I would be exceedingly uncomfortable with us organizing a negative campaign against any publisher not actually violating our copyright. . A factual campaign, providing information is another matter. It would be entirely appropriate for individuals, even in a somewhat coordinated way, to add a review, just pointing out that it is entirely a copy of a Wikipedia article, and available free in an updated version from our website--and in updated form.

David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG

On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 6:47 PM, Joshua Gayjoshuagay@gmail.com wrote:

When I worked for the FSF I helped to run a campaign against the Amazon Kindle (and, DRM in general). We did an action called "The Kindle Swindle" in which we asked people to tag all DRM ebooks and the kindle itself with the tags "kindle swindle" and "DRM".

People went ahead and tagged close to a thousand products with the term "Kindle Swindle" and the Kindle advice was tagged with that phrase close to 400 times making it become one of the top four tags on the Kindle page.

What is kind of neat is that for each tag-term has its own discussion forum. The "Kindle Swindle" tag has a relatively active set of discussion threads [1], and the original comment I wrote [2] has over 250 replies to it.

I imagine some combination of blogging, tagging, and letter writing could help in some way to increase consumer awareness and this kind of work can be done in a distributed fashion by wikimedians worldwide.

footnotes :[1] http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle%20swindle?ref_=tag_dpp_cust_itdp_t :[2] http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle%20swindle/forum/ref=cm_cd_ef_tft_tp?_encodi...

On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 6:10 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.

"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". _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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Renata St wrote:

They "deceive" potential buyers into thinking it's an original book/content without disclosing that it's just a copy from Wikipedia. There are disclaimers inside the book -- but that comes only after opening the wallet. Someone should put it up front.

I don't know if they commonly do it but at least at http://amazon.decenturl.com/amazon.com-prehistoric-europe they openly say it's from Wikipedia.

David Goodman wrote:

I would be exceedingly uncomfortable with us organizing a negative campaign against any publisher not actually violating our copyright. . A factual campaign, providing information is another matter. It would be entirely appropriate for individuals, even in a somewhat coordinated way, to add a review, just pointing out that it is entirely a copy of a Wikipedia article, and available free in an updated version from our website--and in updated form.

It may still be violating moral rights, which are a part of the copyright law even though no penalties are provided. There could also be a case for fraudulent misrepresentation.

Another alternative might be for Wikimedians to put together a company that would sell similar books to the public at cost, perhaps on a print on demand basis so as to get the latest versions. Article selection might be the same, and they could even use identical titles for each book, but there would be no deception about where the material comes from.

Ec

2009/8/13 David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com:

I would be exceedingly uncomfortable with us organizing a negative campaign against any publisher not actually violating our copyright. .  A factual campaign, providing information is another matter. It would be entirely appropriate for individuals, even in a somewhat coordinated way, to add a review, just pointing out that it is entirely a copy of a Wikipedia article, and available free in  an updated version from our website--and in updated form.

"The contents of this book are reprinted from Wikipedia. Thanks to Dr --- for making Wikipedia content available commercially in printed form, in full observance of copyright requirements. We do this to spread knowledge, after all!"

- d.

As long as the books give sufficient indication that they are from Wikipedia, ...

Inside the book -- yes, plenty of indication about copying. But nothing to warn you before you buy. People are buying these books tricked into thinking it's an original content.

...

...

As long as the books give sufficient indication that they are from Wikipedia, ...

...

Inside the book -- yes, plenty of indication about copying. But nothing

to

...

warn you before you buy. People are buying these books tricked into

thinking

...

it's an original content.

Yuh. Point it out in reviews etc.

Exactly, except that there are 2000 such books. Amazon would block me for spamming (irony!) if I attempted to review all of them.

On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 1:20 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:

2009/8/14 Renata St renatawiki@gmail.com:

...

...

...

Inside the book -- yes, plenty of indication about copying. But

nothing

...

...

to

...

warn you before you buy. People are buying these books tricked into

thinking

...

it's an original content.

...

...

Yuh. Point it out in reviews etc.

...

Exactly, except that there are 2000 such books. Amazon would block me for spamming (irony!) if I attempted to review all of them.

Hah. Put up a blog entry or web page detailing your concern and asking others to help?

Or email to two interested mailing lists?...