Re-purposing Dalmatia, Amazon.com and dubious sources Options

[Text]

You will never find an Olive Garden that is not within 3 miles of McDonald's. (And usually, it's less than 1 mile away.) In that case, there is a relationship between the two. Darden Restaurants, when selecting potential locations for a new Olive Garden, examines whether or not there is a successful McDonald's franchise nearby. If so, they contend that the market would be able to sustain an Olive Garden, too. They let McDonald's do the dirty work of site selection, in other words.

Is it a symbiotic relationship or a parasitic relationship? And how does that work for Wikipedia and porn? If there are people who bother to read pages about Medieval History, then many more will bother with accessing porn material over there?

[Milton Roe]

But meanwhile, still no WP on micro-SDs. It's obvious, efficient, could be very cheap, and yet due to market forces, it's not going to happen soon.

Argghhhh.

Is there anyone selling porn on micro-SDs? If not, then I don't see a market for Wikipedia on micro-SDs, either. If a medium hasn't already been exploited profitably for porn, then that medium is not going to be exploited at all for Wikipedia.

And your basis for this reasoning is what? It's happened ONCE with the internet and you generalize from this single case?

There is some text porn on both Kindle and on SD cards, but with SD you need a reader, and portable porn suffers from poor resolution screens (porn is inherrently much more visual than text-based material). So it's not a very natural combination. Whereas, Kindle and text readers works much better for an encyclopedia.

And why would anybody put porn text on an SD anyway? As a business model, it sucks. Wikipedia has never HAD a business model. So your argument falls flat, there. Porn survives on the internet by ads and by serving as a leader to get clients into stuff they DO pay for. Wikipedia can only do a little of that (with Wikia) and it's at the limit, now.

I do wonder what will happen to WP when its donations dry up and it has to pay for itself by commercializing its content. The fact that an organization is non-profit does NOT mean that it can't make any money-- it only puts great constraints on what it use the money FOR. The Red Cross charges people for blood, just as an example. But they can't make any stockholders or owners any money doing that (since there aren't any owners). They have to use it to pay for the services that process the blood. WMF could presumably use license fees to pay for server charges and programmers and office space and Jimbo's expensive wine. Well, on that last one, the COO would probably geek again. But many a non-profit does pay expense accounts of this type, as well as fat salaries.

WP might end up licensing or commercializing its content in some way to keep itself financially afloat in the future. One very obvious way would be a license for a download to a Kindle 4 or whatever, or an SD card containing WP, where some of the cost is some sort of "licence-fee." Right now, Amazon/Kindle uses SD cards and 3G downloads, but they also use a proprietary content format, and they charge on a lot of personal items to convert to that format. They also keep 1/3 to 2/3 (approximate) of the profits on stuff they sell under copyright, splitting the rest with those who control the copyright.* Such a deal could be done with WMF. Again, subject to restrictions on what a 501-c-3 can do with the money it "makes."

* In a famous case, Kindle owners who downloaded Orwell's 1984, then had Kindle electronically erase their copies when it later decided it had no rights to distribute 1984. This was quite Orwellian, a fact which escaped nobody's notice. Lawsuits ensued. Amazon won't do that again.

[Eva Destruction]

WP might end up licensing or commercializing its content in some way to keep itself financially afloat in the future. One very obvious way would be a license for a download to a Kindle 4 or whatever, or an SD card containing WP, where some of the cost is licence-free. Right now, Kindle uses a proprietary format, and they charge on a lot of personal items to convert to that format. They also keep 1/3 to 2/3 (approximate) of the profits on stuff they sell under copyright, splitting the rest with those who control the copyright. Such a deal could be done with WMF. Again, subject to restrictions on what a 501-c-3 can do with the money it "makes."

Jimbo is planning this. Quite how it's been "in development" since 2003 is anyone's guess, but since Wikipedia is currently plastered with "please check this list of proposed articles for inclusion" notices (example) I presume there's actually going to be some movement on this.

[Milton Roe]

WP might end up licensing or commercializing its content in some way to keep itself financially afloat in the future. One very obvious way would be a license for a download to a Kindle 4 or whatever, or an SD card containing WP, where some of the cost is licence-free. Right now, Kindle uses a proprietary format, and they charge on a lot of personal items to convert to that format. They also keep 1/3 to 2/3 (approximate) of the profits on stuff they sell under copyright, splitting the rest with those who control the copyright. Such a deal could be done with WMF. Again, subject to restrictions on what a 501-c-3 can do with the money it "makes."

Jimbo is planning this. Quite how it's been "in development" since 2003 is anyone's guess, but since Wikipedia is currently plastered with "please check this list of proposed articles for inclusion" notices (example) I presume there's actually going to be some movement on this.

