[ti:E-Books Hold Next Chapter for Book Industry]
[by:51voa.com]
[00:00.00]This is the VOA Special English 
[00:03.13]Economics Report.
[00:04.83]The book industry is trying 
[00:07.65]to get a good read on its future.
[00:10.91]These days, 
[00:12.36]instead of turning paper pages, 
[00:14.91]many readers reach for handheld devices. 
[00:19.69]These electronic readers not only 
[00:22.92]store books to show on a screen, 
[00:25.87]they can also read them out loud.
[00:29.05]This month, Amazon lowered the price of 
[00:32.64]its Kindle reader by sixty dollars 
[00:36.02]to just under three hundred dollars. 
[00:39.37]The device can download books wirelessly 
[00:42.87]from a store on Amazon's Web site. 
[00:46.70]Most new releases and bestsellers 
[00:50.54]cost nine dollars and ninety-nine cents. 
[00:54.12]Newspapers, magazines and other services 
[00:58.65]are available for a monthly charge.
[01:02.00]Buyers of e-books get a good deal: 
[01:06.29]Traditional hardcover books often 
[00:26.46]cost around twenty-five dollars. 
[00:26.46]But what about book publishers and writers? 
[00:26.46]Their concerns about profits 
[00:26.46]are like the ones voiced as the Internet 
[00:26.46]began to change the music industry. 
[00:26.46]Many e-books are already selling 
[00:26.46]for ninety-nine cents.
[00:26.46]Books printed on paper are easily shared 
[00:26.46]and resold by anyone. 
[00:26.46]But e-books can act more 
[00:26.46]like computer software licensed 
[00:26.46]only to the user who buys them.
[00:26.46]And some Kindle users got a shock last week. 
[00:26.46]They were surprised to find that copies of 
[00:26.46]two books disappeared from their devices. 
[00:26.46]These were ninety-nine cent versions of 
[00:26.46]George Orwell's "1984" and "Animal Farm."
[00:26.46]Bloggers have had fun pointing out 
[00:26.46]that "1984" is largely about censorship 
[00:26.46]-- the suppression of information 
[00:26.46]in a society led by Big Brother. 
[00:26.46]Amazon explained that 
[00:26.46]it did not have the rights 
[00:26.46]to the books, so it erased them 
[00:26.46]and returned the people's money.
[00:26.46]This week, Barnes & Noble, 
[00:26.46]the world's largest bookseller, 
[00:26.46]launched what it calls 
[00:26.46]the world's largest e-bookstore. 
[00:26.46]People can read the books 
[00:26.46]on the Apple iPhone 
[00:26.46]and other handheld devices 
[00:26.46]and personal computers. 
[00:26.46]They can also download 
[02:48.22]over half a million books available 
[02:51.40]free from Google.
[02:53.54]The Internet search company 
[02:55.75]is putting books online that are 
[02:58.45]no longer protected by copyright.
[03:01.64]But last October, Google reached a 
[03:05.04]one hundred twenty-five million dollar 
[03:07.83]legal settlement to also make parts of 
[03:11.57]some copyrighted books available. 
[03:14.86]That deal with two groups of writers 
[03:18.05]and publishers has raised competition issues. 
[03:22.83]The Justice Department is now investigating. 
[03:26.87]Also, the European Commission plans 
[03:30.27]hearings in September on how European 
[03:34.52]writers might be affected.
[03:37.27]And that's the VOA Special English 
[03:40.51]Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. 
[03:44.50]Transcripts and podcasts can be found 
[03:54.64] at 51voa.com. I'm Steve Ember.