Ramblings

Bloviating: to you, from me. Chide me if you will. algot@runeman.org

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Wed, 29 Jul 2009

LibreDigital

LibreDigital is a company with many fine supporters, the likes of the New York Times, for example, and it has just gotten $15 million to do its valuable work.

From the LibreDigital Web site:

"LibreDigital makes it profitable to manage and market digital content, providing a web-based warehouse and distribution platform for six of the top ten book publishers and over 175 newspapers and periodicals. LibreDigital's on-demand solution allows publishers to store and secure digital content in any form, and to deliver content on demand to any marketplace, consumer, or device. LibreDigital serves the world's top firms in over 120 countries including HarperCollins Publishers, Hachette Book Group, John Wiley & Sons and Simon & Schuster. Backed by Adams Capital Management, Triangle Peak Partners, Noro-Moseley Partners, the New York Times Company, and HarperCollins Publishers, LibreDigital partners with a number of industry leaders, including Baker & Taylor, to provide a full range of solutions. LibreDigital is based in Austin, Texas, with offices in New York City and the United Kingdom."

LibreDigital offers the "freedom" to publish, market, sell and control. Apparently these freedoms are for the likes of the Times, HarperCollins, etc., because as a user I don't feel very liberated.

There is a nice photo on their home page (not Creative Commons licensed) showing two happy women above the mention of control. They are looking at a laptop screen and it certainly looks more like they are working for a publisher than reading an ebook. They look to me like they are ecstatic about the way they can control my use of their published material.

LibreDigital Funding

It was a Tweet from the Plastic Logic e-reader that alerted me to the LibreDigital site.

Plastic Logic has also made a connection to Barnes and Noble who will run the ebook store for Plastic Logic's upcoming (early 2010) ebook reader. It has a larger format than any current Kindle, so, in a way, this connection provides Barnes and Noble an ebook reader to compete with Kindle and Amazon.