The Kindle Lawsuit

In my last entry, I pointed to the case of Justin Gawronski, who was mentioned almost as an aside in the New York Times article about Amazon deleting legally purchased and downloaded content from their users’ Kindle devices. At the time, I suspected that the deletion of annotations could eventually lead to lawsuits:

Beyond the irony of Amazon throwing a book like Nineteen Eighty Four down the memory hole (a large incinerator in that book), Amazon’s action raise troubling questions as to the ability of online providers to remove content they have not created. I leave it to legal scholar to assess whether Amazon could actually be considered to have infringed on the intellectual property rights of people whose annotations were removed along with the books.

Today, news comes out that this student is one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Amazon, making this the first legal case to test what a cloud-based provider can and cannot do with legitimately purchased content. The complaint uses language similar to what I talked about:

2. With an uncanny knack for irony, Amazon recently remotely deleted any traces of
certain electronic copies of George Orwell’s “1984” and “Animal Farm” from customers’
Kindles and iPhones, thereby sending these books down Orwell’s so-called “memory hole.”

[…]

16. On or about July 16 and 17, 2009, Amazon withdrew from sale certain e-books,
including George Orwell’s “1984” and “Animal Farm.” Amazon then remotely deleted these ebooks
from purchasers’ Kindles and iPhones. In doing so, Amazon not only deleted the e-books,
but also rendered useless any electronic notes and annotations that consumers had made within
these e-books because the notes were no longer tied to the referenced or highlighted text.

While I had initially thought that the content was deleted, it turns out that the annotations are still available on the device, albeit without any context to them, which is what the lawsuit is now testing:

54. Plaintiff Gawronski and the Big Brother Work-Product Subclass suffered
damages because they created content on their Kindles within the purchased content that
Amazon deleted.

Most surprising is that the lawsuit did not look at Amazon’s infringement of its customer’s rights under the first sale doctrine. The first sale doctrine, which has been in place since the beginning of the 20th century, basically states that purchases can transfer a lawfully acquired copy of a copyrighted work without requiring permission from the copyright holder. Many people interpret this to mean that:

the copyright holder’s rights to control the change of ownership of a particular copy end once that copy is sold, as long as no additional copies are made. This doctrine is also referred to as the “first sale rule” or “exhaustion rule.”

It could be argued that, by taking the book away from its users, Amazon has controlled the ownership of a particular copy that had already been sold, even though no additional copy was made. It was surprising to not see the lawsuit also incorporating this point as it is probably one of the larger legal infrigements Amazon could be charged with when it comes to that incident.

The Apple Store and iPhone community

Meanwhile, while there are no legal rumblings yet around Apple’s treatment of its development community. With every incident of an app being denied access, it appears that a few more developers decide that, while the platform is exciting to use, developing for the iPhone is not worth the trouble. If it were one case, that could be considered a disgruntled developer; if it were two, that could also be ignored; but with every new incident, it appears another developer or group of developer decides that they’d rather not develop for the platform.

When I was in journalism school, we were told that when there is a high similarity between three different events in a very short time, we ought to pay closer attention as it could be a trend. When that similarity pops over and over again, as in the case of the iPhone development community, it seems like a slow grumble is turning into something more potent.

But of course, one could argue that such grumbles are really nothing to worry about, as long as Apple can continue growing its user base. After all, the company makes more money selling devices that it does from the revenue generated by the app store.

True to some extent but that particular issue starts falling on its face when one considers two important facts:

1. Selling applications through the App Store is probably a more profitable business (as costs associated to the sale, as represented by a percentage of the revenue is probably lower than it would be on hardware).
2. Prominent users are starting to complain loudly.

Of course, none of this is going to single handedly stop the growth of the iPhone but what is increasingly appearing is that Apple is having a potential communication challenge on its hands. A single disgruntled developer or disgruntled user cannot bring the product down but a continuous stream of complaints starts creating the appearance of wrong-doing, potentially undermining the long term success of the offering.

Apple is still thought of by the majority of the people as a cool company (as Google and Microsoft once were), a shinning beacon highlighting the power of innovation and capitalism. As it grows marketshare, what was once considered OK as a way to help the company compete against larger players (the aforementioned Microsoft) is increasingly being considered as arrogant and evil.

