Mysteries of Pacing Part 1 - Siri Reads Text Aloud

Mysteries of Pacing

Part 1

Siri Reads Text Aloud 

I posted an article from Forbes Magazine on the Sime~Gen Group on Facebook, and discussion erupted immediately.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenduffer/2019/05/28/readers-still-prefer-physical-books/#4e60e2df1fdf

Readers Still Prefer Physical Books

Since we are all obviously online and using electronic devices, you'd think everyone on this Facebook Group would be entirely into ebooks by now.  Maybe they'd all have favorite formats or providers, but you wouldn't expect to find Tree Book Lovers on a Facebook Group.  But you do!

Just as this Forbes Magazine article indicates, readers still love, appreciate, and collect hardcopy books.

Some comments pointed out how text that needs to be constantly updated, such as textbooks, and databases such as phone numbers, plus other material you wouldn't want to save and archive, benefits from ebook distribution.

A counter argument for tree books came from one of the writers on the Group Edward B.Wilson P.Eng., M.Sc. P.E.

------quote-----
Edward Wilson When you are serious about eternity it is pressed into wet clay and fired.

Books are a legitimate harvest of trees, and they are usually replaced quickly in North America with younger fast-growing trees that harvest more CO2 from the air. As long as the books are not burned they are an environmental draw (Perhaps a win, and certainly not a loss unless burned).

Note 30 or 40 years ago a Green organization came to the Acta Publishing company complaining about their magazines. The Greens didn't like the large amounts of clay (Sizing) and that Acta used metallic dies that were quite toxic so the magazines couldn't be recycled easily.

Acta, a science publisher explained, They publish the basis of our civilization (including the proof of Flemant's Last Theorem), their magazines are designed to last for 1000 years, not three weeks. They are NOT meant to be recycled they are meant as the lasting record of what is going on, and what is known in science and engineering (Two totally different subjects).

----end quote--------

Traditionally, Romance novels have been read-and-toss category, but all that changed as other genres were blended in, and a woman could become the hero of a woman's story.  Science Fiction Romance and Paranormal Romance novels are not only breaking new ground, but also tackling deep, profound, and far-ranging topics at the edges of human awareness.

Some will become classics, republished in more permanent form.

See How Do You Know If You've Written a Classic series.  Part 1 is about people "discovering" novels, Part 2 about Spock's Katra and Theodore Bikel, while Part 3 is written answers to questions posed by the producer of a podcast who interviewed me in 2019.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/07/how-do-you-know-if-youve-written.html

One of the attributes common among works elevated to "Classic" status (i.e. that appeal to more than one generation of readers, become gifted to children by parents who want them to understand the world) is pacing.

Pacing means many things too many people.  Editors look at it one way, publicists look at it another, and writers -- well, most writers just muddle along as best they can.

But discovering what pacing is and how it alters the reader's perception of what the novel says about "life, the universe, and everything," is very possibly the most advanced lesson in writing craft.

Many writing courses emphasize that a writer should test-read aloud the words she has just crafted to discover what to change.  This works for some, and will uncover some chronic errors (accidental alliteration being one big deal! Incessant word-repetition is another.) it doesn't work well for most writers.

Writers are readers, and most readers don't SAY the words in their heads while reading.  Somewhere in elementary school, you learned to detach your tongue and throat from the flow of words through your eyes.  You don't say or hear them, you read them.

Much of the craft of "pacing" a story lies within the simple choice of word, length of sentence, and grammar.  Language usage to evoke non-verbal cues in the reader is an art form.

But all art requires craft.

Focusing on how the reader absorbs the words, and how the reader responds emotionally to the words, and how much time it takes for the reader's autonomic nervous system, and endocrine system to process the words into meaning, will help the writer unleash their art.

In screenwriting, and in learning acting, -- in casting a stage play -- there is a part of the process of production called a "Table Read" where actors who will play the parts sit around a table and read their parts, beginning to develop how to bounce dialogue off each other and create the Characters they are portraying.

Reading your own words aloud won't get you that effect because you know what you wanted to say.  It's as ineffective as trying to proof-read your own typing.

Most writers don't have a bunch of friends who happen to be trained actors or vocalists, and if they do, those actors are too busy acting to spend the hours doing chapter by rewritten chapter Table Reads of raw material.

There is now, in our modern world, a tool writers can use to get an idea of how their writing sounds when read aloud.

Experienced and very active blind people use Siri to read text aloud.

