia. The Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, MA and the University of Melbourne Library in Melbourne, Australia soon will carry their own EBM.