E-books Should Be Like Television (And Other Ideas from Digital Book World)
By Edward Nawotka - Publishing Perpectives

"E-books should be like television," said literary agent Larry Kirshbaum, founder of LJK Literary Management, at the first annual Digital Book World conference held in New York this past Tuesday and Wednesday. The former publisher-turned-agent offered a vision of e-books that resembles the way a television works, where you can turn on a Nokia device in Finland, an iTouch (or iPad, if you will) in America, and a not-yet-imagined i-book in China and the "books will look all the same."

(read on ...)

Is Territorial Copyright Defensible in the Age of E-books?
By Edward Nawotka

The instant and virtually frictionless digital distribution of e-books is posing a real challenge to the enforcement of territorial copyright. As discussed in our lead article today, English language e-books are in demand all over the globe. But that demand is likely to put US, UK and even Australian publishers in conflict over territorial copyright.

The answer for the publishers, as suggested by Larry Kirshbaum, is to shift to a model of purchasing world rights.

(read on ...)