On Wednesday, Discovery Patent Holdings LLC filed a lawsuit against Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) over the use of technology related to the distribution of, and securing of, digital texts that Discovery feels falls under their patents.  It is worth pointing out, at this juncture, that this is not, precisely, a new lawsuit.  In March of 2009, Discovery Communications filed a similar suit against Amazon (with Amazon suing Discovery back shortly after) with regard to these patents and the more recent one is simply a reflection of Discovery’s choice to move the patents to a separate corporate entity as they continue proceedings.  The main question on peoples’ minds, of course, is what this will mean for the future of the Kindle platform.

While I’m not intricately familiar with patent law, it would seem from an intuitive standpoint that the Kindle is safe.  As far as I, or seemingly anybody else covering the topic for that matter, recall, there was no effort made previous to these suits(at least that managed to achieve public recognition) by Discovery to defend their rights in the matter. Given that the patents in question were assigned in 1999 and 2007, it would seem rather late in the game to expect results on this front.  Again, I’m no expert and don’t claim to have the only, or even the best, interpretation of what the outcome will be.  All I can say is that I’m not terribly concerned for my Kindle.

Kindle DX Lawsuit

When Amazon Kindle DX with 9.7″ eInk screen was announced it was dubbed “academic eReader”. Academic publications and textbooks don’t display well on a smaller 6″ screen. When the device was released, several universities and colleges announced pilot programs aimed at evaluating its effectiveness in replacing classic textbooks. However these programs hit the same roadblock everywhere: despite having Text-to-Speech capability (which not other eBook reader has), Kindle DX wasn’t accessible to vision-impaired students. This mostly had to do with the fact that menus and other controls don’t have audio. After this concern was raised repeatedly, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) promised to address it in a software update that is expected to be publicly released in Q2 2010.

However several educational institutions decided to go ahead with pilot programs regardless. This caused Federation of the Blind (NFB) and the American Council of the Blind (ACB) to file complaints against Princeton University with Department Of Justice. These complaints led to a lawsuit that was recently settled in a peaceful manner. Princeton University was not held accountable for any wrongdoing and in exchange promised to stop pilot program and only resume it after Kindle DX or any other eReader is fully accessible as required by law. Here’s official DOJ letter that settles the case:

U.S. Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division

Disability Rights Section – NYA
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530
March 24,2010

Hannah S. Ross, Esq.
Office of General Counsel
Princeton University
120 Alexander Road, Second Floor
Princeton, NJ 08540
Re: Letter of Resolution, D.J. No. 202-48-213 Princeton University

Dear Ms. Ross:

As you know, this matter began with complaints filed by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and the American Council of the Blind (ACB) with the Department of Justice, on behalf of the organizations and their members who are current and prospective college students, alleging that Princeton University has violated title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA”), 42 U.S.C. § 12182, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. 5 947(a), by using the Kindle DX, an innovative, hand-held electronic book reader that is not accessible to students with visual impairments, in a classroom setting. According to the complaints, Princeton University is offering a pilot program that began in the fall 2009 semester. The object of this pilot is to test the utility of the Kindle DX in a classroom setting.

The Department of Justice is responsible for the enforcement and implementation of titles II and III of the ADA. The Department decided to investigate this matter because the Kindle DX is inaccessible to an entire class of individuals with disabilities – individuals with visual impairments. According to its product descriptions, the Kindle DX provides several benefits that make it a potentially superior tool to a standard textbook, including the ability to download all textbooks instantaneously, the ability to carry all textbooks on a hand-held device that weighs just over a pound, the ability to search words and concepts instantly on the device’s web browser, while retaining all the characteristics of a standard text book, such as annotating, highlighting, and taking notes. Under title III, blind students must be provided with “full and equal access” to all of the goods and services of the university, 28 C.F.R. § 36.201(a); must be provided with an equivalent opportunity to participate in and benefit from its goods and services, 28 C.F.R. § 36.202(a), (b); and, must not be provided different or separate accommodations unless doing so is necessary to ensure access to goods and services that is equally as effective as that provided to others, 28 C.F.R. 36.202(c).

