French Politician Wants To Limit How Cheaply Companies Can Sell Goods Online Compared to Physical Shop Prices

A couple of weeks ago, Techdirt wrote about a store that was trying to charge customers $5 for "just looking", because it felt that many people were merely inspecting goods there before then buying them online. Guillaume Champeau points us to a French politician who is also worried about the same problem, and hasproposed modifying the law governing commerce to deal with it (original in French). Here's the politician's explanation in the preamble of why it is needed:

On Techdirt.

Amazon Refuses To Publish First Cornish-Language Ebook

As we've noted before, Amazon is beginning to wield considerable power over the entire publishing chain. The past teaches us that as successful companies gain near-monopoly powers, their arbitrary decisions become more problematic. Here's an unusual example of that, pointed out to us by @IndigenousTweet via @MLBrook:

On Techdirt.

Is Amazon Playing Fair?

In the online world, it's hard to remember a time before Amazon. Today, it dominates the ecommerce space, and is rapidly becoming equally dominant in the ebook world. Against that background, a story that broke yesterday is rather worrying.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Amazon Wipes Customer's Account, Locks All Ebooks, Says 'Find A New Retailer' When She Asks Why

Techdirt has been warning people for several years that they don't really own the ebooks they have on their Amazon Kindles. The most famous demonstration of this was the sudden disappearance of ebook versions of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm (you can't make this stuff up.) But that's nothing compared to what an Amazon customer in Norway now claims the company has done: shut down her Amazon account permanently and locked her Kindle -- all without explanation. 

On Techdirt.

Does Amazon Want to Monopolize The Entire Publishing Chain?

The launch of Amazon's Kindle Fire at a price well below expectations has naturally focused people's attention on the e-book side of Amazon's operations, and the likely effect of the extended Kindle family on other publishers trying to go digital. But something else is happening at the other end of the publishing chain that could well disrupt the industry just as much, if not more: Amazon is becoming a major publisher in its own right. 

On Techdirt.

Time for Amazon to Pay its dues to Open Source?

It's nearly summertime. How do I know? Not, of course, by looking at the iffy British weather outside, but because Google's Summer of Code is here again:

On The H Open.

Rackspace's CEO on Open Source and OpenStack

I wrote about the open source OpenStack back in October, based largely on wandering around the main OpenStack site. But there's no substitute for talking to people involved - especially when they are Lanham Napier, CEO of Rackspace, one of the two instigators of the OpenStack project (the other being NASA). He filled me in on the background to both his company and the OpenStack project.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Amazon Sells GNU/Linux down the River

Here's a particularly stupid move by Amazon:

Microsoft Corp. today announced that it has signed a patent cross-license agreement with Amazon.com Inc. The agreement provides each company with access to the other’s patent portfolio and covers a broad range of products and technology, including coverage for Amazon’s popular e-reading device, Kindle™, which employs both open source and Amazon’s proprietary software components, and Amazon’s use of Linux-based servers.

Microsoft has consistently refused to give any details of its absurd FUD about GNU/Linux infringing on its patents, which is not surprising, since they are likely to be completely bogus and/or trivial. So Amazon is showing real pusillanimity in making this unnecessary deal. Shame on you, Jeff.

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Why Does Amazon Want to Be Evil?

I like Amazon's services. Indeed, judging by the amount I spend with the company, I'm probably a suitable case for treatment for Amazon addiction (whatever you do, don't sign up for Amazon Prime, which makes getting stuff *far* too easy).

And yet despite the fact that it offers an incredible service, Amazon seems hell-bent on proving that it is not a cuddly new-style company, but just as rapacious and obsessed with "owning" commonplace ideas as all the bad old ones.

Specifically, it is *still* trying to get a European patent on things that are both obvious and manifestly just business methods, neither of which can be patented in Europe:

The Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) has recently heard an appeal against revocation of one of Amazon's "one-click" patents following opposition proceedings. The Board of Appeal found that the decision to revoke the patent should be set aside and that the patent should be returned to the opposition division for further consideration of an alternative set of claims.

Here's that brilliant "invention" that Amazon is so keen to claim as its very own:

The particular patent in issue is concerned with allowing a first individual to send a gift to a second individual when the first individual knows only the second individual's email address but not their postal address.

Wow, you can tell that Jeff Bezos and his crew are geniuses of Newtonian proportions from the fact that they were able to conceive such a stunningly original idea as that.

