On Sun, Feb 29, 2004 at 10:59:57AM -0800, wikien-l-request@Wikipedia.org wrote:
Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 10:51:34 -0800 (PST) From: Geoff Burling llywrch@agora.rdrop.com Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Concise Print Wikipedia (WARNING) To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Message-ID: Pine.LNX.4.33.0402291044550.9514-100000@joan.burling.com Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
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.
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.
Jimbo is not in a position to mistakenly sell the exclusive rights to the Wikipedia, due to the GNU FDL, which he chose when the project was initiated.
Unless there's some end run around its provisions...and in the unlikely event that there is, we're in bigger trouble than one specific print proposal.