All Episodes
BTB #165: Rethinking Author Contracts for the Digital World
E-books and other fledgling publishing forms present opportunities and challenges for authors, even while they raise caution flags when it comes to rights negotiations with publishers. In March, at the Publishing Business Conference & Expo, attorney Sara Pearl and...
BTB #164: Copyright Reform Not a ‘Red’ or ‘Blue’ Dilemma – Wasoff
At a moment in American political life when so much about Washington seems dysfunctional, the prospects for copyright reform of any hue – red, blue, or some shade between – appear far off. Yet according to Lois Wasoff, a leading copyright and publishing attorney,...
BTB #163: Copyright Law No Day At the Beach in 2010
As an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fred von Lohmann watches new technology and copyright law and move in separate but related waves. This is true today with digital media, as he sees it, but was also true in the past, when broadcast radio and...
Best of BTB: Will the ‘Real’ Andrew Kent Please Stand Up?
Beyond the Book has cracked the case: Kent Anderson –a senior executive for a world-leading science journal – and Andrew Kent – author of the well-received Johnny DeNovo detective novel series – are one and the same man. “There is a yin and yang between my creative...
BTB #162: Caught in a ‘Copyright War’?
What does it mean to be caught in a “copyright war”? If such a culture war is what we have, when and how might it end? One man up to the charge of answering these weighty questions is William Patry, considered the most prolific scholar of copyright in U.S. history. In...
Special Edition Podcast: 2010 Research Blogging Awards Announced
Since its launch in 2007, ResearchBlogging.org has elevated science-related blogging by academics to a new level, and brought along an audience that reaches well beyond the lab and the campus. Today (March 23), site editor Dave Munger and Joy Moore of Seed Media,...
BTB #161: For Quotations, Shields Chooses Ecstasy Over Anxiety
As a professor and novelist, David Shields collects quotes and book excerpts that spur him to reflection and even inspiration. This spring, that habit produces the surprisingly controversial new work, Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, which Shields discussed with Chris...
BTB #160: New Media: A Problem for Copyright?
The rise of social media and the consequences for copyright got a close examination earlier this month at the Tools of Change conference presented by O'Reilly Media. Copyright Clearance Center's Edward Colleran hosted a panel discussion on the subject and this week's...
BTB #159: It’s 2010, Do You Know Where Your Copyright Is?
At the recent Tools of Change conference, Outsell lead analyst Ned May launched a report on “The State of Copyright in the Digital Age – What Is A Publisher to Do?” The number-crunching yields 370 billion “information sharing events” in a single year across the US,...
Best of BTB: OnCopyright 2010, Where Ideas Collide (Not People)
When it comes to typical conferences on the topic of copyright, four forces – technology, society, law, and the arts – interact to generate a charged debate. Conference organizer Bill Burger tells Chris Kenneally that OnCopyright 2010 will be different. For this...
BTB #158: Waiting for Disruptive Change in Scientific Publishing
As Michael Clarke sees it, the reports of scientific publishing's imminent demise are much exaggerated. The long-time STM editor and pundit has written extensively on the hardiness of this particular species of publishing even at a time when so many other related...
BTB #157: Cory Doctorow Plays ‘The Price Is Right’ For E-Books
Sounding more like a college economics professor than a bestselling sci-fi author, Cory Doctorow offers his suggestions for how publishers should arrive at the "right price" for e-books. As for copyright, he defends "fair use" and questions strict interpretations of...