[WikiEN-l] Concise Print Wikipedia (WARNING)

[Ray Saintonge]

Geoff Burling wrote:

>On Sat, 28 Feb 2004, zero 0000 wrote:
>
>>I hope you are all very very VERY familiar with the disastrous
>>experiences of Eric Weisstein when he gave a publisher permission to
>>print a snapshot of his online mathematics encyclopedia.
>>
>My understanding of this case was that Weisstein thought he was selling
>the rights to only _ONE_ version of his online mathematics encyclopedia,
>when the lawyers at Chemical Rubber actually snuck language into his
>contract that enabled them to claim _ALL_ of his encyclopedia.
>
I only briefly reviewed Weisstein's "short" summary, but did note that 
much of what had been contributed to the MathWorld website was by 
volunteers.  How could he possibly speak for them?

>I assume that Jimbo, being a somewhat successful businessman, usually
>has any contract he considers signing reviewed first by a lawyer. In this
>case, I hope he picks a lawyer familiar with publishing law.
>
Jimbo does not own the copyrights so he does not have the authority to 
sign them away.  I'm sure that any attempt by the publisher to usurp 
those rights would be met by new forks from several other members who 
already have downloaded the database into their own machines, some of 
them outside of the United States. Many Wikipedians already have 
concerns about copyright laws, so the publisher's lawyers could be kept 
very busy.

>Twenty years ago, when I was considering a career in writing, I had the
>impression that publishers have an ethical standard higher than the music
>industry (where an artist can sell a million copies of an album, & still
>make less money than had she/he worked at McDonald's). I am no longer so
>sure of that impression.
>
Riiight!  And many musicians still believe that the recording companies' 
campaigns against MP3's are to protect the rights of the artists. :-)

Ec