Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

They decided that an AI translator could replace the Spanish-speaking staff to translate articles.

It didn't work too well.

The translator program repeatedly failed partway through the articles, reverting to English. Also, the translators wrote tech articles of interest to the Spanish community, which the AI could not do.

A terrible loss all around.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/09/ai-took-my-job-literally-gizmodo-fires-spanish-staff-amid-switch-to-ai-translator/

Macmillan Publishing is trying to screw up the way that ebooks work - they want to restrict libraries to purchasing ONE COPY of new ebooks for TWO MONTHS after the book comes out! From the CNN Op Ed: "Librarians to publishers: Please take our money. Publishers to librarians: Drop dead.

That's the upshot of Macmillan publishing's recent decision which represents yet another insult to libraries. For the first two months after a Macmillan book is published, a library can only buy one copy, at a discount. After eight weeks, they can purchase "expiring" e-book copies which need to be re-purchased after two years or 52 lends."

It's crazy. Libraries don't pay just full retail price for books: we pay MORE. And ebooks, we pay more than that even! And then, as she says, we pay it again, just so we can continue lending it. Macmillan apparently thinks that each library getting only one copy of an ebook is OK because, since ebooks are digital, a person in the LA County library district, where one copy of the ebook is servicing 1.something million patrons, someone could borrow that ebook from a library in, let's say Vermont, where a library might serve a thousand patrons.

One problem with that: libraries don't lend ebooks outside of their lending area. There are services that they subscribe to, like the Alamogordo library buys in to Libby as do many libraries, but Alamo is still paying for its copies within Libby - Libby is just a distributor. I can't borrow books - physical or electronic, from the Phoenix Public Library, because I'm not a Phoenix or Maricopa County resident.

Macmillan is being idiotic and leaving a lot of money on the table.

Opinion piece by a Vermont Librarian: https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/02/opinions/libraries-fight-publishers-over-e-books-west/index.html

The American Library Association's condemnation: http://www.ala.org/news/member-news/2019/07/public-library-association-condemns-macmillan-publishers-library-lending-model


In libraries and audiobook news, an embargo is being launched against publisher/distributor Blackstone. For six months, many libraries are ceasing new purchases. Blackstone is entering into a new agreement with Amazon, and wants all libraries to get their material through Audible. The problem is that there's lots of issues with licensing. It's just like if you lose a paperback that you checked out from a library, they're not going to charge you $7. They can't go to B&N or Amazon and buy a replacement, it has to come from a publisher or jobber to be licensed correctly so we have the rights to lend it indefinitely.

Big freakin' mess.

One of the reasons I quit doing film programming for science fiction conventions was they started going to Blockbuster and just grabbing videos off the shelf for the film program. Not correctly licensed, and they could have gotten in BIG trouble with distributors for that, and I couldn't be part of it.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/80658-citing-embargo-libraries-plan-boycott-of-blackstone-digital-audio.html

I like Scalzi's fiction, and with him being the soon-to-be-former president of the Science Fiction Writer's Association, he has some good insights to the industry. Random House now has two additional imprints, Hydra and Alibi, which they're trying to push for ebooks and new authors.

There's only one serious problem: their boilerplate contracts are little more than totally ruinous for writers.

No advances. All rights in all media, world-wide, belong to the publisher, and pretty much in-perpetuity. You split costs, some of which are normally sunk for the publisher, which reduces profits. And you split profits, but since costs aren't transparent, the publisher can probably adjust what things cost to guarantee minimal payouts to the authors.

Oh, and they automatically get first dibs on your next book.

Personally I prefer Baen and Tor for my SF/F books, I'm not sure what SF/F imprints Random House does. And I'm not likely to publish a book. But there are lots of aspiring writers out there, and anything that can help them to not get screwed is a good thing.

There are two good paths to not getting screwed. One is to get a good agent. Presumably a good agent would see these clauses in contracts such as this to be calamitous to the writer. Another is to self-publish in ebooks or POD.

http://scalzifeed.livejournal.com/2025659.html

http://scalzifeed.livejournal.com/2025324.html