The Department acknowledges both that Princeton University denies any violation of the Americans with Disabilities Acts and that it has stated its commitment to ensuring equal access to educational programs, activities and opportunities for students with disabilities.

Both the Department of Justice and Princeton University agree that the emergence of new electronic book reading technologies that benefit the sighted have the potential to benefit blind students and faculty as well. The Department of Justice and Princeton University have decided that it is in their interest to resolve this matter amicably. In consideration of the agreement by Princeton University to undertake the actions set forth below, the United States will close its investigation of this matter.

Princeton University agrees to the following actions:

1. The University will not require, purchase, or incorporate in its curriculum the Kindle DX or any other dedicated electronic book reader for use by students in its classes or other coursework unless or until such electronic book reader is fully accessible to individuals with visual impairments. Alternatively, Princeton may comply with the terms set forth in paragraph 5.
2. The phrase “other dedicated electronic book reader” means any wireless, hand-held, electronic book reader that has been or will in the future be produced or offered by Amazon.com or any other corporation, such as but not limited to the Barnes and Noble nook, the Sony PRS-600, PRS-700, PRS 505 or upcoming Sony Daily Edition, and others.
3. Princeton University will commit a policy reflecting the terms of this agreement to writing within 30 days of the date of the last signature below.
4. Princeton University agrees that its commitments in paragraphs 1-4, herein, will, take effect on the date following the last day of the pilot project with Amazon.com, Inc., which will terminate no later than the conclusion of the fall 2009 semester,’and will remain in effect through June 30,2012.
5. As a reasonable modification, the University may provide its students with visual impairments with a dedicated electronic book reader that ensures that individuals who are blind or have low vision are able to access and acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services as sighted individuals with substantially equivalent ease of use.

This agreement does not constitute a finding by the United States that Princeton is in full compliance with the ADA, or an admission by Princeton University of fault or noncompliance with the ADA. This letter agreement does not alter nor enlarge the legal obligations of the University, and shall not form the basis for any enforcement action against Princeton University. The decision to close our file in this matter does not affect the rights of private individuals or of the complainants to enforce their rights under the ADA against Princeton University. As indicated in paragraph 4, above, this agreement also has no effect on Princeton University’s current pilot program testing the Kindle DX.

Please countersign and return a copy of this letter to us, indicating your agreement with the representations and terms set forth herein. Once we have received your countersigned copy, we will consider this matter resolved. We will take no further action on this matter unless we become aware of new information suggesting that Princeton is not complying with its obligations under the ADA or this agreement.

We appreciate your cooperation. If you have questions or concerns regarding this agreement, please do not hesitate to contact the Department.

Sincerely,

THOMAS E. PEREZ
Assistant Attorney General
Civil Rights Division

SAMUEL R. BAGENSTOS
Deputy Assistant Attorney General

JOHN L. WODATCH
Chief

PHILIP L. BREEN
Special Legal Counsel
Disability Rights Section
Civil Rights Division
Deputy Chief

BY:
ALLISON NICHOL
Deputy Chief
KATE NICHOLSON
Trial Attorney
Disability Rights Section
Civil Rights Division
U.S. Department of Justice
Tel: (202) 5 14-8301
Fax: (202) 305-9775

Countersigned:

BY:
HANNA S. ROSS, ESQ.
Counsel for Princeton University
120 Alexander Road, Second Floor
Princeton, NJ 08540
Tel: 609-258-2525
Fax: 609-258-2502

Personally, I believe that eBooks and eReaders are the future of education and when done properly they can provide levels of accessibility previously unobtainable. Hopefully the software updates will be released soon and XXI century publishing can finally happen for textbooks.

