[Foundation-l] Fwd: BBC "5 Live Investigates"

[Michael Snow]

That seems generally consistent with typical practices on Amazon.com, 
which are oriented toward maintaining a walled garden and avoiding any 
kind of outbound link. It's really an extension of standard business 
practice for any commercial distributor or middleman who doesn't want to 
be cut out of a deal, and that's what Amazon is writ large. You can see 
it in how merchandise from third-party sellers is handled. Even if 
Amazon doesn't carry the item itself, and even if the seller with a 
listing on Amazon actually has an independent website, everything about 
the listing is structured to avoid any hint that such a website exists, 
even to cover shipping terms or return policies. Unfortunately, this 
philosophy also makes Amazon.com quite bad at standard practices for 
giving credit where it is due. (And no, linking to IMDB doesn't count, 
since they own it.)

--Michael Snow

On 2/1/2011 3:31 PM, David Gerard wrote:
> Books, LLC. respond. They say they included Wikipedia URLs on their
> pages, but Amazon removed them.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Andrew<andrew at booksllc.net>
> Date: 1 February 2011 23:29
> Subject: BBC "5 Live Investigates"
> To: dgerard at gmail.com, slimvirgin at gmail.com, geniice at gmail.com,
> thewub.wiki at gmail.com
>
>
> Hi David Gerard,
>
>
>
> I totally understand your concern about Wikipedia getting proper
> credit on wiki books! And I understand how annoying it is when that
> doesn’t happen.
>
>
>
> What Charlotte was investigating, as I understand it, was why Amazon
> in the UK had dropped the wiki book descriptions we (Books LLC)
> provide them with.
>
>
>
> Those descriptions credit Wikipedia as the source, include an excerpt
> of one of the Wikipedia articles, a URL to read the full article at
> Wikipedia, and the titles of other Wikipedia articles in the book
> (space permitting). The book itself credits Wikipedia on the
> publisher’s page, the introduction and at the end of every article. I
> agree with you that readers have a right to that information.
> Hopefully, with our continued pleading Amazon UK will provide it.
>
>
>
> While Amazon didn’t explained why they dropped the Wikipedia credits,
> they did say that they don’t allow URLs in book descriptions. I guess
> they don’t want their customers leaving Amazon and going to Wikipedia.
>
>
>
> If you have any questions or suggestions, please do let me know. I
> will be happy to help in anyway I can.
>
>
>
> Kind Regards,
>
>
>
> Andrew Williams
>
> Public Relations Manager
>
> Books LLC
>
>
>
> BBC "5 Live Investigates" on Books LLC, Sunday night 9pm UTC Remove Highlighting
>
>
>
> ________________________________________
>
> [.To WMUK-l for local interest, and foundation-l as the issue's been
>
> discussed there at length.]
>
>
>
>
>
> Just spoke to a researcher, Charlotte something, for BBC 5 Live
>
> Investigates, Sunday 9pm, this item likely to go out 9:45pm or so.
>
> This was just for her research, it wasn't a recorded piece.
>
>
>
> The piece is on Books LLC and similar operations, which sell reprints
>
> of Wikipedia articles as books on Amazon. She was after the Wikipedian
>
> viewpoint.
>
>
>
> I said that it's entirely legal - that you can use our stuff without
>
> permission, even commercially, and we like that - "Please, use our
>
> stuff!" - you just have to give credit and let other people reuse your
>
> version: "share and share alike."
>
>
>
> So the only issue is that it isn't clear enough these books are just
>
> Wikipedia reprints. For us, the annoyance - I said that "annoyance" is
>
> probably the word - is when a Wikipedian finds one of these books,
>
> goes "aha, a source!", buys it and ... discovers it's just reprints of
>
> stuff they have. "While trademark is an issue, we'd like them or
>
> Amazon to make it a *bit* clearer that these texts are Wikipedia
>
> reprints."
>
>
>
> She wasn't clear on the business model. I said these are
>
> print-on-demand books, where *no* copies exist until someone orders
>
> one, at which point a single copy is printed and sent. POD is *very
>
> good* these days - you can send a PDF to a machine, and the machine
>
> will produce an *absolutely beautiful* perfect-bound book for you,
>
> which previously would have been quite pricey. This is enough for them
>
> to have a tiny, tiny niche.
>
>
>
> I also pointed out that anyone can make their own PDFs of Wikipedia
>
> articles and some of the projects have partnerships with outside
>
> companies to do nice printed books of Wikipedia reprints. But in such
>
> cases, everyone is very clear on what they're getting: a nice printed
>
> physical copy of content they already have for free on the web.
>
>
>
> I tried to answer very descriptively, as I can't speak *for* 160,000
>
> people, but there's been enough foundation-l and related discussion to
>
> get an idea of what people think. My apologies if I missed bits, this
>
> was off the top of my head without referring to nuances of discussion
>
> :-)
>
>
>
>
>
> - d.
>
>
>
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