How neat is this? The folks at Faber & Faber, an independent publishing house in London since 1929, recently found a forgotten hand press in their archives. As it turns out, the half-century-old machine was used by the firm’s most famous designer, Berthold Wolpe: they’ve since refurbished the relic, which is going to be back in action producing limited edition broadsides and paper goodness for a brand new imprint.
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Perhaps the future of newspapers is all about local distribution—very local distribution, as in a whole newspaper printed for just one coffeeshop in London. The Newspaper Club has teamed up with the Guardian to launch what they call an "algorithmic newspaper," published only for one location, its content mathematically harvested according to level of interest from the Guardian‘s weekly coverage. How does that work, exactly?
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Nearly a decade after it started, the lawsuit between the Authors’ Guild and Google over its book-scanning program has been thrown out. This means that Google can keep digitizing millions of books for free distribution, and more importantly, that fair use is in the public’s best interest.
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In a decisive move in the legal battle surrounding Apple’s fishy e-book pricing practices, the US Department of Justice has issued a proposed remedy aimed at leveling the playing field. The terms of the proposal, which requires approval by the court, call for an end to Apple’s deals with major publishing houses, as well as allowing rival e-book apps, like Amazon’s, to link to their own online bookstores. The announcement is hardly surprising, considering that it comes just a few weeks after US District Judge Denise Cote ruled that Apple had conspired to bump up the retail prices of e-books. In the official brief, Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer said, “Under the department’s proposed order, Apple’s illegal conduct will cease and Apple and its senior executives will be prevented from conspiring to thwart competition in the future.” You can read the release in full after the break.
Update: Apple has formally responded to the Department of Justice’s proposal and predictably, the company isn’t happy. In a filing with the United States District Court, Apple said, “Plaintiffs’ proposed injunction is a draconian and punitive intrusion into Apple’s business, wildly out of proportion to any adjudicated wrongdoing or potential harm.” Apple also disputed the DOJ’s assertion that its plan is intended to foster healthy competition, arguing that the “overreaching proposal would establish a vague new compliance regime — applicable only to Apple — with intrusive oversight lasting for ten years, going far beyond the legal issues in this case, injuring competition and consumers, and violating basic principles of fairness and due process.” While the tides seem to be turning against Apple as the case moves forward, Cupertino is evidently not going down without a fight.
Via: All Things D, All Things D
The Xbox One‘s retail units will also run in-progress game code and function as debug units for budding devs, but Xbox VP Marc Whitten says not all of that functionality will be available when the console launches this November. More details will be available during Gamescom 2013 this August, but he told us in an interview this afternoon that “some of this won’t be there for launch.”
Self-publishing for indies, however, is already on the table, though Whitten didn’t provide a specific roadmap for when and how it’ll work. “It’s something we’ve been working on for a long time — how do we shorten that process, how do we automate a lot of the core requirements checking and some of those things. That’ll continue to be our focus around that,” he said. Nor would he confirm the turnaround time, said to be close to Apple’s 14-day turnaround, though he did suggest it could be even shorter. Again, more details will arise closer to Gamescom, but in the meantime Whitten says: “As games move towards games as a service, that becomes a more important part of the cycle. It’s the reason that we dropped the title update fees, as an example. We’ll announce more on the specifics, but our goal is frankly just to minimize that.”
Beyond benefitting indie devs, Whitten spoke to the implications of retail consoles running in-progress code could have on gamers. “I’m not confirming any feature or anything like that,” he prefaced. But? “This idea of how can [Xbox] Live and the console work on a certain set of code which is what you need to do when you’re the developer. Well that also opens up these sorts of ideas around early access to betas or these types of features, and that’s foundationally what we’ve been working on around the architecture of the system,” he said. As expected, that content won’t live in the same marketplace as completed code (read: finished games), but it does sound like the Xbox One has room for the Minecraft model of game launches.
Microsoft’s Xbox One is getting decidedly more indie-friendly with today’s confirmation from Microsoft that its forthcoming game console will double as a developer debug unit. In so many words, each $500 unit purchased at retail this holiday will also run in-progress game code, enabling developers to get in on the action all the more affordably (debug versions of game consoles cost far more than retail game consoles, and tend to look slightly different from their retail counterparts). “Our vision is that every person can be a creator. That every Xbox One can be used for development,” Xbox corporate VP Marc Whitten said in a statement.