Big Brother

In the swarm of controversy around Amazon’s book-deletion, Amazon managed to mostly finish cleaning things up with their customers.  One thread left unresolved, however, had been the the lawsuit. A student began a suit against Amazon when the deletion of 1984 and Animal Farm from his Kindle resulted in losing the notes for his homework.  The suit has now been settled and Amazon owes $150,000.

This amount obviously won’t hurt Amazon.  The company probably avoided the pursuit of a larger, class-action settlement by preemptively offering $30 refunds to everyone effected.  The amount is what was settled on as appropriate for the plaintiff’s specific damages.

My favorite part about this story has to be the plans of the law firm.  This kind of litigation has a reputation of being simple money-grabbing, but that’s not the case here.  The lawyers seemed to be involved simply because they didn’t agree with the actions Amazon took.  As such, they are donating all of their earnings from this suit to charity.  They launched the suit jut to tell Amazon something, and I think that they were successful.

The controversy surrounding Amazon’s deletion of George Orwell Books has now led to a lawsuit against the company.  The suit was instigated by a Michigan High School student who was reading 1984 for an AP English class.  The basis of the suit is that Amazon didn’t just remove the book from his Kindle, but it also ruined his homework assignment and ability to perform in class.  Since he only used the Kindle for reading the book, all of his notes were in the form of annotations added to the eBook.

Interestingly, the annotations themselves did not seem to get deleted.  They are, however, completely useless without the passages they are referring to.  His notes say things like “this paragraph” or “this section.”  Since they are linked to indexing that refers to a now non-existent data file, the lawsuit claims they are completely unsalvageable.  I think this is an interesting angle for the suit to take. In a way, Amazon is technically leasing books and retains the rights to do things like remote deletion.  User created annotations, however, can’t be said to be owned by Amazon in any way.  Perhaps that’s why they weren’t removed along with the books.

So far, a man from California has also jumped on board as a plaintiff and the suit is moving towards class-action status.  That’s rough news for Amazon, who has already been faced with another class-action lawsuit this summer.  Amazon has already made promises to avoid book deletion practices in the future, but they have been met with some skepticism.

Amazon Kindle DX Leather Cover

The Kindle is an expensive gadget, so many owners take precautions to protect it.  One popular Kindle accessory is Amazon’s own leather cover, which adds a layer of insulation to prevent everyday mishaps.  The only problem is that the hinges on the cover have apparently cracked the cases on a number of Kindle 2’s and Kindle DX’s, with the damage sometimes even resulting in a frozen display.

After a $5 million lawsuit filed against the company, Amazon agreed to replace Kindles that have been damaged by the cover.  This is a reversal of Amazon’s previous practice of charging $200 for the replacement.  Even though Amazon’s now trying to address the issue, the lawsuit has yet to be withdrawn.  The company, however, refuses to comment on the suit itself since it’s against their policy to discuss ongoing litigation.

So far I don’t see any traces of damage on either of my Kindles but this piece of news has got me strongly considering investing in another kind of Kindle cover. On the other hand should 3rd party cover crack my Kindle, Amazon would be reluctant to exchange it for free. I’m curious, has anyone run into these problems with the Amazon case?

Arizona State University is one of six schools of higher education that are planning to deploy the Kindle DX this fall.  They are, however, coming under fire from both the National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind over its use.

The two organizations have jointly filed suit against ASU in an attempt to stop the Kindle’s planned usage.  While the Kindle does include a text-to-speech feature, all menus and navigation, including the ability to activate text-to-speech, are completely inaccessible to blind students.  According to the lawsuit, if any University uses the Kindle as their primary means of textbook distribution, it is in clear violation of federal accessibility standards.  A press release detailing the plaintiff’s position can be found here.

