Well while Ryan and Fred look having a valid concern, on this particular issue I have no idea what you guys discuss.

The article seems to be a full translation of Japanese Wikipedia article which seem to be based on three Japanese books (see "references" in the jawiki article) all in paper, not robo-books.

On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 5:09 AM, Ryan Kaldari rkaldari@wikimedia.org wrote:

It is actually becoming somewhat difficult to search for books on obscure subjects on Amazon or Alibris without being completely spammed with matches for "robo-books" automatically generated from Wikipedia articles. Recently, I was doing research for a Wikipedia article on a rather obscure type of spider, and I came very close to buying a book on it before I realized that it was actually just a reprint of the content I had already written for the article. So I almost paid someone for my own writing! Perhaps we should put together a project to keep track of these robo-book publishers so that we can start asking for some royalties (or else sue them for not giving us proper credit).

Ryan Kaldari

On 10/31/10 9:41 AM, Fred Bauder wrote:

...

There is a book review of a 98 page book supposedly about Ukita Kōkichi (who apparently prematurely invented the hang glider)

http://blog.seattlepi.com/travelforaircraft/archives/226709.asp

Which consists of this Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukita_K%C5%8Dkichi

and a few others

Listed on Amazon for 50 bucks:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/6131076278/

together with a bevy of other sellers:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/6131076278/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&...

Fred

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I see, thanks Mike. Personally I'm not for this kind of attempt, I'd rather agree with Ryan: if and only if they complies with CC-BY-SA deeds, is there any room for us to prevent them legally to spread it even in a surprisingly overestimated price? Thought?

2010/11/2 M. Williamson node.ue@gmail.com:

The issue is that this book: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/6131076278/

is a direct copy of the English Wikipedia article.

There are many more books like this made by the same company.

2010/11/1 KIZU Naoko aphaia@gmail.com:

...

Well while Ryan and Fred look having a valid concern, on this particular issue I have no idea what you guys discuss.

The article seems to be a full translation of Japanese Wikipedia article which seem to be based on three Japanese books (see "references" in the jawiki article) all in paper, not robo-books.

On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 5:09 AM, Ryan Kaldari rkaldari@wikimedia.org wrote:

...

It is actually becoming somewhat difficult to search for books on obscure subjects on Amazon or Alibris without being completely spammed with matches for "robo-books" automatically generated from Wikipedia articles. Recently, I was doing research for a Wikipedia article on a rather obscure type of spider, and I came very close to buying a book on it before I realized that it was actually just a reprint of the content I had already written for the article. So I almost paid someone for my own writing! Perhaps we should put together a project to keep track of these robo-book publishers so that we can start asking for some royalties (or else sue them for not giving us proper credit).

Ryan Kaldari

On 10/31/10 9:41 AM, Fred Bauder wrote:

...

There is a book review of a 98 page book supposedly about Ukita Kōkichi (who apparently prematurely invented the hang glider)

http://blog.seattlepi.com/travelforaircraft/archives/226709.asp

Which consists of this Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukita_K%C5%8Dkichi

and a few others

Listed on Amazon for 50 bucks:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/6131076278/

together with a bevy of other sellers:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/6131076278/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&...

Fred

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-- KIZU Naoko / 木津尚子 member of Wikimedians in Kansai / 関西ウィキメディアユーザ会 http://kansai.wikimedia.jp

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On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 12:09 AM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:

My thought was for the Foundation to approach Amazon regarding carrying listings of such books which seriously represent their content. as this one does. Such a book approaches fraud.

Agreed. There is no *obligation* for Amazon to distribute netscrapings. Though I do agree also that repeated "caveat emptor" messages disseminated as broadly as posible (maybe a mantra in interviews given by Foundation actors to major media?) may be the most efficacioius and with least of a downsde. People out there don't like litigitous whiners.

Another thing that might shut this stuff down, or atleast make people more savvy in judging what quality they are getting, would be if we finally got some dead tree stuff out there with the WMF trademark on them for real.

-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]

2010/11/1 KIZU Naoko aphaia@gmail.com:

I see, thanks Mike. Personally I'm not for this kind of attempt, I'd rather agree with Ryan: if and only if they complies with CC-BY-SA deeds, is there any room for us to prevent them legally to spread it even in a surprisingly overestimated price? Thought?

Sure. Find an article with a french author and bring moral rights into play.

On 2 November 2010 03:53, Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.rs wrote:

Дана Tuesday 02 November 2010 02:57:10 geni написа:

...

2010/11/1 KIZU Naoko aphaia@gmail.com:

...

I see, thanks Mike. Personally I'm not for this kind of attempt, I'd rather agree with Ryan: if and only if they complies with CC-BY-SA deeds, is there any room for us to prevent them legally to spread it even in a surprisingly overestimated price? Thought?

Sure. Find an article with a french author and bring moral rights into play.