Undettered by its rejection, Amazon is now trying an even more pathetic track:

The Appeal Board decided that revocation of the patent as granted was correct, but that more limited claims relating to details of technical implementation of the invention should be considered further.

That is, having failed to patent the idea itself, it is now trying to claim that a "computer implementation" of the idea is patentable - as if implementing an obvious, trivial idea in a computer stops it from being obvious and trivial.

*Shame* on you, Amazon.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Racing to the Bottom of Openness

Here's some interesting news about Barnes & Noble's e-reader:

The reader, named the “Nook,” looks a lot like Amazon’s white plastic e-book, only instead of the chiclet-keyboard there is a color multi-touch screen, to be used as both a keyboard or to browse books, cover-flow style. The machine runs Google’s Android OS, will have wireless capability from an unspecified carrier and comes in at the same $260 as the now rather old-fashioned-looking Kindle.

Linux-based: no surprise there. But this is:

And over at the Wall Street Journal, somebody got a peek at an at ad set to run in the New York Times this coming Sunday. The ad features the line “Lend eBooks to friends”, and this has the potential to destroy the Kindle model. One of the biggest problems with e-books is that you can’t lend or re-sell them. If B&N is selling e-books cheaper than the paper versions, then the resale issue is moot. And lending, even if your friends need a Nook, too, takes away the other big advantage of paper.

In fact, this loaning function could be the viral feature that makes the device spread. Who would buy a walled-garden machine like the Kindle when the Nook has the same titles, cheaper, and you can borrow? The Nook is already starting to look like the real internet to the Kindle’s AOL.

It's a classic "race to the bottom", where the bottom is total openness: see you there, Amazon.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Copyright Industries' Pyrrhic Victories

It's extraordinary how much that formerly-drab old subject of copyright is in the news these days. There's the Amazon Kindle story, the Pirate Bay judgement and the report, yesterday, that Britain's copyright laws are the "worst by far".

Although much of this bad news, notably the idiotic Pirate Bay ruling - these were links, people, you know, just like Google - there's a silver lining of sorts. The gulf between what the laws on copyright say and what people think is fair to do (picking up on the ethical aspect of copyright, again) is so vast and unbridgeable now that I think we're going to see a massive collapse of copyright soon.

As "young people" grow up and become the mainstream voting population, there is simply going to be zero sympathy for the greed and obtuseness of the intellectual monopolists. The current "victories" of the media industries will prove to be Pyrrhic.

Follow me on Twitter @glynmoody

RMS on Amazon's "Swindle"

As you've probably seen, there is concern over Amazon's plans to pull the text-to-voice capability of the Kindle e-book reader, because of misguided pressure from authors groups in the US. There's been a lot of discussion about this, and how to react to it, on the A2k mailing list, including the following characteristic submission from a certain Richard M Stallman:

I sympathize with the feeling behind these protests, but they are directed at the wrong target.

The protestors rightly condemn the Authors Guild for demanding the removal of the screen reader feature, but the way they are doing it makes Amazon look like a victim. Actually it is the main perpetrator.

The reason that Amazon can turn off the screen reader capability is that the machines use non-free software, controlled by Amazon rather than by the user. If Amazon can turn this off retroactively (does anyone know for certain if they did?), it implies the product has a dangerous back door.

In addition, the Amazon Swindle is designed with Digital Restrictions Management to stop people from sharing. It is a nasty product with an evil goal.

I hope there will be protests against Amazon's role in these events.

Well, at least he's consistent.

Follow me on Twitter @glynmoody

DRM as Freedom-Eating Infection

I've often written about DRM, and how it is antithetical to free software. But here's an interview with Amazon's CTO, which provides disturbing evidence that it actively *reduces* the amount of free software in use:

InformationWeek: Amazon is known as an open source shop. Is that still true?

Vogels: Where in the past we could say this was a pure Linux shop, now in terms of the large pieces of the e-commerce platform, we're a pure Amazon EC2 shop. There's an easier choice of different operating systems. Linux is still very popular, but, for example, Windows Server is often a requirement, especially if you need to transcode video and things that have to be delivered through Windows DRM [digital rights management], so there is a variety of operating systems available for internal developers.

Another reason to fight the spread of DRM. (Via @storming.)

