I could probably negotiate a license with any publisher that would let a medium or large defined number of users to use the material to source articles; I do not think I could obtain a license which would permit a small group to regularly download articles and send them to other people for their use in sourcing articles. Occasional and sporadic, yes; regular & organized, no. If regular and organized is what you have in mind, i doubt I could find a publisher who would agree, nor would I agree if i were a publisher. I would expect payment based upon the actual number of potential end-users.
The question is that if I asked for a license for, say 2,000 or 20,000 users, whether the cost would be affordable. I am not aware of any pricing precedent for ad hoc groups like ours. The general price range price per publisher for packages is on the order of a few dollars per user per year. If anyone at the foundation would like me to ask, I know whom to ask.
But most people at Wikipedia have not even bothered to find out what their public or school library may already be paying for. Almost all of them buy at least some packages.
On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 4:55 PM, stevertigo stvrtg@gmail.com wrote:
There was some discussion recently about WikiMedia paying for user accounts on proprietary source engines, to aid in providing sources to Wikipedia articles. I'm curious as to how that inquiry was dealt with, and how it was resolved.
Seems like a good idea. If feasible, there would presumably be a limited number of assigned accounts given to specific interested users, who would have to commit themselves to assisting others in sourcing particular concepts, statements, and phrases. A common case may be where the Wikipedia author may be writing from knowledge, or may be referencing an inferior source, and can't directly quote from a superior or particular text because it is not readily available to them.
-SV
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