I assume other platforms have similar features, but as we were discussing the preference for paper printed books that persists, one of the responders who is severely sight impaired supplied the following information in answer to my question about how Siri on iPhone can read aloud from ebooks and pages.  I know I have a number of blind fans reading Sime~Gen as the series was one of those selected for Braille and recorded editions by the Library of Congress.

If you write on a word processor, you can use Calibre (on Mac or Windows) to convert whatever you write to whatever your voice assistant reads.  Some people might want to try different voice assistants to compare.  We are in a world full of adventure.

So to use Siri, take the advice of Cheree Heppe, experienced reader. 
https://www.facebook.com/cheree.heppe


---------quote--------
The feature where a voice on the iPhone reads books and things is marvelous. It is not incompetent, like dictation.

This feature can be enabled so that it can be turned on and off with a simple command or gesture. Are use the triple click home gesture because it works fast and because I have a home button.

I think Siri can turn the voice over feature on and off, but I don't use that way because there is interfering ambient sound in some of the venues where I want to make adjustments.

I prefer an exploratory method for the screen. I do not like the method where a user simulates a board game for the structure of exploration by flicking, flicking, flicking through choices until finding the right one. This method is very 1970s and inefficient and plays on an old stereotype about blind people not having spatial orientation sufficient to explore a screen. I found out that someone invented it so trainers who are cited would not have to try to use eyes free methodologies to explore the screen.

The voice I use is the Karen voice. This is an Australian female. I have the speed and the voice set so that this voice reads my books and is my main voice for the iPhone. I have also set voices for Hebrew, German and Spanish. These have to be configured in Settings/General/Accessibility. I think the sub setting is Speech.

Once the voice or voices for the different languages is set, it is possible to change settings on the fly, such as speed and which voice responds to text, by using a gesture called the rotor. This rotor gesture is tricky to use. Especially if an operator is working eyes free, but it is a doable thing. It does require practice. One time, I got stuck in a language I didn't understand and had to call Apple to get me out of the jam.

When this voice feature is enabled through accessibility, it changes the gesture patterns. This is why it helps to be able to turn the accessibility feature off and on, especially if the phone is used by people who see, as well as by people who want eyes free operation.

Apple Accessibility Help Desk support is available 24 seven. They ask that people using their service either have a disability or that the people calling be in the process of setting up a device for someone who is disabled.

The phone number for this help desk is:
1-877 204-3930.

This help desk, which is open 24 seven, can screen share if they require detailed examination of a problem situation.

If someone were to call and need help with this service and they thought that someone was not disabled under the definition, it should be possible to solve the problem suggested in that short story, Operation High Time, where a Gen could slip through by wearing retainers.

-------end quote---------

Here is a cultofmac.com article on getting an iPhone to read aloud.
https://www.cultofmac.com/627620/how-to-make-your-iphone-read-any-text-out-loud/

You can use this method to find out what your blind fans will hear from an A.I. reader, which is a totally different experience from an audiobook.

Whether you want to alter your style to translate well into Siri, you will learn a lot about how your work communicates with your readers.

It is a start on unraveling the mysteries of Pacing.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Digital Media Bait-and-Switch

Cory Doctorow's latest column targets DRM but touches upon the abusive business practices of digital marketing in general:

DRM Broke Its Promise

The philosophy behind restricted access to the media we "buy" begins with the premise, "The problem with markets is that selling things is inefficient. There are so many people who don’t need the thing, just a momentary use of the thing." So the promise of DRM was, "Thanks to a technology called 'Digital Rights Management,' sellers and buyers could negotiate a subset of rights and a reduced payment for same.. . .In other words, we were told that we must reject the promise of unfet­tered digital in favor of locked-down digital, and in return, we would enter a vibrant marketplace where sellers offered exactly the uses we needed, at a price that was reduced to reflect the fact that we were getting a limited product." As Doctorow sardonically summarizes, "In the futuristic digital realm, no one would own things, we would only license them, and thus be relieved of the terrible burden of ownership." The actual outcome: "We got the limited product, all right—just not the discount." For example, the DRM-protected books from publishers who use that technology cost no less than Tor's unrestricted e-books. The promise of "flexibility and bargains" gave way to the reality of "price-gouging and brittleness."