What does it all mean?

Of course, at this point, if you’re still reading, you’re probably wondering how this is an example of a new hope. The new hope is arising out of the fact that a largely quiet population is now starting to fight back against the over-reach of large corporations into what level of controls such corporations will be able to excert. In the case of Amazon, the class action has the potential of redefining what a company can and cannot do with a purchase device. Such decision could also establish some precedents as to the use of kill-switches in electronic devices (or invertly, give large corporations more power and legally codify the level of control they have been afforded).

In the public arena, the push-back Apple is encountering from both its developer and early adopter communities could help establish new boundaries as to what is and isn’t accepted in terms of controlling access through online gateways (in the case of Apple, that gateway is the App store but one could argue that the social rules established around the App store could eventually extend to the kind of perception around what is and isn’t acceptable in terms of consumer ISPs blocking internet sites).

With each event, the online community is also establishing some precedent as to what will be considered acceptable in an environment where all data is stored not a user’s machine but on some remote corporate server.

In each of these individual cases, awareness is raised and with every other skirmish, more people become aware of the issues at stake. It is my belief that, as more people become aware, more people will require less corporate control and more individual control. And that gives me hope.

Update: The government is now looking into Apple’s removal of Google Voice related apps from their App store. This is getting interesting.

Tristan Louis is the founder and CEO of Keepskor and writes the influential tnl.net weblog, where this was initially posted under the title Cloud Wars — A New Hope. You can follow him on twitter here or receive his weekly newsletter by subscribing here.

Of course, day one is always amusing. First, it’s clear that the security claims are not fully justified. And moving from the confines of the OSX world, which is generally like a meticulously cleaned up suburban neighborhood into the wilds known as the world of Windows was bound to test some of Apple’s mettle when it comes to security. But that’s really besides the point: the software is not a full released version and one can hope that it will be improved upon further down the line (then again, hope springs eternal.)

But all this is really besides the point. In order to see what is happening, one must start thinking about why would Apple think about a new browser today.

The first popular line is that it works as a good environment for developing applications for the iPhone, now that Steve Jobs has stated that this would be the only way developers can currently develop for that new device. GigaOm believes that AJAX will change the way mobile devices applications are developed. I’m not sure I share Om’s enthusiasm for that approach: for starters, the system sports WiFi and EDGE but no higher speed wireless network. So, unless you’re near a WiFi hotspot (and I’m sure one was available for Steve Jobs’ presentation), you may find responsiveness sluggish. Small amounts of data are OK when running on an EDGE network but the startup for a new AJAX-powered application will probably be on the slower side. However, having denied access to the core system on the iPhone to developers (as it did for the iPod), Apple had to toss them a bone and Safari was that bone. That bone is called Safari.

The next challenge for Apple was that, while a lot of developers use OSX, the majority of development is still not happening on their platform. In fact, more energy is expanded in the web development community to making sure that something works with the Firefox browser than is to make sure that it works with the Safari browser. By now swinging the tantalizing carrot of iPhone coolness, Apple is making sure that more developers ensure their sites work with Safari. From that sense, it avoids future problems with some of their mac users being unhappy with the fact that some sites don’t work on Safari, blaming Apple for it instead of the site’s developers, and it creates a new platform for itself: develop something on Safari and it will run on macs, windows, and the iPhone.

Apple is basically pushing Safari as a new platform, borrowing a strategy that was first highlighted by Marc Andreesen almost 15 years ago: back in the day, Marc stated that he wanted Netscape to replace windows or just turn it into a set of basic components with everything running into the browser. Of course, this was at a time when you were lucky if you had a 56k modem so it didn’t make much sense then. In a world where bandwidth is high enough, applications can now resides largely on the network so Apple pushing Safari as a new platform could make some degree of sense.

The next step to think of is that while an application may make sense in terms of running fully online, even Google has seen some of the limitations of that model. Their offering of the Google Gears showed that they are interested in moving some of their application to an environment where a network connection is not required 100 percent of the time.