Doesn't have to be French, most of Europe has moral rights, if not most of the world.

France takes them rather more seriously than most. France also has a history of being irritating towards multinational web companies.

On 2 November 2010 19:56, ???? wiki-list@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote:

...

Perhaps, but one can't claim moral rights:

o where the work is a computer program  o where ownership of a work originally vested in an author's employer  o where the material is being used in newspapers or magazines  o reference works such as encyclopaedias or dictionaries

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy/c-otherprotect/c-moralrights.htm

France doesn't answer to British law. Britian is common law which doesn't like moral rights very much. The continental legal systems are rather different to the point where "is it a violation of the architect's moral rights to alter a bridge?" is a valid question (the answer was no BTW but it was a close thing).

As has been rightfully pointed out to me, if these robo-book publishers are following the terms of the CC-by-sa licensing (which is doubtful), there isn't really anything we can do about it. I just wonder what will happen to the online book market once wikipedia robo-books become 50% or more of the search results (which is already true in some obscure cases). Perhaps Wikipedia will inadvertently cause the demise of Amazon and the rebirth of local bookstores.

Ryan Kaldari

On 11/1/10 1:09 PM, Ryan Kaldari wrote:

It is actually becoming somewhat difficult to search for books on obscure subjects on Amazon or Alibris without being completely spammed with matches for "robo-books" automatically generated from Wikipedia articles. Recently, I was doing research for a Wikipedia article on a rather obscure type of spider, and I came very close to buying a book on it before I realized that it was actually just a reprint of the content I had already written for the article. So I almost paid someone for my own writing! Perhaps we should put together a project to keep track of these robo-book publishers so that we can start asking for some royalties (or else sue them for not giving us proper credit).

Ryan Kaldari

On 10/31/10 9:41 AM, Fred Bauder wrote:

...

There is a book review of a 98 page book supposedly about Ukita Kōkichi (who apparently prematurely invented the hang glider)

http://blog.seattlepi.com/travelforaircraft/archives/226709.asp

Which consists of this Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukita_K%C5%8Dkichi

and a few others

Listed on Amazon for 50 bucks:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/6131076278/

together with a bevy of other sellers:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/6131076278/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&...

Fred

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On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 11:04 PM, Ryan Kaldari rkaldari@wikimedia.org wrote:

...

As has been rightfully pointed out to me, if these robo-book publishers are following the terms of the CC-by-sa licensing (which is doubtful), there isn't really anything we can do about it. I just wonder what will happen to the online book market once wikipedia robo-books become 50% or more of the search results (which is already true in some obscure cases). Perhaps Wikipedia will inadvertently cause the demise of Amazon and the rebirth of local bookstores.

Ryan Kaldari

While that would be a result devoutly to be wished for, I expect it will rather more likely lead to Amazon tightening policies on what they will help distribute -- not that that would be a bad result either.

-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]

Yes, this seems below whatever low threshold they have. I'm going to forward this to internal and see if we can't get some action.

Fred

On 11/01/2010 04:08 PM, ???? wrote:

How is this a problem the articles are licensed CC-BY-SA the book is advertised on Amazon as being a collection of WIKIPEDIA articles. That someone knowingly spends $50 on it is surely there own fault.

     Attribution: To re-distribute a text page in any form,
     provide credit to the authors either by including a) a
     hyperlink (where possible) or URL to the page or pages
     you are re-using, b) a hyperlink (where possible) or
     URL to an alternative, stable online copy which is freely
     accessible, which conforms with the license, and which
     provides credit to the authors in a manner equivalent to
     the credit given on this website, or c) a list of all
     authors. (Any list of authors may be filtered to exclude
     very small or irrelevant contributions.) This applies to
     text developed by the Wikimedia community.
     http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use

*shrug* seems that all they have to do is put a URI on a page. Of course as more of this type of book is produced it may make the general public think that wikipedia has some finger in the pie.

The problem here is that the publisher is being deceptive as to the origin of the content and how it was put together. Since I haven't seen the book itself and can only react to what is on the amazon.com. I guess this is a "buyer beware" in regards to whatever you purchase in this fashion.

One other problem that I see here is that this is an unfilled niche where there is demand for content of this nature.... the "long tail" where there are people who would be willing to pay fairly substantial amounts of money for a specialized book that did a fairly good treatment on a more obscure topic. These companies are exploiting this niche even if they are doing a pretty lousy job of dealing with these customers as well. Certainly there are people who are interested in these obscure topics.

Something missing from the Wikimedia projects is some way to close the circle in terms of moving from raw content and rough drafts to a polished final published product of some kind. There are some private groups which are doing this with Wikimedia content, but nothing organized by the Wikimedia volunteers themselves. It is something I have tried in vain to attempt to get organized with Wikibooks, but it can also apply to other Wikimedia projects as well. Perhaps it is something that is well past due to be put together as a formal Wikimedia "sister project".