Doctorow discusses several limitations and abuses arising from the fact that we don't own the digital media products we thought we were purchasing. Without warning or recourse, customers can suddenly lose access to books, music, or video content (e.g., Microsoft's e-book store). Libraries pay more for e-books than print books and have restrictions on the number of times a book can be borrowed. Streaming services control how consumers can use the content they rent or "buy" (e.g., inability to skip commercials). College textbooks are a particularly egregious example. Electronic texts should be cheaper than hardcovers, but that's not necessarily so. Moreover, the login codes for mandatory online supplements have to be purchased afresh every year. Having finished my terminal degree well before e-textbooks, I had no idea of this catch before reading the article. I have a personal gripe with academic publishers (those that publish scholarly works rather than college textbooks): When they started producing electronic as well as print editions of their exorbitantly overpriced books—clearly marketed with libraries, not individual scholars, in mind—the e-book versions should have been cheaper. Much cheaper, within reach of individual would-be readers. Instead, they're typically priced only a few dollars lower than the hardcover editions. A $90 book discounted to $80, to pick a typical pair of figures at random, is still too expensive for the average unemployed or under-employed academic to justify buying. Granted, producing an e-book requires paid labor, just as a print book does. But in the case of an electronic edition of an existing print book, most of that work (editing, proofreading, etc.) has already been done. I often mentally rage, "Don't those people WANT anybody to read their books?" Some of us who would like to do so don't have access to a university library.

In an electronic media market where consumers have little or no choice but to spend "more for less," Doctorow summarizes the state of affairs thus: "DRM never delivered a world of flexible consumer choice, but it was never supposed to. Instead, twenty years on, DRM is revealed to be exactly what we feared: an oligarchic gambit to end property ownership for the people, who become tenants in the fields of greedy, confiscatory tech and media companies." Don't hold back, Mr. Doctorow; what do you REALLY think? :)

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Surviving the Gold Rush as a Writer

The latest issue of RWR (the members' magazine of Romance Writers of America) includes an article titled "The Key to a Lifelong Career" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, whose online articles on the business of writing can be found here:

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Her essay in the May RWR focuses on how to avoid burnout but ranges over a number of related topics—handling success (some writers try to replicate the process that led to their success without really understanding it and end up "working harder" without working "smarter"), reasons for burnout (e.g., pushing oneself to churn out too many books in a year), diminishing returns in income, what it means to find oneself in a mature market instead of a new one that's expanding at an exponential rate, overextending oneself in terms of expenses and how to reduce them, and switching one's writing business from a "manufacturing model" to an "artisanal model."

One section of this article is headed "Surviving the Gold Rush." The "gold rush" designates the exponentially expanding phase of a new market when it seems easy to get into the field and make bushels of money. Rusch writes in insightful detail about the rise of e-books and the early boom in independent publishing, followed by the leveling-off phase. She discusses the three stages in the typical way "markets develop over time": (1) The gold rush, when growth doubles, quadruples, or more each year. (2) The plateau, with large but not exponential growth. (3) The mature market, when growth still occurs, but it's slow and steady.

Personally, I never experienced the gold rush, at least nowhere near the extent Rusch describes. The closest I came to it happened in the early years with Ellora's Cave (now closed), when e-books were still an exciting novelty and EC was, although not the only game in town for that subgenre, the highest-profile and biggest-selling publisher of erotic romance for women. I was lucky enough to get in at a stage when, by publishing with EC regularly, I could count on a nice check each month. But the levels of success Rusch writes about—authors who earned royalties in the tens of thousands of dollars per month at the height of the "gold rush"—boggle my mind. Likewise, the allusions to authors becoming discouraged because their incomes dropped to half of that—still more per month than I made annually in my best years. In that respect, the indie superstars inhabit a different world from mine!

The priorities she recommends for hard-working writers concerned about potential burnout, however, apply to everyone. In order of descending importance, they are: self-care; spending time with loved ones; writing new words; publishing new words; whatever keeps you healthy and happy. While I can't point you to this particular article because it's in a members-only publication, you can find lots of related useful information and counsel in Rusch's posts at the link cited above. She provides plenty of specific details and hard facts, with numbers.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

New Year's Goals

In January, I prefer to set "goals" (modest, achievable ones) rather than "resolutions." The latter word sounds more intimidating (and yet fragile). Assuming the annual "Sword and Sorceress" anthology appears again in 2018, I plan to submit a story to it, as usual. Also, my husband and I will work together to come up with a submission for the next Darkover anthology. We had collaborative works in the 2016 and 2017 volumes but didn't make it into the one forthcoming in May 2018, so there's a challenge for us.

