[Foundation-l] Stopping the presses: Britannica to stop printing books

[Joan Goma]

> From: Keegan Peterzell <keegan.wiki at gmail.com>
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
>        <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Stopping the presses: Britannica to stop
>        printing books
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> On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 7:22 PM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> wrote:
> >
> > I don't think that copying articles is the way to go.  If the two
> projects
> > have separate articles on the same subjects that's still a very good
> thing.
> > They can still maintain their "professional" standards, whatever that
> > means. The reader can compare the two and draw his own conclusions.
> >
> >
> I don't agree.  Once copied back to Wikipedia the articles are open for
> continued editing and expanding- for better or worse.  Then we have a
> comprehensive comparison between the article as it was when taken from
> Wikipedia, what it looked like when rewritten and given back, and the
> current state. It could make for an interesting paper.   I don't think that
> the Catalan Wikipedia just protects the articles and leaves them as done,
> do they?
>

Of course not. In addition if a work is in free license every wikipedian
can decide whether copy or make a derivative work.

The idea is that if they believe (or their marketing studies say) there is
a market for an encyclopedia reviewed by professionals I think that this is
not incompatible with free license.

If it were published under a free license this opens them endless
possibilities. Can copy and review articles in the same language version of
Wikipedia or possible translations from other languages.

Its "value" does not get lost by free licensing because when someone
removes it from their website the content is no longer guaranteed to be
controlled by their professional prestige.

If we copied to wikipedia part of its content we were not damaging their
profitability in the contrary generate traffic to their website that they
know how turn in revenue.

The Enciclopèdia Catalana case is unique. It was created on 1968 a very
difficult historical period for Catalan. It was financed by voluntary
contributions from individuals and private entities and they will continue
having the support of Catalan society including my personal support if
needed nothing farther from my intention than damaging them.

In fact they are available for free online from several years ago. Their
revenue (including other books and magazines) has fallen from 18 M € in
2003 to 12 M € in 2010 (I don't yet have data for 2011) but have been able
to maintain profits around 1M € annually from 2004 instead of 7M € loses on
2003.