Pearson Education

I'm pleased to share some exciting news. On Friday, August 1st, O'Reilly purchased Pearson Education's 50% ownership share of our Safari Books Online joint venture, and Safari is now a wholly owned subsidiary of O'Reilly Media, Inc.

O'Reilly believes strongly in the direction Safari is heading, and we came to believe that there are substantial opportunities for both organizations working much more closely together. O'Reilly is primarily a media company (books, events, online in-person and video training, expert network),

Despite the popular [mis]conception that digital textbooks haven't taken off, the educational ecosystem-particularly in higher ed-is where some of the most active digital developments are happening. Most college textbooks have associated online resources and are often available as ebooks or online.

The biggest threat to selling digital intellectual property continues to be the looming threat of online piracy. RosettaBooks, the leading independent eBook publisher, has teamed with Digimarc Guardian(SM) in a case study on preventing piracy to be presented at the 2013 Digital Book World Convention + Expo.

Digital publisher Safari Books Online has purchased PubFactory’s Electronic Platform for an undisclosed amount.

Effective since December 31, 2012, the sale makes it the owner of this proprietary software solution, which helps publishers develop scalable and semantically-rich electronic libraries.

Technological developments are regularly presenting a raft of new challenges and choices. Through it all, publishers are continually being asked to demonstrate their utility. With self-publishing a click away, authors ask publishers, "Do we still need you?" If printing and distribution can now be accomplished at a much-reduced cost and degree of complexity, must publishers redefine their raison d'être? Are publishers having an identity crisis?

China has a huge publishing industry, with over 367,000 titles published in 2011 — making it a large and lucrative market for foreign publishers who want to sell book rights there. But they may face unique challenges, including an ebook market very different from the one in the West.

“Times are hard,” Diane Spivey, rights and contracts director at Hachette’s Little, Brown in the UK, acknowledged in her introduction at Tuesday afternoon’s 26th annual International Rights Directors Meeting at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

On Thursday, Google and five publishers settled a long-standing legal battle over whether scanning university-library books and using snippets in search results can be done without the permission of copyright holders. While the agreement lets Google continue its work, both sides deliberately avoided tackling the issue at the heart of the conflict: What does fair use mean in the digital age?

Fair Use an exception to the copyright law that gives authors exclusive rights over their creative works. In passing the limitation, Congress tried to balance the rights of copyright holders with the need of academia

Google’s deal to settle a seven-year conflict with five major publishers over the search giant’s book-scanning initiative is a milestone in the publishing industry’s grinding transition from print books to e-books. The pact, struck by Google and the Association of American Publishers (AAP), does not address the underlying question of whether Google violated copyright law by scanning millions of books over the last several years. Both sides, apparently weary of legal wrangling, have agreed to disagree on that point. The deal also doesn’t affect an ongoing lawsuit filed against Google by the Authors Guild, which represents thousands of authors.

Just in time for the back-to-school season, iPad interactive textbook publisher Inkling has secured $17 million in Series B funding from investors including Tenaya Capital, Pearson Education, Jafco Ventures and Sequoia Capital.

Inkling works with textbook publishers to rebuild existing textbooks for the iPad, incorporating search, quizzes, note-sharing, audio and video other interactive features. Students can preview free sample chapters and can also buy textbooks by the chapter, starting at $2.99, through Inkling’s store.

On a recent Saturday, the Book Industry Guild of New York held its 19^th annual Softball Tournament in Central Park to support the Literacy Assistance Center (LAC).