Yes, they're working hard on WP 0.8 now, with the goal of a big electronic off-line production when they make it to "1.0". So far as I can tell, however, they're thinking in terms of CD's and DVD's, and it' hasn't hit anybody that they strip the text and go to SD, Kindle-readers, and webphones (without needing to connect, so you can read on an airplane). They're nashing their teeth at the people who have done this with proprietary WP-readers, but that's how THOSE people make their money. There's a whole generation of generic text-readers coming up (we're already at Kindle 3.0-- probably a breakthrough in the market) and many webphone e-book aps. The obvious "gap" is WP not being able to filter the cuss words out of its content, and so on. Nor get rid of all the IP vandalism they'll allowed in, over the years, without a lot of real "work."

So, there is karma. But in the meantime, it means that a decently clean version of WP best articles aren't available offline. Which is pretty silly, considering.

[TungstenCarbide]

... For a couple of years I've pointed out that WMF could actually take the text of all the FA articles (indeed, all the articles on WP, leaving out only stubs and porn for quality not space purposes) and stick it all on one 32 GB micro-SD card. Even 64 GB, which you could put in any cellphone with a STI-MICROSD/64 port.

...

I don't know how long WMF can take this, but I suspect some kind of direct deal with Kindle will be too tempting to pass up. With the profit of course going to the foundation. And then used from there for anybody's wild projects, including the usual ones that benefit Wikia in some clever and non-direct way.

But meanwhile, still no WP on micro-SDs. It's obvious, efficient, could be very cheap, and yet due to market forces, it's not going to happen soon...

I've often thought that one could make a magazine out of Wikipedia's FA's and image galleries. It could be like an unseemly version of National Geographic.

[dtobias]

Dalmatia is where Dalmatians come from, all 101 of them, isn't it?

Of course, all the morons of the world insist on misspelling it "Dalmations". Probably the same people who write "loose" instead of "lose", and "replay" instead of "reply".

[thekohser]

It looks like even European university libraries are dumber than us here at Wikipedia Review, having purchased some of those duds from Alphascript for their library shelves, only to realize...

"Obviously, I am appalled that we have bought a useless book."
-- Lower Saxony State Library spokeswoman Marita Simon

[A User]

These books don't deserve two stars - they deserve no stars. They have ripped off the work of people who edited in good faith, knowing they were contributing to free knowledge. Charging over $30 for a book in which the original editors dont receive a cent however is an absolute disgrace.

[thekohser]

...I reported Alphascript Publishing to the GNU Foundation, to Amazon's legal department, and to the Federal Trade Commission. I also later notified Mike Godwin about how every Alphascript cover on the copied-from-Wikipedia books has a green sticker that says "High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles!" But, Mike was offended that I'd bring this to his attention. He said, "What the hell is wrong with you?" I guess he doesn't care when for-profit publishers shit on the Wikipedia trade name and deceptively use Amazon to repurpose Wikipedia content for profit.

Flash forward, more than 20 months later, and I get this e-mail from Amazon today (because I was selling hard-copy print-outs of Wikipedia articles as "copies" of the Alphascript garbage, as a ruse to warn prospective buyers what was happening):

Notice: Policy Warning

From: Amazon.com Seller Performance

12:08 PM

Hello from Amazon.

We are currently removing a number of listings for recopied media products on Amazon.com, including material obtained from the internet and sold in a printed format.

Our records indicate that you have offered this type of product for sale on Amazon.com and you may be affected by this removal. Listed beneath our signature are examples of this item type, though it may not be an exhaustive list of the products we removed.

As stated in our Policies regarding Prohibited Content media transferred from one format to another is prohibited.

Please note that you will not be penalized for the first-time cancellation of these listings. However, we prohibit re-listing products on Amazon.com once it is brought to your attention that sales of those products are not permitted. Any further listing of these products on Amazon.com may result in the loss of your selling privileges.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Looks like our buddies at Alphascript and their ilk are (at some point) no longer going to be able to (ab)use Amazon customers with fake "books".

This post has been edited by thekohser: Tue 28th June 2011, 8:06pm

[Milton Roe]

These books don't deserve two stars - they deserve no stars. They have ripped off the work of people who edited in good faith, knowing they were contributing to free knowledge. Charging over $30 for a book in which the original editors dont receive a cent however is an absolute disgrace.

Boy, I hope you never find out about the price of science research journals and what authors of the papers those journals publish, are paid. Your head may explode. Did you know that authors sometimes pay journals?

Amazon gets on its high-horse here, but I think the real problem is that Amazon figures it's not getting its fair share of the cut on WP writing when it's published other than on the web. Are they going to refuse to sell e-reader (Kindle) versions of "WP offline"? Or sell them at cost, with no profit for themselves? I don't think so.

The truth of the matter is that authors have been screwed by publishers since the dawn of time, much as is the case with actors and studios, and music/vocal artists and recording companies (until very, very recently, as actors and others have managed to put together strong unions).

