Founded in 2002 by Red Hat’s Bob Young, Lulu is one of the oldest self-publishing houses on the Internet. Initially the company offered printing services and editing tools for self-published authors and, arguably, in 2002 they would have still been called a vanity press. Now, however, they’re another solid link in the chain between authors and readers.
This month the company launched a new photo book printing division, a move that runs parallel to the way the market is going. While most fiction and non-fiction is ending up on reading devices, folks still love a good album. The service, available at Picture.com allows for instant photobook generation and the printed end products are handsomely bound books, calendars, and even business class brochures and marketing collateral.
According to Lyra research, half of all American households with kids under 5 have ordered picture books and the market is set to double from 42 million units to 78 million by 2014.
I spoke with founder Bob Young about the move into the pictures space and how it felt to be one of the first to market in the ebook era.
Read more at TechCrunch
In a dissent for herself and Justices Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the court was ignoring Congress’ aim of protecting “copyright owners against the unauthorized importation of low-priced, foreign-made copies of their copyrighted works.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that textbooks and other goods made and sold abroad can be re-sold online and in discount stores without violating U.S. copyright law.
In a 6-3 opinion, the court threw out a copyright infringement award to publisher John Wiley & Sons against Thai graduate student Supap Kirtsaeng, who used eBay to resell copies of the publisher’s copyrighted books that his relatives first bought abroad at cut-rate prices.
Justice Stephen Breyer said in his opinion for the court that once goods are sold lawfully, whether in the U.S. or elsewhere, publishers and manufacturers lose the protection of U.S. copyright law.
“We hold that the ‘first sale’ doctrine applies to copies of a copyrighted work lawfully made abroad,” Breyer said.
Had the court come out the other way, it would have crimped the sale of many goods sold online and in discount stores, and it would have complicated the tasks of museums and libraries that contain works produced outside the United States, Breyer said. Retailers told the court that more than $2.3 trillion worth of foreign goods were imported in 2011, and that many of these goods were bought after they were first sold abroad, he said.
Read more at Yahoo! News