I strongly insist that you can't simply automate the collection of random pages from a wiki and call that a book. While those tools which do this are useful to an extent, I feel that there needs to be a human element in the process as you are changing media which has different requirements than a web page. An "editorial board" or something that is able to filter some of the volumes of content available on the various Wikimedia projects perhaps would be useful. It seems like it is a volunteer organizing effort much more so than a technical challenge, as the tools necessary to select content for organization and to publish are all pretty much available even for those members of our community who are of modest financial means.

My problem I've encountered is simply finding the right community of people that would be interested in putting together such a development effort to close the process and get some "published" content prepared that is derived from Wikimedia projects. I am very much aware of the Wikipedia 1.0 effort, which is sort of what I'm talking about here, but I feel if something is done like this needs to be more comprehensive in nature than merely putting together some of the featured articles from Wikipedia. I could do this as a for-profit company as there are marketable products that could be sold from this effort, but it is something I'd also like to do where I'm "giving back" to the community as well in some fashion that helps support the overall effort.

I know in the past that the Wikimedia Foundation has been extremely reluctant to set itself up as a publisher and wants to maintain its distance from this gap closing in part to preserve its "internet service provider" status where the WMF can essentially plead ignorance deliberately over the content on the various projects. This in turn has made it nearly impossible to organize publishing efforts like producing Wikijunior books and to keep a sustained effort going on projects of that nature. I was involved with the physical publishing of some Wikijunior materials, and getting squished like a bug on those efforts also took the wind out of my sails in terms of pushing for something more. Perhaps the time is ripe now for something new to develop along these lines.

Seriously, I'm interested in putting something like this together, and if anybody reading this mailing list would like to get something organized to "close this gap", let me know or point me to some groups of Wikimedia users who would like to get some real published content prepared in various forms. I'm talking physical dead-tree books, e-books for things like Kindle (and other e-book readers), pdf files that can be downloadable on Wikimedia projects, and other forms of more complete content that is peer-reviewed but derived from Wikimedia projects. I'm pleading ignorance if there is such a group that has been put together already but I think it is about time that something of this nature is put together if it hasn't been already.

Perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree here and nobody really cares about this stuff. If so, ignore this post, but it seems like many of the posts on this mailing list lately have been complaints about the quality of the content and bemoaning the fact that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects have a hard time distinguishing between brilliant prose and something the latest troll put forth at the last minute. Something clearly is missing here, and I think this "evil book" is a prime example of an unmet need in the "market place of ideas" where I think it is time that the Wikimedia volunteers step up to the plate to show how these books really ought to be made. We wrote the content, we know what the gems are that are out there in our projects and what is something to avoid like the plague. If these books are going to be flooding Amazon.com and the other on-line publishers anyway, let's put some high quality stuff into those book sellers so that when people are going to be buying re-purposed content from Wikimedia projects that it is something really worth getting.

Perhaps, and this is a side benefit worth noting but not the primary purpose (nor secondary or even tertiary for that matter) this could also be a minor and modest fundraiser for the WMF. But the purpose here is to get the quality of what we are making to the publish and get it distributed. Commercial publishers have been selling Wikimedia content for some time, but are doing a rather lousy job of it too. Why is that?

-- Robert Horning ____________________________________________________________ $350,000 Life Insurance Coverage as low as $13.04/month. Free, No Obligation Quotes. http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL3241/4ccf51de4b3bf55d7d9st04vuc

On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 3:04 PM, Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.rs wrote:

Дана Tuesday 02 November 2010 00:48:06 Robert S. Horning написа:

...

The problem here is that the publisher is being deceptive as to the origin of the content and how it was put together.  Since I haven't seen the book itself and can only react to what is on the amazon.com.  I guess this is a "buyer beware" in regards to whatever you purchase in this fashion.

By the way, this seems to be limited to this publisher Betascript, who does give misleading descriptions: http://www.amazon.com/Ukita-Kokichi-Lambert-M-Surhone/dp/6131076278/

This is covered in

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDM_Publishing

There's this Books LLC with more accurate descriptions: http://www.amazon.com/Tairo-Tokugawa-Tadakatsu-Kagekatsu-Masatoshi/dp/115594...

They are not very accurate about the content; it is missing images, formula, etc.

http://booksllc.net/faqs.cfm

-- John Vandenberg

On 1 November 2010 21:04, Ryan Kaldari rkaldari@wikimedia.org wrote:

As has been rightfully pointed out to me, if these robo-book publishers are following the terms of the CC-by-sa licensing (which is doubtful),

Actually due to the unfortunate terms of use Erik Möller managed to wedge in when we switched over to CC-BY-SA they probably are. Of course at least English wikipedians can actually read to the TOS they are meant to agree to. Polish speakers say are likely to face more issues. Of course under many if not most European legal systems they are in any case invalid but thats a separate issue.