Writers of books and essays don't have a strong union. Amazon and Wikipedia thus figure that THEY should have the sole right to screw writers. Who are these other people who want to come between, as publishing middlemen? At $30 they obviously charge too much to be "real" editors!

Er, don't they?

[Detective]

The truth of the matter is that authors have been screwed by publishers since the dawn of time ...
Writers of books and essays don't have a strong union.

There's a hilarious book about Lewis Carroll's relationship with his publishers. He just told them how much he was going to get from the sales of his books and how much they would get. He also got them to run all sorts of errands for him, like buying him theatre tickets (specifying exactly where he wanted to sit). I don't suppose anyone would get away with that now.

[EricBarbour]

Just checked Amazon again, and they are still listing 20,617 of those "books"......

[thekohser]

Just checked Amazon again, and they are still listing 20,617 of those "books"......

Down to 20,587 now. At this rate, they'll all be gone by Christmas. Of 2013.

[thekohser]

Just checked Amazon again, and they are still listing 20,617 of those "books"......

Down to 20,587 now. At this rate, they'll all be gone by Christmas. Of 2013.

Down to less than 13,000 now. I'm impressed.

Here's what gets my goat, though.

Just today, in response to a very similar publishing rip-off scam, Ryan Kaldari thinks he's cavalry coming to the rescue of the WMF brand by "notifying the WMF legal department".

Heads up, Ryan! Back in October 2009, I alerted WMF legal eagle Mike Godwin to the fact that VDM Publishing's printing the front-cover tagline, "High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles!" was likely an unauthorized use of the Wikipedia trade name in commerce.

Guess what Godwin's response to me was?

There is no need to copy me on this exchange. Please remove mnemonic@gmail.com from your respective lists.

And later...

What the hell is wrong with you? Don't you have a job somewhere?

Get a life.

Note that almost exactly one year later, Godwin would be out of his job at the Wikimedia Foundation.

I wonder if ol' Geoff Brigham will handle this particular publishing corruption a little smarter than Mike Godwin did?

[mnemonic]

Just checked Amazon again, and they are still listing 20,617 of those "books"......

Down to 20,587 now. At this rate, they'll all be gone by Christmas. Of 2013.

Down to less than 13,000 now. I'm impressed.

Here's what gets my goat, though.

Just today, in response to a very similar publishing rip-off scam, Ryan Kaldari thinks he's cavalry coming to the rescue of the WMF brand by "notifying the WMF legal department".

Heads up, Ryan! Back in October 2009, I alerted WMF legal eagle Mike Godwin to the fact that VDM Publishing's printing the front-cover tagline, "High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles!" was likely an unauthorized use of the Wikipedia trade name in commerce.

Guess what Godwin's response to me was?

There is no need to copy me on this exchange. Please remove mnemonic@gmail.com from your respective lists.

And later...

What the hell is wrong with you? Don't you have a job somewhere?

Get a life.

Note that almost exactly one year later, Godwin would be out of his job at the Wikimedia Foundation.

I wonder if ol' Geoff Brigham will handle this particular publishing corruption a little smarter than Mike Godwin did?

In the Kohs-centric universe, everything that happens is caused by somebody's response or non-response to Kohs. He is the fixed center of the turning world.

[Emperor]

In the Kohs-centric universe, everything that happens is caused by somebody's response or non-response to Kohs. He is the fixed center of the turning world.

Eh what's your point? You don't like Kohs or something?

[mnemonic]

In the Kohs-centric universe, everything that happens is caused by somebody's response or non-response to Kohs. He is the fixed center of the turning world.

Eh what's your point? You don't like Kohs or something?

I think Kohs is kind of awe-inspiring.

[lilburne]

In the Kohs-centric universe, everything that happens is caused by somebody's response or non-response to Kohs. He is the fixed center of the turning world.

Eh what's your point? You don't like Kohs or something?

I think Kohs is kind of awe-inspiring.

Hey whilst you are here - It looks like the WMF got a $500K bung from Google for SOPA, did you get any of it, for past services?

[SB_Johnny]

In the Kohs-centric universe, everything that happens is caused by somebody's response or non-response to Kohs. He is the fixed center of the turning world.

Eh what's your point? You don't like Kohs or something?

I think Kohs is kind of awe-inspiring.

Clearly your awe threshold is low, Mr. Godwin. Which explains your willingness to kiss the feet of that creepy guy Jimbo.

You realize, I hope, that the only things that separate you from Mr. Kohs are that you're on the opposite side, and you happen to have a meme law named after you, right?

[Web Fred]

In the Kohs-centric universe, everything that happens is caused by somebody's response or non-response to Kohs. He is the fixed center of the turning world.

Eh what's your point? You don't like Kohs or something?

I think Kohs is kind of awe-inspiring.

I suppose that if I use my 'favourite' word to describe Greggy-Weggy the I'd end up upping my deleted message total?