It was raised before on the Village Pump, but I think this is so disturbing that we ought to do something.
"Alphascript Publishing" has published over 1900 (and counting) books, all available on Amazon. Prices range from $31 to $179. All of these books are simple computer-generated copies from Wikipedia and (at least according to one Amazon reviewer) couple other public domain websites. Trouble is, from book description page there is absolutely no way of knowing that the book is a Wikipedia mirror on paper. At least several Amazon buyers have been fooled. What really gets my blood boiling is that Amazon user "VDM Verlag Dr.Müller" (I think someone exposed him as 100% shareholder of the publishing co) goes on rating these products as "five star"....
The publisher seems to observe the copyright (even includes full edit history) so legal action seems impossible. Someone already contacted Amazon, but they "are not responsible for the quality of books sold". In the meantime the number of such books grew from 900 in June to almost 2000 as of today... I think we should do something. At the very least publishing product reviews warning that what this is....
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:PrimeHunter/Alphascript_Publishing_sells_f... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)/Archive_... http://rufftoon.livejournal.com/59337.html
Thanks, Renata
P.S. on a happier note: half of Wikipedia editors now can claim to be "published authors".
-----Original Message----- From: Renata St renatawiki@gmail.com To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org; Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thu, Aug 13, 2009 3:10 pm Subject: [WikiEN-l] Alphascript Publishing: 1900+ copy&pasted books from Wikipedia
It was raised before on the Village Pump, but I think this is so disturbing that we ought to do something.
"Alphascript Publishing" has published over 1900 (and counting) books, all available on Amazon. Prices range from $31 to $179. All of these books are simple computer-generated copies from Wikipedia and (at least according to one Amazon reviewer) couple other public domain websites. Trouble is, from book description page there is absolutely no way of knowing that the book is a Wikipedia mirror on paper. At least several Amazon buyers have been fooled. What really gets my blood boiling is that Amazon user "VDM Verlag Dr.Müller" (I think someone exposed him as 100% shareholder of the publishing co) goes on rating these products as "five star"....
The publisher seems to observe the copyright (even includes full edit history) so legal action seems impossible. Someone already contacted Amazon, but they "are not responsible for the quality of books sold". In the meantime the number of such books grew from 900 in June to almost 2000 as of today... I think we should do something. At the very least publishing product reviews wa rning that what this is....
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:PrimeHunter/Alphascript_Publishing_sells_f... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)/Archive_... http://rufftoon.livejournal.com/59337.html
Thanks, Renata
P.S. on a happier note: half of Wikipedia editors now can claim to be "published authors".>> _______________________________________________
Renata I'm not sure to what you're objecting. Our contents are republishable. The author is certainly free to rate his own work five stars. What's the issue here?
Will Johnson
The main issue is *deception*. There is no disclaimer anywhere (except inside the book) that this is a copy from Wikipedia or somewhere else. People are tricked into believing that this is original content by the three listed editors. It almost got tricked myself... and it came out that I wrote 13 articles out of 48 included in that book. I figured something is fishy only because I recognized the titles. I would espect average Joe, not intimately familiar with Wikipedia, to fall for that. Especially when you see another happy customer rating it five stars for "great collection of information"...
I am not objecting to publishing Wikipedia. If someone wants to put an honest effort into producing Wikipedia CDs/DVDs/books -- more power to them. But please label in big clear letters "copied from Wikipedia" on the cover for everyone to see. I know German Wikipedia was published on a DVD -- I have zero objections to that. I also know that the "book extension" to mediawiki was added exactly for this purpose. But in this particular case I think it's rather abusive.
Renata
On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 6:22 PM, wjhonson@aol.com wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: Renata St renatawiki@gmail.com To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org; Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thu, Aug 13, 2009 3:10 pm Subject: [WikiEN-l] Alphascript Publishing: 1900+ copy&pasted books from Wikipedia
It was raised before on the Village Pump, but I think this is so disturbing that we ought to do something.
"Alphascript Publishing" has published over 1900 (and counting) books, all available on Amazon. Prices range from $31 to $179. All of these books are simple computer-generated copies from Wikipedia and (at least according to one Amazon reviewer) couple other public domain websites. Trouble is, from book description page there is absolutely no way of knowing that the book is a Wikipedia mirror on paper. At least several Amazon buyers have been fooled. What really gets my blood boiling is that Amazon user "VDM Verlag Dr.Müller" (I think someone exposed him as 100% shareholder of the publishing co) goes on rating these products as "five star"....