Writers Exchange E-Publishing is gradually re-releasing my former Amber Quill books. (By my count, there are eight more to go.) I've written a next-generation sequel to one of those, which I'll submit to Writers Exchange sometime soon. Since they don't publish erotic romance, one of my 2018 goals will be to compile e-books of my erotic romances from my other defunct publisher, Ellora's Cave, toning them down a little from heavily graphic to steamy. I've already released two self-published Kindle steamy romance books. ARDENT BLOOD (originally published by Amber Quill) comprises three novellas, featuring werewolves, vampires, and a lonely undine:

Ardent Blood

DEMON'S FALL (originally included in a multi-author Ellora's Cave anthology) stars a fallen angel who defies his infernal lords to save a woman he's been assigned to tempt. I think of it as inspirational erotic paranormal romance, if such a genre crossing can exist:

Demon's Fall

My next steamy romance bundle will probably contain my three related vampire novellas from Ellora's Cave, because it's important to me to have all my "Vanishing Breed" vampire tales available for purchase. I've combined two linked stories in that universe from the fanzine GOOD GUYS WEAR FANGS 4 into a short e-book, VAMPIRE'S TRIBUTE:

Vampire's Tribute

I'm also putting together a collection of stories my husband and I had in the discontinued fantasy webzine SORCEROUS SIGNALS.

Other than short stories for submission to the "Sword and Sorceress" and Darkover anthologies, I don't have any new works planned for the near future. I do have a light paranormal romance novella out on submission and hope to find a home for it in the coming year. What are your writing goals for 2018?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Round-Up Of Other People's Copyright-Related Opinions

This will be brief... but if you click the links, you will find plenty to read!

This links to The Atlantic and chronicles just how easy e-books have made life for plagiarists and copyright infringers. Really, IMHO, publishers and authors may have made a huge long term mistake in jumping aboard (before they were well and truly ready) when Amazon launched the Kindle.

To read:
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/06/plagiarism-in-the-age-of-self-publishing/485525/
 
Caveat, according to a conversation I had recently with a female millennial, only "strange"and "unpopular"  people like science fiction and science fact, and see the fascination in mixing Psychology with Politics and Power. Alas! To my way of thinking, this is all grist for SF plots, because few people would believe what could be going on, right at our fingertips... unless they grew up reading "1984", "Brave New World" and the like.

To read:
http://www.citizen.org/documents/Google-Political-Spending-Mission-Creepy.pdf

Or watch...   this one goes to a video.  The conclusions are very Big Brotherish, and alarmingly logical. Big Brother is not only watching you, he is telling you what to think.  And have you noticed? The government will prosecute you for real if they find out that you don't think the "settled" way about certain matters! How safe are you from detection if you "search" using politically incorrect search terms?

If a large population gets all their news from the internet, and they find most of their news by conducting a search, and the search engine "helpfully guesses" the rest of the sentence as they are typing, it should be possible to lead people to think the way one wants them to think.

To watch:
https://musictechpolicy.com/2016/06/10/google-has-been-actively-altering-search-results-to-favor-hillary-clinton/

I think I'll try to duplicate the experiment. But, here's a funny thing. I've provided three links. I cut and pasted all of them from my email "Draft" folder. (My habit is, when I find something interesting during the week, I start a brief email to myself and save it for you all.) For each link, I pasted it on the page, then I hit the "Link" function and made sure that the link work.  However, when I checked "preview" only one of the three showed up. Hmmm. So, I colored them yellow... and now they show up as pink. I've added second urls and all seems to be well, so I guess I made a mistake.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

No Digital First Sale Rights For Now

I am pleased to report that authors' incomes will not--for the time being--be further decimated by "First Sale Doctrine" being applied to e-books.