So Apple’s strategy would require a way for Apple to ensure that things can be installed locally within Windows. This is where something that was not mentioned by the folks at Apple is showing up when you install Safari:

Now that’s very interesting. Why would Apple be so interested in installing those two pieces of software on your computer? After all, they are not necessary for developing applications for the iPhone. But before going into speculations as to why they are there, let me explain what those two applications do:

• Bonjour, according to Wikipedia, is “Apple’s implementation of ZeroConf,” a technology that allows inexpert users to connect computers, networked printers, and other items together and expect them to work automatically.
• Software update, also according to Wikipedia, installs the latest version of Apple software on a computer. It was first introduced on the Windows platform as part of iTunes.

The presence of those two packages higlights that Apple is not just interested in the desktop but wants to play within a wider environment:

One can assume that Bonjour might be embedded in the iPhone and AppleTV as well as future version of the iPod. This would basically hit right at the heart of Microsoft’s strategy of creating a distributed environment where the Xbox, Windows Media Center, and other Windows powered devices are all interconnected. Apple would now enter that world and get all their stuff also connected on Microsoft’s turf.

The presence of software update, while not fully mined yet, could be equivalent to Google Pack, which also happens to include the Google Updater, which Google describes as follows:

The Google Updater is the program that downloads and installs all the software in the Google Pack. You can use the Google Updater to monitor the status of your installation, run software that’s been installed, or uninstall software. A Google Updater icon will appear in your system tray and will display notifications when new software is available.

With that in place, the windows desktop is increasingly looking as a new battleground. On one site you’ve got the incumbent, with Windows Update, then you have the new claimants to the throne in the form of Google and Apple. Right now, Apple is actually starting to push new products with the Apple Software Update: installing the new Safari software on a virgin machine (ie. one without any Apple software update) yielded the following Software Update Window:

So I install a browser and the next thing Apple is telling me is that I should really consider installing iTunes and Quicktime. What next? This is obviously a good delivery vehicle for Apple to push more software down the lines.

So they’re developing their own eco-system right on top of Windows. In a way, one could think that they are basically taking the same approach as Microsoft did with the Office platform: Develop on someone else’s turf but also optimize for your own.

It’s a brilliant strategic move and one that could eventually yield to much more software coming from Apple to the Windows platform.

So why would Apple care about Windows?

Well, beyond the basic point that there are more Windows users than there are mac users is the fact that Apple is working on setting up new ecosystems for itself. The iPod was the first obvious move in that direction and they are betting that the iPhone will be a similar winner for them. Earlier this year, when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, he also dropped the word computer from the name of the company. Apple’s future is not in the computer space (and it is appears the company is running out of new ideas for its operating system as the new OS features presented in yesterday’s keynote were incremental at best) but in the consumer electronics space. They hope to control what’s in your hands (iPod, iPhone), what’s on your screen (iTV, iTunes) and how you access the content. By having control to the access point, Apple can then influence the pricing models in the delivery of media and ensure they take their own percentage along the way: it’s something that worked for them in the music space, something they’re working on in the video space, and I suspect something they’ll eventually look into in the software space.

Apple wants to control the points of entry and charge a fee for access to them (further highlighting that point is this blog entry by Larry Dignan at ZDnet, which highlights that Apple is getting some nice revenue from Google and Yahoo). All and all, Apple could eventually succeed on grounds that Microsoft once wanted to claim as its own: to become the tollbooth to the Internet and the new world of media.

Tristan Louis is the founder and CEO of Keepskor and writes the influential tnl.net weblog, where this was initially posted under the title Safari: Apple’s New Platform?. You can follow him on twitter here or receive his weekly newsletter by subscribing here.

8. Product WARRANTY Invalid. Developer Acknowledges and agrees that the download of any software (including licensed technology) onto or tampering with any t-mobile sidekick or other danger hiptop device shall invalidate the limited product warranty applicable to any such device.

Basically, what they are saying here is “Hey, you use a Danger device for development, then kiss your warranty goodbye, even if its because of our own code”. This is very sad and one would expect more support from a company trying to foster a developer community. This portion seems short-sighted at best.

The next thing is the concept of Developer dollars. Basically, you’re given some scrips. Ask a question and spend them, answer a question and get new ones. So if you’re just interested in developing apps and, when you run into a problem, ask questions in the forum, you will have to pay for it. A significant quote from their site again:

If you ever run out, you’ll always be able to purchase more Developer Dollars with cold hard cash.

