On Sat, 28 Feb 2004, zero 0000 wrote:
I haven't really been paying attention, but it seems like the
possibility of a printed snapshot of Wikipedia is under discussion.
I hope you are all very very VERY familiar with the disastrous
experiences of Eric Weisstein when he gave a publisher permission to
print a snapshot of his online mathematics encyclopedia.
See
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/docs/legal.html .
My understanding of this case was that Weisstein thought he was selling
the rights to only _ONE_ version of his online mathematics encyclopedia,
when the lawyers at Chemical Rubber actually snuck language into his
contract that enabled them to claim _ALL_ of his encyclopedia.
I assume that Jimbo, being a somewhat successful businessman, usually
has any contract he considers signing reviewed first by a lawyer. In this
case, I hope he picks a lawyer familiar with publishing law.
Twenty years ago, when I was considering a career in writing, I had the
impression that publishers have an ethical standard higher than the music
industry (where an artist can sell a million copies of an album, & still
make less money than had she/he worked at McDonald's). I am no longer so
sure of that impression.
Geoff