A report issued today by the U.S. Department of Commerce recommends amendments to copyright law that would provide courts with both more guidance and greater flexibility in awarding statutory damages.
In its "White Paper on Remixes, First Sale, and Statutory Damages," the Department’s Internet Policy Task Force (IPTF) sets forth its conclusions on three important copyright topics in the digital age: (1) the legal framework for the creation of remixes; (2) the relevance and scope of the “first sale doctrine;” and (3) the appropriate calibration of statutory damages in the contexts of individual file sharers and secondary liability for large-scale infringement. 
The White Paper recommends amending the Copyright Act to incorporate a list of factors for courts and juries to consider when determining the amount of a statutory damages award. In addition, it advises changes to remove a bar to eligibility for the Act’s “innocent infringer” provision, and to lessen the risk of excessive statutory damages in the context of non-willful secondary liability for online service providers. 
With respect to remixes and the first sale doctrine in the digital environment, the report concludes that the evidence has not established a need for changes to the Copyright Act at this time. The Task Force makes several recommendations, however, to make it easier for remixers to understand when a use is fair and to obtain licenses when they wish to do so. It also recommends the development of best practices by stakeholders to improve consumers’ understanding of the terms of online transactions involving creative works. Finally it notes the need to continue to monitor legal and marketplace developments to ensure that library lending and preservation concerns are addressed.
In making its recommendations, the Task Force was mindful of the need to protect copyrights effectively while also promoting innovation on the Internet.
This new report follows up on issues first discussed in a 2013 IPTF Green Paper, "Copyright Policy, Creativity, and Innovation in the Digital Economy," and is the product of two sets of written comments and five public meetings and roundtables conducted through the following year.
The IPTF is made up of representatives from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and other Commerce Department agencies. 
The White Paper and additional background information can be found online at: www.uspto.gov/copyright-white-paper-2016.

Brilliantly witty rant (by Alan Graham)

Alan Graham fulminates over the Creative Commons folks who are now, fourteen years too late, wondering how an author (or other copyright owner) can possibly make money by giving away their copyrights for all and sundry to exploit.

http://thetrichordist.com/2015/07/30/creative-commons-please-share-your-money-to-figure-out-how-sharing-makes-money/#comments

One priceless --and temperately phrased-- quote from Mr. Graham: "It is really hard to make money off of stuff when you teach people it has no value other than attribution, hugs, and hi-fives for how open we all are now."

And the bottom line: "The creative class of artists is teetering on the bring of utter collapse, and they want us to fund a study based on something they should have researched years ago. It makes me angry.

And you should be angry too."

I heartily recommend that you read the full rant.

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry.

The Fight Over The Right To Establish E-Book Prices

Few writers are unaware that there is a debate raging about the price of e-books. Some would say that a retailer may sell any item (that it has negotiated the right to sell) for any price it pleases...

... as long as it pays the copyright holder (or copyright owner) the price it agreed to pay the copyright holder (or copyright owner) for the privilege of acting as middleman.

The crux of Amazon's rant about fighting for lower, "more affordale" e-book prices cannot be about the price it charges to readers. It must be about the price it PAYS to copyright owners and copyright holders.

Also (and I will get to this later), Hachette ought to be giving Amazon the same price per ebook that it gives to a lending library, because when a copyright owner "sells" one ebook to Amazon, Amazon then assumes the right to lend additional copies.

Under copyright law, Hachette and any other copyright holder has an absolute right to set whatever price makes sense to Hachette for any given work it holds.

It is for Hachette to calculate the cost of acquiring, editing, proofing, publishing, distributing, and marketing any title in a bundle of formats. Hachette has no duty to sell at a loss or to subsidize another publisher (Amazon) or manufacturer of devices (Amazon) or retailer (Amazon) or for-profit subscription service (Amazon) or marketplace for used products (Amazon).

Nor does Hachette or any other copyright holder or copyright owner  have to give away any rights granted under the law.

BITLAW on the Distribution part of copyright protections for copyright holders. (Mostly with regard to physical products, rather than ebooks. As noted, First Sale Doctrine does not apply to digital content.... which is what ebooks are.)

The wording about "rental", "lease" and "lending" is of interest, given KU and Lending Enabled. Copyright owner have the exclusive rights to agree or not to agree to renting, leasing and lending and subscription models.

http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/scope.html

Distribution:

The distribution right grants to the copyright holder the exclusive right to make a work available to the public by sale, rental, lease, or lending. This right allows the copyright holder to prevent the distribution of unauthorized copies of a work. In addition, the right allows the copyright holder to control the first distribution of a particular authorized copy. However, the distribution right is limited by the "first sale doctrine", which states that after the first sale or distribution of a copy, the copyright holder can no longer control what happens to that copy. Thus, after a book has been purchased at a book store (the first sale of a copy), the copyright holder has no say over how that copy is further distributed. Thus, the book could be rented or resold without the permission of the copyright holder.

Congress has enacted several limitations to the first sale doctrine, including a prohibition on the rental of software and phonorecords.