Be Afraid, Credit Card, Be Very Afraid

Amazon.co.uk has finally opened its DRM-free Mp3 store. Prices aren't that wonderful (yet), but the convenience is dangerously appealing.... (Via paidContent.)

Cloud Computing Dispels the Fog of FUD

One of the anomalies of the currently-fashionable cloud computing is that people tend not to talk about the underlying operating system – presumably because they tend to think the cloud *is* the operating system. The fact is that both of the main cloud computing systems – from Amazon and Google – have been running on GNU/Linux. In other words, not only is open source running vast swathes of the Internet, but now it's holding up nearly all the clouds, too....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Sawing Off the Branch on which We Sit

I am a great believer in trees and the commons they form; it seems to me that going beyond preserving them to extend their coverage across the world could help deal with many of the most pressing problems facing mankind: climate change, desertification, water, etc.

It has always struck me as barmy that the contribution that trees make to the planet has not been better quantified; now it has:

The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of forests than through the current banking crisis, according to an EU-commissioned study.

It puts the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion.

The figure comes from adding the value of the various services that forests perform, such as providing clean water and absorbing carbon dioxide.

The study, headed by a Deutsche Bank economist, parallels the Stern Review into the economics of climate change.

Think about that, and then think of the continuing destruction of forests around the world - in the Amazon, in Africa, in Indonesia, in Russia. This really is the literal equivalent of sawing off the branch on which the whole of humanity sits....

Spore? 'S Poor....

Don't you just love the smell of spontaneously-combusting DRM in the morning....?

Why Kindle Must Support ODF

I'm not a Kindle user. In part, because it's not available in the UK, but also because it seems too closed in terms of its overall architecture. But it's clearly winning fans - and I think that's going to be a problem.

Why that might be is revealed by this interesting posting:

Reading .DOC and (some) .PDF files. This part of the Kindle's function turns out to be much more important than I anticipated.

Mine can't be the only line of work that involves an endless stream of material to read, often arriving as Word .DOC or Adobe .PDF files. I resist printing them out, and I resent the additional hours of sitting in front a computer screen to read them.

By moving them instead to the Kindle, (a) I have them all in one place, (b) I avoid lugging around, or forgetting, that much additional paper, and (c) I have them in a much nicer form for reading than the computer itself.

I think this is right: I, too, would be tempted by a very lightweight system with a high-quality screen specifically designed for reading electronic texts. But as the writer notes, Kindle is great for two main formats: .doc and PDFs. As far as I am aware, there is no support for ODF. Assuming Kindle catches on, that's going to be an increasing problem for those of us pushing ODF.

Maybe time to start a campaign for ODF support on the Kindle....

Lost in the Clouds

Here's a piece about cloud computing that ask a pertinent question:

Why isn't the world's biggest and most powerful software company taking the initiative here? For all of Microsoft's chest beating about internet delivery as the next phase of its development, we've seen precious little in the way of action.

There are so many reasons that it's hard to pin down. Perhaps it's with Ray Ozzie, the successor to Bill Gates, who is still settling into his job. Or perhaps it's just the stifling bureaucracy of a corporation that stretches as far as the eye can see.

But there's also something missing from this analysis of cloud computing. Nowhere is it mentioned that an essential prerequisite for creating huge server farms to keep the clouds afloat is free software: if Google or Amazon had to use proprietary software, paying for each instance clouds would never, er, get off the ground.

Just as the open source LAMP stack created the current wave of Web 2.0 companies, so free software will run the magic machinery keeping clouds aloft.

Is Amazon Getting Greedy?

I'm a big fan of Amazon - actually, make that a big addict. But when it starts throwing its weight around, I can't help thinking it is starting to act like a certain other large company that wants it all:

Reports have been trickling in from the POD underground that Amazon/BookSurge representatives have been approaching some Lightning Source customers, first by email introduction and then by phone (nobody at BookSurge seems to want to put anything in writing). When Lightning Source customers speak with the BookSurge representative, the reports say, they are basically told they can either have BookSurge start printing their books or the "buy" button on their Amazon.com book pages will be "turned off."

"POD" is Print on Demand, an exciting and increasingly popular way to publish books, especially those with small runs (most of them); Lightning Source is a big POD publisher, while BookSurge is Amazon's rival version.

Come on, Amazon, you don't need to do this: you can become the central point where people buy books, without insisting you print the bloody things too....