[WikiEN-l] Alphascript Publishing: 1900+ copy&pasted books from Wikipedia

[Jay Litwyn]

<wjhonson at aol.com> wrote in message 
news:8CBEAB907C57F0C-390-280C at WEBMAIL-DZ04.sysops.aol.com...
>
> You said:
>> The publisher seems to observe the copyright (even includes full edit
>> history) so legal action seems impossible.
>
> How can a book copy the full edit history without it being obvious that
> it's copied from Wikipedia?
> We do not require someone to say "copied from Wikipedia" on the title
> page by the way.
> But I'm unclear why you think there is no possible legal action?
> We have a license, and the license states that you must state certain
> things.
> Either they obey it, or they don't. Am I right?

Yup. That is why I am guessing this is a non-issue. If they did not run 
their editorial concept past someone at Wikimedia, then they had one of 
their own lawyers check it against our license. Renata St does not like 
their price. Neither do I, and I do not see anything I can do about it other 
than buy something else. She does not like the lack of prominence of 
wikipedia's name on the face of the books. It was not a wikimedia-spawned 
initiative.  Forces are against printing wikipedia, and I am with them, 
mainly because I would not know where to start with rules for selecting 
articles, and I do not know anybody who does. So, she is an incidental and 
frequent contributor to wikipedia's unofficial print edition. Maybe she 
should turn that around and look at what she could do for the articles that 
she did not write in the books, then personally ask if they will pay her for 
doing it.