When Amazon talks about the price of ebooks, commentators should not overlook the fact that for many ebooks, when Amazon facilitates a "sale" (really a license to read), it often also acquires the right to make multiple additional copies available for LENDING by the reader who paid Amazon, also for backup, also for account sharing as noted in the Engelin revelations

 http://epubor.com/share-kindle-fire-books-with-friends.html#M2

http://dearauthor.com/ebooks/sharing-a-kindle-account-with-a-friend/

And http://dearauthor.com/ebooks/how-to-share-an-ebook-without-stripping-the-drm/

"it was revealed that up to six Kindles could share one account. The Kindles did not need to be in the same household or owned by the same person. Thus, according to Amazon’s interpretation of the Kindle terms of service, up to six Kindles can share one account and the digital copies attached to that one account."
Also http://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdThread=Tx3CY8UVEMY3HUU "The problem comes with the number of devices a book can be on at one time. Most books you can put on 6 devices at a time, if you have more than 6 people in the club with Kindles then you will have a problem."

Also this http://kindleworld.blogspot.com/2010/01/sharing-kindle-books-on-one-account.html.

My point is, when Hachette negotiates a deal with Amazon, it's more like licensing an ebook to a lending library than selling one product at a discount or wholesale price for the retailer to sell on once.

Nowhere in Amazon's rant is this acknowledged. Amazon ought in my opinion to be paying Hachette at least $14.99 for the right to distribute six or more copies for every one "sold" to a Kindle reader.
Possibly the existence of lending and account sharing may also throw off the rationale for pricing in Amazon's "Dear KDP author" letter.


CORNELL is also worth quoting.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/106

Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:

(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;

(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;

(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;

(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;

(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and

(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.

Here's an interesting side note regarding copyright infringement;

(e) Involuntary Transfer. — When an individual author's ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, has not previously been transferred voluntarily by that individual author, no action by any governmental body or other official or organization purporting to seize, expropriate, transfer, or exercise rights of ownership with respect to the copyright, or any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, shall be given effect under this title, except as provided under title 11.²

Here we get to the matter of content (ebooks)

§ 202 . Ownership of copyright as distinct from ownership of material object

Ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, is distinct from ownership of any material object in which the work is embodied. Transfer of ownership of any material object, including the copy or phonorecord in which the work is first fixed, does not of itself convey any rights in the copyrighted work embodied in the object; nor, in the absence of an agreement, does transfer of ownership of a copyright or of any exclusive rights under a copyright convey property rights in any material object.

Here's the skinny from the Government, I think from Wikipedia.

The Copyright Clause of the United States Constitution (1787) authorized copyright legislation: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." That is, by guaranteeing them a period of time in which they alone could profit from their works, they would be enabled and encouraged to invest the time required to create them, and this would be good for society as a whole. A right to profit from the work has been the philosophical underpinning for much legislation extending the duration of copyright, to the life of the creator and beyond, to their heirs.

The original length of copyright in the United States was 14 years, and it had to be explicitly applied for. If the author wished, they could apply for a second 14‑year monopoly grant, but after that the work entered the public domain, so it could be used and built upon by others.

Exclusive rights for copyright holders

• to produce copies or reproductions of the work and to sell those copies (including, typically, electronic copies)
• to import or export the work
• to create derivative works (works that adapt the original work)
• to perform or display the work publicly
• to sell or cede these rights to others
• to transmit or display by radio or video.^[28]

The phrase "exclusive right" means that only the copyright holder is free to exercise those rights, and others are prohibited from using the work without the holder's permission. Copyright is sometimes called a "negative right", as it serves to prohibit certain people (e.g., readers, viewers, or listeners, and primarily publishers and would be publishers) from doing something they would otherwise be able to do, rather than permitting people (e.g., authors) to do something they would otherwise be unable to do. In this way it is similar to the unregistered design right in English law and European law. The rights of the copyright holder also permit him/her to not use or exploit their copyright, for some or all of the term. There is, however, a critique which rejects this assertion as being based on a philosophical interpretation of copyright law that is not universally shared. There is also debate on whether copyright should be considered a property right or a moral right.^[29]

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html

My apologies that the above was somewhat repetitive, but one has to quote multiple sources.
:-)

Now, an interesting comment revealed the sense of entitlement that readers who own Kindles feel, and perhaps this is because Amazon sold them Kindles based on a promise of cheap reading?

What  George Orwell really said
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/09/orwell-is-amazons-latest-target-in-battle-against-hachette/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

"Customers have a lot invested in devices and internet connections..."   quoth one correspondent to explain why publishers and authors should accept less for ebooks.