The publisher seems to observe the copyright (even includes full edit history) so legal action seems impossible. Someone already contacted Amazon, but they "are not responsible for the quality of books sold". In the meantime the number of such books grew from 900 in June to almost 2000 as of today... I think we should do something. At the very least publishing product reviews wa rning that what this is....
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:PrimeHunter/Alphascript_Publishing_sells_f...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)/Archive_...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28miscellaneous%29/Archive_20#The_Alphascript-Amazon-Wikipedia_book_hoax http://rufftoon.livejournal.com/59337.html
Thanks, Renata
P.S. on a happier note: half of Wikipedia editors now can claim to be "published authors".>> _______________________________________________
Renata I'm not sure to what you're objecting. Our contents are republishable. The author is certainly free to rate his own work five stars. What's the issue here?
Will Johnson
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I suppose we should be thankful that according to the Alphascript publishing site all the work is done "...at no cost to our authors." otherwise they might be sending us all bills to cover their costs.
Alan _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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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?
wjhonson@aol.com wrote in message news:8CBEAB907C57F0C-390-280C@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.
Maybe there should be a [[:category:printed articles]]. It should ignore personal and educational use with a note at the top saying "Alphascript Publishing used this article in whole or major part for a commercial printing of Wikipedia.". It would be nice of them to create the category and make it complete.
I think this message is better directed at Amazon and other distributors. Nothing is inherently wrong with mirroring Wikipedia on paper. And, I think that belies some of the difficulties in selecting articles, doing a real copy edit (that is manually re-typing it to make it flow, among other things, and I am not sure that they do that), and formatting it for paper. Some might think that paper is a wasteful business, and to read those who want to bill me electronically, it is. You must understand, though, that I doubt it is the intention of AlphaScript publishing to dishonour us, and really, their selection of us is an honour. To my knowledge, all that is required to meet a -BY- requirement is one mention of all contributors. I think that is part of how we managed to pare wikipedia down to a DVD release for WalMart: I do not know--did not buy it. The total of all edits is over four terabytes, which would not fit (that is about a thousand DVDs). I would be interested in their tables of content. It would be nice to figure it into our own selection processes. And hey...are you sure they are not among our monetary contributors?
Kind of cool, really. Dunno about you, but when I write articles on Wikipedia, I do it so that lots of people can read them and the knowledge can be spread. I really don't care if someone is making a quick buck.
Has anyone made a definitive list of them? It looks like I'm probably published here: http://www.amazon.com/Snowboard-Snowboarding-Freestyle-Terrain-Boardercross/...
But I wonder what others...
Steve
On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 8:10 AM, Renata Strenatawiki@gmail.com wrote:
"Alphascript Publishing" has published over 1900 (and counting) books, all available on Amazon. Prices range from $31 to $179. All of these books are simple computer-generated copies from Wikipedia and (at least according to one Amazon reviewer) couple other public domain websites. Trouble is, from
On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 11:10 PM, Renata Strenatawiki@gmail.com wrote:
It was raised before on the Village Pump, but I think this is so disturbing that we ought to do something.
As others have said, I don't find this disturbing at all. It would be good if a Wikipedian bought one of the books to ensure compliance with our license but even if it doesn't I would still be unmoved.
I don't think it requires a concerted effort by Wikipedia to attack the publisher by trying to post a review of all 2,000 books. Purchasers of the books who feel they were conned can post their own reviews if they buy them and are alarmed to discover how they were produced.
I wouldn't be against Wikipedia having its own range of print works provided they were profitable and all funds were ploughed back into the Foundation. But I certainly don't think it would be a good idea if it were purely motivated by trying to compete someone out of the market.
On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 10:02 AM, Bod Notbodbodnotbod@gmail.com wrote:
I wouldn't be against Wikipedia having its own range of print works provided they were profitable and all funds were ploughed back into the Foundation. But I certainly don't think it would be a good idea if it were purely motivated by trying to compete someone out of the market.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:PrefixIndex/Wikipedia:Books/
Steve