[Foundation-l] BBC "5 Live Investigates" on Books LLC, Sunday night 9pm UTC

[SlimVirgin]

On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 12:48, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 28 January 2011 18:44, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I suspect that all we have to do is wait. Someone has effectively
> > worked out how to spam Amazon. What one person can do so can others.
> > Eventually the level of spam will rise to the point where Amazon will
> > have to act or lose customers due to their service being degraded.
>
>
> Yes. In the meantime, we can use publicity about this to spread
> awareness that we're all about reusing our stuff, and that we would
> only ask nicely that the books be represented accurately as curated
> Wikipedia reprints. (This is a breathtakingly generous way of
> describing them, but I'd suggest being nice to the idea of reprints as
> we introduce civilisation to the notion of reusability as being the
> normal order of things.)
>
>
The problem with presenting it positively is that most Wikipedians who've
discussed it (that I've seen) don't like them. They worry that readers are
being exploited, they worry about quality, they worry about proper
attribution. They don't like that Amazon is being spammed. I've seen people
ask whether the Foundation can do anything to stop it.

If it were some helpful company offering to bind WP articles for a tenner,
that's one thing, but charging $50 for 10,000 words that you can get free on
WP is horrible. And someone seems to be buying them, because you see used
copies being sold too.

Sarah