Is it Hachette's fault (or the responsibility of any other copyright holder or copyrigh owner) that Amazon might have made a promise like that in order to market its own proprietary devices? Is it Hachette's duty to make good on a promise Amazon may have made?

Sincerely,
Rowena Cherry   (aliendjinnromances)
PS. Most of the Amazon letter (there was no copyright notice on it.)

Dear KDP Author,

Just ahead of World War II, there was a radical invention that shook the 
foundations of book publishing. It was the paperback book. This was a time when 
movie tickets cost 10 or 20 cents, and books cost $2.50. The new paperback cost 
25 cents – it was ten times cheaper. Readers loved the paperback and millions of 
copies were sold in just the first year.

With it being so inexpensive and with so many more people able to afford to buy 
and read books, you would think the literary establishment of the day would have 
celebrated the invention of the paperback, yes? Nope. Instead, they dug in and 
circled the wagons. They believed low cost paperbacks would destroy literary 
culture and harm the industry (not to mention their own bank accounts). Many 
bookstores refused to stock them, and the early paperback publishers had to use 
unconventional methods of distribution – places like newsstands and drugstores. 
The famous author George Orwell came out publicly and said about the new 
paperback format, if “publishers had any sense, they would combine against them 
and suppress them.” Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion. 

Well… history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

Fast forward to today, and it’s the e-book’s turn to be opposed by the literary 
establishment. Amazon and Hachette – a big US publisher and part of a $10 
billion media conglomerate – are in the middle of a business dispute about 
e-books. We want lower e-book prices. Hachette does not. Many e-books are being 
released at $14.99 and even $19.99. That is unjustifiably high for an e-book. 
With an e-book, there’s no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no 
returns, no lost sales due to out of stock, no warehousing costs, no 
transportation costs, and there is no secondary market – e-books cannot be 
resold as used books. E-books can and should be less expensive.

Perhaps channeling Orwell’s decades old suggestion, Hachette has already been 
caught illegally colluding with its competitors to raise e-book prices. So far 
those parties have paid $166 million in penalties and restitution. Colluding 
with its competitors to raise prices wasn’t only illegal, it was also highly 
disrespectful to Hachette’s readers.

The fact is many established incumbents in the industry have taken the position 
that lower e-book prices will “devalue books” and hurt “Arts and Letters.” 
They’re wrong. Just as paperbacks did not destroy book culture despite being ten 
times cheaper, neither will e-books. On the contrary, paperbacks ended up 
rejuvenating the book industry and making it stronger. The same will happen with 
e-books.

Many inside the echo-chamber of the industry often draw the box too small. They 
think books only compete against books. But in reality, books compete against 
mobile games, television, movies, Facebook, blogs, free news sites and more. If 
we want a healthy reading culture, we have to work hard to be sure books 
actually are competitive against these other media types, and a big part of that 
is working hard to make books less expensive.

Moreover, e-books are highly price elastic. This means that when the price goes 
down, customers buy much more. We've quantified the price elasticity of e-books 
from repeated measurements across many titles. For every copy an e-book would 
sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if priced at $9.99. So, for example, 
if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then 
customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same e-book at $9.99. Total revenue 
at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000. The 
important thing to note here is that the lower price is good for all parties 
involved: the customer is paying 33% less and the author is getting a royalty 
check 16% larger and being read by an audience that’s 74% larger. The pie is 
simply bigger.

But when a thing has been done a certain way for a long time, resisting change 
can be a reflexive instinct, and the powerful interests of the status quo are 
hard to move. It was never in George Orwell’s interest to suppress paperback 
books – he was wrong about that.

And despite what some would have you believe, authors are not united on this 
issue. When the Authors Guild recently wrote on this, they titled their post: 
“Amazon-Hachette Debate Yields Diverse Opinions Among Authors” (the comments to 
this post are worth a read).  A petition started by another group of authors and 
aimed at Hachette, titled “Stop Fighting Low Prices and Fair Wages,” garnered 
over 7,600 signatures.  And there are myriad articles and posts, by authors and 
readers alike, supporting us in our effort to keep prices low and build a 
healthy reading culture. Author David Gaughran’s recent interview is another 
piece worth reading.