Now that’s not very reassuring. How about just letting people be. The basic concept is to incentivize people but sometimes, questions are more important than answers. If I ask a question about the product that provokes other developers into a debate over an implementation issue, isn’t that of some value?

But it doesn’t stop there. There’s more! Danger breaks down its development community into three groups: Interested, Trusted, and Serious. The interested parties have access to docs only and are not allowed to post in forums. The trusted developers have either a valid tmail.com address (ie. they own a danger device) or work for a company that does wireless development. This last group is the first group to have access to a simulator SDK What does that mean? Well, basically, if you are a hobbyist, and do not own a danger device, forget developing for it. You don’t get an SDK, you don’t get to discuss with other interested developers. It seems to me that this create a closed community. As a result, Danger is essentially giving up on the possibility of having thousands of developers create new applications for their device.

This is the kind of mistake that others (Palm, Microsoft) have not made and, considering that the Danger OS is a proprietary one, leaves little change for the device to succeed in the long run. Ultimately, new hardware succeeds only if it is open enough to let people develop new software for it.

With their restrictive approach, Danger may be killing its own potential in the marketplace. A real shame considering how many hobbyists like myself were hoping to be able to offer new stuff on it.

Last but not least, my interest in the Danger was from the web end. If I had access to a Danger emulator with the Danger browser, I could make sure that pages on this site would be optimized for it. Danger decided that it didn’t care about such thing. Too bad for them, and too bad for Danger users.

Tristan Louis is the founder and CEO of Keepskor and writes the influential tnl.net weblog, where this was initially posted under the title Danger Dooming Itself. You can follow him on twitter here or receive his weekly newsletter by subscribing here.

Tristan Louis is the founder and CEO of Keepskor and writes the influential tnl.net weblog, where this was initially posted under the title First Post on Usenet. You can follow him on twitter here or receive his weekly newsletter by subscribing here.

When I left Internet.com in 1996 and went to Earthweb, I was in charge of building Earthweb’s properties into something competitive with Internet.com. At the time, there were already a few players in the news market and I decided that Earthweb’s best positioning was to stay focused on the developer community instead of trying to do just Internet related stuff. Many people (including a lot of people on this list) have asked me what I thought of this announcement. So here it is.

Two roads converge

In a way, today’s announcement was one that didn’t surprise me much. Over the years, I’ve stayed in touch with people at both companies and, as time went on, I came to realize that both properties should be integrated. Before Earthweb’s IPO, such discussions were held both at Earthweb and at Internet.com and there seems to seem some differing views on the subject. However, I had always been nagged by the feeling that the two properties (the developer.com network and the internet.com network) would be a perfect fit.

With today’s announcement, I think that both companies benefit. For starters, Internet.com has clearly established itself as a leader in offering content to the internet community. With this acquisition, Internet.com solidifies its reach to the developer community. That’s a great thing for Internet.com and I think that those properties will fit very well within the network and that Internet.com will leverage its existing properties to maximize return on the assets they have acquired. As a result, I’d like to congratulate Alan Meckler and a very smart move.

On the Earthweb side, I am happy to hear that the company is focusing on a particular area in which it has established a strong leadership. The acquisition of Dice.com allowed Earthweb to get into the job placement market and establish one of the preeminent IT-related job boards on the market. This could position the company for a possible acquisition by a monster.com or hotjobs.com in that it is now more aligned with their business. If run successfully, the new Earthweb could be a very nice acquisition play.

Notable though, was that ITKnowledge, the fee-based service that Earthweb developed was not part of this acquisition. Jack Hidary has said that the company will be getting out of that business and I believe that he’s seeking a buyer for this service. The bottom line, though, is that Earthweb will manage to lower its costs as it will get rid of some of the overhead required to build new content. While it has built some strong properties, the company was too much of a niche player to successfully run the content unit to profitability. As a result, it’s a smart move on their part to get out of that business.

The most fascinating thing is that Earthweb is no longer the company that went public in that, apart from some of founders, nothing is left in terms of the model and assets the company went on.

All and all, this is a great win for Internet.com, as it secures its preeminent position in the content arena and allows it to expand into new markets. I am not, however, familiar enough with the job board business model to comment on Earthweb’s future potential but I am glad to see that the company’s management has made some very tough decisions and is working on focusing in a particular arena.