Public Universities, being governmental institutions, are required by federal law to meet strict guidelines regarding accessibility.  Since the Kindle clearly does not meet these guidelines, there only seems to be two possible ways this could turn out: Either ASU (and the five other schools) cancel their plans to use the Kindle, or Amazon releases  an update which adds accessibility features to the Kindle Store and menus.  It would be a relatively simple software change for Amazon to make, so hopefully that is the route that things take.  Then, the only problem would be the legal issues surrounding text-to-speech itself.

Roughly two months after Amazon was sued by Discovery Communications for patent infringement related to Kindle Amazon is suing Discovery Communications back also for patent infringement. In this case patents in question are related to “search engine and recommendataion technology” used on Discovery’s e-commerce website.

My guess is that legally both comanies are in the wrong but not because they are criminal but because current US patent system is not appropriate for modern intellectual property. Things like double-click get patented left and right. For the most part it’s done to protect against patent predators. So when somebody sues you over a bougus patent you are likely to find some other patent to sue them back for. Usually it ends up with undisclosed out-of-court settlement.

Most likely this will be the case here are well. We’ll see.

Original story can be found at Wall Street Journal.

According to www.broadcastingcable.com Discovery Comminications is filing a law suit against Amazon for patent infringement related to “secure, encrypted system for the selection, transmission, and sale of electronic books” (used in Amazon Kindle and Kindle 2). The patent in question was issued on November, 20 2007 – one day after Kindle US launch. Currently Amazon declined any comments.

Looks like more and more people realize that there is money in eBooks and market is growing day-by-day. Now suddenly everyone wants a piece of this pie. Just recently Authors Guild threatened to sue Amazon over text-to-speech feature in Kindle 2. Then it was Amazon sending “cease and desist” letters to MobileRead.com and possibly other websites about script that allowed books purchased from eBooks vendors other than Amazon to be read on Kindle.

As the market will grow more I’m sure we’ll see more turf wars like this one. As for patents… nowadays for any given thing you can find someone who holds a patent and “believes that he/she is entitled for compensation“…

Engadget reports that undisclosed law firm on behalf of Amazon.com sent cease and desist letter to MobileRead.com admins demanding pages that host instructions on how to use Python script that allows you to read legally purchased DRM protected eBooks in MobiPocket format on Kindle and Kindle 2.

My personal opinion is that it’s not as simple as Engadget and TechDirt would like to portray it. For one, Engadget’s statement that the script “script, which can’t actually be used to break Kindle DRM” is misleading. I will not elaborate why. If you research the matter yourself, you may find out what I mean. I don’t want to take sides on this particular issue, I just want to point out that there’s more to it than meets the eye or what’s written in mainstream news.

While I am personally a big supporter of open information market where content creators and distributors are fairly compensated for their work and law-abiding users are not limited by crippling DRM systems that bind them to specific hardware. But before this can happen market should get big enough. Otherwise it may collapse because of extreme competition. Amazon is currently the biggest driver or eBook market growth. Cut their profits, their eBook business may collapse and there will be no market at all. Recent release of Kindle application for iPhone and iPodTouch is a step in the right direction towards more open information market. Because it allows usage of purchased digital content to be freely used across two different software and hardware platforms. Hopefully soon more steps like this will follow.

Macworld reports that Amazon would allow copyright holders to disable text-to-speech feature which was introduced in 2nd generation Kindle. This seems to be part of the concession with the Authors Guild. Earlier this month Authors Guild accused Amazon that this feature infringes copyright and undermines the market for audio books. In it’s statement Amazon stated that the text-to-speech feature is legal, because no copy is made, no derivative work is created and no performance is given.

Well.. this seems to settle it. In my personal opinion text-to-speech was no threat to audio books because although much better than most voice synthesis systems I’ve experienced so far it still falls way short of professionally read audiobooks. It is also as much copyright infringement as me reading bed time stories to my daughter… But that’s just my personal opinion. It’s amazing what a law suit threat can do in a modern corporate world.

I just hope that few copyright holders would actually choose to exercise this ability to opt-out because this feature actually comes quite handy on long commutes when I don’t have any audiobook to listen to.