We recognize that writers reasonably want to be left out of a dispute between 
large companies. Some have suggested that we “just talk.” We tried that. 
Hachette spent three months stonewalling and only grudgingly began to even 
acknowledge our concerns when we took action to reduce sales of their titles in 
our store. Since then Amazon has made three separate offers to Hachette to take 
authors out of the middle. We first suggested that we (Amazon and Hachette) 
jointly make author royalties whole during the term of the dispute. Then we 
suggested that authors receive 100% of all sales of their titles until this 
dispute is resolved. Then we suggested that we would return to normal business 
operations if Amazon and Hachette’s normal share of revenue went to a literacy 
charity. But Hachette, and their parent company Lagardere, have quickly and 
repeatedly dismissed these offers even though e-books represent 1% of their 
revenues and they could easily agree to do so. They believe they get leverage 
from keeping their authors in the middle.

We will never give up our fight for reasonable e-book prices. We know making 
books more affordable is good for book culture. We’d like your help. Please 
email Hachette and copy us.
.....................
Please consider including these points:

- We have noted your illegal collusion. Please stop working so hard to 
overcharge for ebooks. They can and should be less expensive.
- Lowering e-book prices will help – not hurt – the reading culture, just like 
paperbacks did.
- Stop using your authors as leverage and accept one of Amazon’s offers to take 
them out of the middle.
- Especially if you’re an author yourself: Remind them that authors are not 
united on this issue.

Thanks for your support.
 
The Amazon Books Team

P.S. You can also find this letter at www.readersunited.com

Search engines dedicated to copyright infringement

Copyright infringement is hugely profitable for everyone except the authors of the content which is being infringed and monetized. For more information, please visit www.copyrightalliance.org and www.thetrichordist.com

Unscrupulous opportunists take advantage of the ignorance of the masses to cite Google as their inspiration, presumably in the belief that, if Google does it, it must be legal.

Here are two enterprises that, in my opinion are dedicated to copyright infringement because they specialize in directing their Members and Users to where illegal downloads can be found. 

DISCLAIMER : EbookScam (not its real name).com is a search engine of ebooks on the Internet and does not upload or store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites much like how Google works.

Note: FREEBIESCAMMER (not its real name) does not host any files to items listed. We simply index file links we have found on other websites on the web (similar way to how Google works!).

They are wrong, in my opinion, and should not be imitated or followed.
See
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/?&dbname=cp105&sid=cp105v6n3H&refer=&r_n=hr796.105&item=&&&sel=TOC_60600&

Google is a Search engine that locates all sorts of information. It does not discriminate. It is automated. It does not select which images, blurbs, and links to show, and it does remove infringing links in response to lawful notices from copyright infringers (although, those infringing links are still made available to all the world on a separate Google-sponsored site), and Google does list a DMCA link and a means to reach its copyright agent.

EbookScam (not its real name).com  and FREEBIESCAMMER (not its real name) do not, in my opinion, pass the smell test listed on the thomas.loc.gov site because:

1. They are dedicated to helping freetards find places to download ebooks without paying for them. (In the case of the Freebiescammer, they also point freebie-seekers to movies, music, magazines and more in addition to ebooks.)

2. They post images of the ebooks' cover art, also reviews and blurbs even though they claim not to host or control the actual files. To that extent, they choose and control the content and actively "know" or could be reasonably assumed to know, what they are doing.

3. They do not post the name of a copyright agent. 

Both these so-called seach engines for ebooks make money from advertising, and from pay-per-click type monetization of traffic, and from donations..... Unfortunately, I cannot help but conclude that at least one of them is also an Amazon affiliate and may be paid by honest readers who use his links to visit a legal buy-the-book page.

Just to illustrate and comment on the irony of these "giveaways" for the purposes of education and --yes-- commentary, one of them is giving away an issue of the Economist. I will share the image (on the popular assumption that a thumbnail is public domain)

 
 

And the other, is giving away a book by a former colleague of mine, along with a review that seems to me to be the absolute epitome of irony.

 "The book is superb, Jana DeLeon is a huge talent and more people should know about her. Unfortunately, I can't recommend buying her book from here because the ex-publisher, Dorchester, no longer owns the rights to sell it and is now effectively stealing from the author."

 

It all goes to show, in the minds of these internet exploiters, two wrongs make it all right for them to rip off authors and content providers.

 By the way, EbookScam (not its real name).com  is asking Users to "Help others and Let the good reciprocate! Earn the respect of thousand of eReaders by submitting a verified download link to this ebook" which seems to me very much like a blatant solicitation of copyright infringement.

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry