5 Eyes、9 Eyes 與 14 Eyes

{5,9,14} Eyes 是先前在其他地方看到的詞,後來在「Cutting Google out of your life」這邊在講 Google 的替代方案時又有提到,然後也有解釋:「Global Mass Surveillance - The Fourteen Eyes」。

這邊提到的 Eyes 起因是大多數國家對於監視自己公民都有法律限制,所以藉由與國外的情報單位「合作」,取得對自己國家公民的監視資訊 (即使各國之間有簽訂不監視其他國家公民),而這邊列出的 {5,9,14} Eyes 就是互相有簽訂合作的國家:

The UKUSA Agreement is an agreement between the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand to cooperatively collect, analyze, and share intelligence. Members of this group, known as the Five Eyes, focus on gathering and analyzing intelligence from different parts of the world. While Five Eyes countries have agreed to not spy on each other as adversaries, leaks by Snowden have revealed that some Five Eyes members monitor each other's citizens and share intelligence to avoid breaking domestic laws that prohibit them from spying on their own citizens. The Five Eyes alliance also cooperates with groups of third-party countries to share intelligence (forming the Nine Eyes and Fourteen Eyes); however, Five Eyes and third-party countries can and do spy on each other.

另外還有「Key Disclosure Law」這段,在講有哪些國家有法律可以強制個人交出金鑰。

回到本來提到的 degoogle 列表,裡面列出了很多替代的服務與軟體,其中服務的部份會列出所在地區是否在 {5,9,14} Eyes 的範圍內,以及發生過的爭議事件。

當作替代方案在看,至少可以把一些足跡從 Google 抽出來...

電子書在美國的販售管道與作者的獲利

在美國,五大出版商在電子書拆分上對作者佔的比例不斷的下滑,這也代表話語權不斷的下降,而且愈來愈不需要這些「大」出版商了:「Independent authors are starting to outsell the Big Five」。

這邊所提到的 Big Five 可以在「The Big Five Trade Book Publishers」這邊查到,分別是:

  • Hachette Book Group
  • HarperCollins
  • Macmillan Publishers
  • Penguin Random House
  • Simon and Schuster

另外也可以把 Amazon 當作是電子書產業的大公司。可以看到獨立發行的比率愈來愈高:

AuthorEarnings.com has published a report on this very subject, so I jumped into the data. Their May 2016 report reports 1340 authors earn over $100,000 per year on Amazon.com. The striking fact here: “Half of them are indies and Amazon-imprint authors.”

「出版社」的架構受到的挑戰愈來愈多了。