Tristan Louis is the founder and CEO of Keepskor and writes the influential tnl.net weblog, where this was initially posted under the title Internet.com Acquires Earthweb’s content. You can follow him on twitter here or receive his weekly newsletter by subscribing here.

For years people have claimed that “content is king.” If so, there are many things that go into the king’s proper care. Since 1992, I’ve been working on profitable online content models, and, while a few failed, eventually struck gold with iWORLD (now internet.com) in 1996. In the process, I’ve learned what works and what doesn’t. Here they are for your use.

Hire Zealots

The first rule — and hardest –is building a great staff. People who believe in what you’re doing make for the best workers.
If people believe in the basic idea, they’ll work harder to make sure that it succeeds. This is why zealots make for the best workers. They want the thing to succeed above anything else, even if it means putting in 20 hours days from time to time.

Create a Good Environment

On a content site, intellectual capital is the most important thing, so your most valuable asset is people (no, this isn’t just an empty phrase). As a result, you need to create a fun working environment. Allow flexible hours and atmosphere– as long as the work gets done!
When it comes down to it, the office should be a place workers don’t really want to quit. Foster creativity and try to encourage making the office a more pleasant place to work in. The more pleasant it is, the longer your employees will stay. The longer they stay, the more they’ll get used to the company. The more they get used to the company, the least they’ll want to leave.

Watch the Bottom Line

Many content sites fail because they spend too much money. This is a business. Find the lowest costs everywhere and instill this discipline in everyone working with you. A few dollars saved here and there add up to a lot.
However, do not be a pinch penny when it comes to your employees. Make sure that those who go above and beyond the call of duty get rewarded for it. While the wild parties thrown by companies on Silicon Alley and Silicon Valley only last one night, the bonuses you put in employees pockets get more recognition (and usually end up costing you less).

Automate

As part of your fiscal consciousness, always try to automate. This will allow you to use your staff to its fullest instead of forcing them to do repetitive menial tasks.

Nowadays, with tools like Active Server Pages, Cold Fusion, PHP or Story Server, you can easily create web interfaces that allow you to dynamically generate your pages from the web itself. Instead of trying to create every single page by hand, make sure you templatize.

Quality AND Quantity

People scoffed when Alan Meckler said we had acquired more sites than anyone in the world. We had the last laugh. Smart consolidation of content created higher traffic that we could spread across our other properties. For every site we acquired we would look at two things: the value of the content as an add-on to our offerings and the traffic numbers. Often, after acquisition the original creator created content for us while we sold advertising as part of a network package.

Interestingly, this strategy seems to have become more popular nowadays, with everyone wanting to become a portal. While we didn’t call it “portal,” Internet.com really became the first vertical portal about the net on the net.

Grassroots Marketing is Important

Many people were surprised at how much time we spent in newsgroups, on mailing lists and on talking to people who linked to our sites. This allowed us to develop a strong presence on the Internet at a very low cost. We treated every partner, from large corporations to one-man operations, in the same way and in turn got a lot of loyalty.

Partner, Partner, Partner

Money follows from traffic, and the way to get traffic is through partnering. We considered anything that would bring even a single extra user as beneficial. However, don’t spend too much time on contracts minutiae: they’ll lengthen the partnership process and you’ll miss certain opportunities.

Be There First or Don’t Jump

By the time the two largest players have been established in one arena, there is little room for anyone else. Know your field inside out and jump on new opportunities. Some may fail, but jumping in early means you won’t miss out on potentially huge rewards. If an area fails (a six-month reevaluation cycle works), pull out.

Community Matters

Creating newsgroups and email lists related to your site get readers to come back again and again. Develop a sense of community around your site and you will see your traffic constantly increasing.

Trust YOUR Instincts

Lists like this are great but don’t tell the whole story. Only you know how your site should be built. Don’t take anything for granted, dare defying common conceptions and change often. After all, the commercial Internet is still in its inception.

Tristan Louis is the founder and CEO of Keepskor and writes the influential tnl.net weblog, where this was initially posted under the title Succesful Web Content. You can follow him on twitter here or receive his weekly newsletter by subscribing here.