Of course, such a move wouldn’t make much sense without eased publishing regulations — the Xbox 360 allows for self-publishing only in its ghettoized “indies” section, and all other games require a Microsoft-certified publisher to distribute physically or digitally. Going forward with the Xbox One, developers can publish their own games; Microsoft’s looking at a quick turnaround on that code certification as well, according to reports, though we’re told there’ll be more info at Gamescom come late August. The full statement from Whitten can be found just below the break.
Update: We’ve also added responses from indies to today’s news below.
Sony’s already said that it’s making game publishing on PlayStation 4 even easier than it is on the PlayStation 3, but Senior Account Manager of Development at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Agostino Simonetta today explained exactly what that means. Sony’s apparently applying a “four pillar” approach to publishing, as follows:
It’s this multi-tiered approach that Sony believes will attract developers to the PlayStation 4. “Every single developer is a publisher, as far as we’re concerned. We don’t separate, we don’t segregate indies from traditional publishers,” Simonetta said, in reference to the current console generation’s “segregation” of indie (primarily digital) games from more traditional publishers (primarily disc-based). More specifically, individual devs can work with Sony one-on-one to establish promotions and other details. Perhaps most importantly, all developers will hear back on publishing approval within one week from Sony. Head to the source link below for more details from Simonetta, straight out of the annual Develop conference.
Filed under: Gaming, Software, HD, Sony
Source: Digital Spy
Come on now, why are you wasting your time here, when you could be reading some Gossip Girl fan fic? Roughly a month after announcing its licensed character publishing platform, Amazon has taken the wraps off of Kindle Worlds. The site currently offers up 50-plus commissioned stories based on properties like The Vampire Diaries, Valiant Comics titles, and yes, Gossip Girl. Worlds’ Self-Service Submission Platform is open to the public as well, letting interested parties make some cash (up to 35-percent royalties) by putting their fan fiction up on the site. Stories are largely priced between $1 and $4. You can take a gander in the source link below, to make some sweet Gossip Girl of your own.
Filed under: Amazon
Source: Kindle Worlds
Apple director Keith Moerer said in court on Tuesday that the company holds about 20 percent of the US e-book market, double the size commonly assumed. The revelation came after the Department of Justice tried to bolster its price fixing case against the company by asserting that “Apple forgot to focus on customers, that’s why the iBookstore is a failure.” Moerer responded that the online store has consistently held a 20 percent share since just after launching, adding that “sales grew 100 percent last year at the iBookstore and it had over 100 million customers.” The government will continue trying to prove that Apple colluded with publishers like Macmillan and Harper Collins — who settled out of court — with testimony later today from Senior VP Eddy Cue.
Filed under: Apple
Via: paidContent
Source: Publishers Weekly
If you love reading stuff on the Internet, you know that most independent publishers earn their living by selling advertising space on their websites. While this is definitely an important part of keeping small online businesses up and running, publishers and content creators are always looking for new ways keep the lights on and cover their operating costs.
Now, there’s a new startup called CentUp which aims to put a little spare change in the pockets of publishers, while giving readers the satisfaction that roughly half of their money is going to a charity of their choice.
CentUp works similarly to the Facebook “Like” button, but when you click it, you can show your support for your favorite websites and blogs by paying them a small amount of money. Keep in mind that CentUp doesn’t block content in any way. You only contribute if you like the site and got value out of the content. In fact, it’s recommend that publishers place the CentUp button at the bottom of their content.
In addition to your pennies going to your favorite sites, your money will be split with one of several diverse small charities. When you first sign up for the service you select a charity of choice, and charge a preloaded donation amount on your credit card. This amount can be set to automatically reload if and when you use it up.
Donation amounts are paid in “CentUp credits” – which each represent one cent of your cash balance, and can be increased beyond your default amount at the time you decide to contribute to a specific piece of content. CentUp automatically splits each credit into three pieces and distributes them – 45% to the publisher, 45% to the charity, and a 10% fee for operating the platform and covering credit card fees.
At any time you can log into your CentUp profile to see who you have contributed to, view a list of publishers, and edit your preferences.
To date, there are just a handful of publishers and six charities participating in CentUp, but its founders expect that to grow substantially in time.
If you like what CentUp stands for, you can sign up for the service by simply clicking the CentUp button at the bottom of this post, or by visiting their website.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
