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_ The Wikimedia Foundation _ Books by Wikimedia Foundation

Posted by: mbz1

I've noticed recently that there are many ebooks published by Wikimedia Foundation. http://books.google.com/books?id=s73TWEWbRYIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Wikimedia+Foundation%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4XgCT_DuKsrPiAKr39ylDg&ved=0CGgQuwUwCA#v=onepage&q&f=false
in particular at the section named "Etymology" (scroll down to the page #1). Please compare this section to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy#Etymology.
The article is free, the book is $2.51. Why?

Posted by: jd turk

QUOTE(mbz1 @ Mon 2nd January 2012, 9:59pm) *

I've noticed recently that there are many ebooks published by Wikimedia Foundation. http://books.google.com/books?id=s73TWEWbRYIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Wikimedia+Foundation%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4XgCT_DuKsrPiAKr39ylDg&ved=0CGgQuwUwCA#v=onepage&q&f=false
in particular at the section named "Etymology" (scroll down to the page #1). Please compare this section to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy#Etymology.
The article is free, the book is $2.51. Why?

To make up all the costs of printing the e-book...uh...never mind. It's just another money grab.

I don't understand why people contribute to something that sells your work for profit, without giving you any piece of it. It's bad enough it can be edited by any cretin, but selling it is even more insulting.

Posted by: melloden

QUOTE(mbz1 @ Tue 3rd January 2012, 3:59am) *

I've noticed recently that there are many ebooks published by Wikimedia Foundation. http://books.google.com/books?id=s73TWEWbRYIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Wikimedia+Foundation%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4XgCT_DuKsrPiAKr39ylDg&ved=0CGgQuwUwCA#v=onepage&q&f=false
in particular at the section named "Etymology" (scroll down to the page #1). Please compare this section to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy#Etymology.
The article is free, the book is $2.51. Why?

It's a PediaPress PDF printout. I'm sure the WMF did not publish it, although the content is taken from Wikipedia. Many publishers try to earn a quick buck this way (horrible business strategy though). Note, http://books.google.com/books?id=s73TWEWbRYIC, not the publisher.

Posted by: Fusion

But of course The Wikimedia Foundation is not the author. If asked, its board and staff would strongly deny being the authors because if they were they could be sued! So firstly that is misleading. Secondly it is surely a breach of copyright. Do these books give full references to the individual Wikipedia articles and their histories? I suppose ideally they should print the histories as an appendix.

Posted by: mbz1

QUOTE(Fusion @ Tue 3rd January 2012, 10:36pm) *

But of course The Wikimedia Foundation is not the author. If asked, its board and staff would strongly deny being the authors because if they were they could be sued! So firstly that is misleading. Secondly it is surely a breach of copyright. Do these books give full references to the individual Wikipedia articles and their histories? I suppose ideally they should print the histories as an appendix.

Quite a few of my images were published in the books with not exactly the same attributions I released them with. Using the same attributions the images are released with is required by the license.
I emailed about this to WMF, and got a response that their legal "is looking into it." wtf.gif

Posted by: melloden

QUOTE(Fusion @ Tue 3rd January 2012, 10:36pm) *

But of course The Wikimedia Foundation is not the author. If asked, its board and staff would strongly deny being the authors because if they were they could be sued! So firstly that is misleading. Secondly it is surely a breach of copyright. Do these books give full references to the individual Wikipedia articles and their histories? I suppose ideally they should print the histories as an appendix.

http://books.google.com/books?id=s73TWEWbRYIC&lpg=PP1&dq=%22Wikimedia%20Foundation%22&pg=PA291#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Mila, which books/images? The random ones I checked, at least from that chemistry book, seem to match their licenses from Wikipedia.

Posted by: mbz1

QUOTE(melloden @ Wed 4th January 2012, 5:32pm) *

QUOTE(Fusion @ Tue 3rd January 2012, 10:36pm) *

But of course The Wikimedia Foundation is not the author. If asked, its board and staff would strongly deny being the authors because if they were they could be sued! So firstly that is misleading. Secondly it is surely a breach of copyright. Do these books give full references to the individual Wikipedia articles and their histories? I suppose ideally they should print the histories as an appendix.

http://books.google.com/books?id=s73TWEWbRYIC&lpg=PP1&dq=%22Wikimedia%20Foundation%22&pg=PA291#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Mila, which books/images? The random ones I checked, at least from that chemistry book, seem to match their licenses from Wikipedia.

Every my image in every book, and not only mine, at least one other photographer too, but I would rather not discuss the specifics now before I hear back from WMF.

Posted by: mbz1

Here is an update. I did get email from the legal department of wmf. The books were published by them.
Without getting into specifics I could tell you that the reasons provided in their email to justify using my images the way they did was wrong because... they cited the policy about using text. Just get it, it took two days for them to get back to me with a wrong policy. wtf.gif No wonder they need millions of dollars in donations to pay their attorneys biggrin.gif
Anyway, now, when Mike is here, I hope I could get some free legal advise how to deal with this issue smile.gif
Hey, am I going to get blocked for a legal threat? ermm.gif

Posted by: TungstenCarbide

QUOTE(mbz1 @ Thu 5th January 2012, 3:42am) *
Here is an update. I did get email from the legal department of wmf. The books were published by them.
Without getting into specifics I could tell you that the reasons provided in their email to justify using my images the way they did was wrong because... they cited the policy about using text. Just get it, it took two days for them to get back to me with a wrong policy. wtf.gif No wonder they need millions of dollars in donations to pay their attorneys biggrin.gif
Anyway, now, when Mike is here, I hope I could get some free legal advise how to deal with this issue smile.gif
Hey, am I going to get blocked for a legal threat? ermm.gif

Something doesn't sound right - I thought the foundation didn't publish. Hasn't that always been the case? That's how they avoid liability - only the volunteer editors publish. You might want to double check this with a different foundation employee.

I know there are various people not affiliated with the WMF selling wikipedia derived books on Amazon.

Posted by: mbz1

QUOTE(TungstenCarbide @ Thu 5th January 2012, 4:13am) *

QUOTE(mbz1 @ Thu 5th January 2012, 3:42am) *
Here is an update. I did get email from the legal department of wmf. The books were published by them.
Without getting into specifics I could tell you that the reasons provided in their email to justify using my images the way they did was wrong because... they cited the policy about using text. Just get it, it took two days for them to get back to me with a wrong policy. wtf.gif No wonder they need millions of dollars in donations to pay their attorneys biggrin.gif
Anyway, now, when Mike is here, I hope I could get some free legal advise how to deal with this issue smile.gif
Hey, am I going to get blocked for a legal threat? ermm.gif

Something doesn't sound right - I thought the foundation didn't publish. Hasn't that always been the case? That's how they avoid liability - only the volunteer editors publish. You might want to double check this with a different foundation employee.

I know there are various people not affiliated with the WMF selling wikipedia derived books on Amazon.

Well, I emailed to one employe of the foundation, and he forwarded my email to two others. I got response from one of these two. They discussed the issue I brought up about my images, but they have never said they did not publish these books and that I should contact some one else. It is all I know.

Posted by: TungstenCarbide

QUOTE(mbz1 @ Thu 5th January 2012, 4:18am) *
Well, I emailed to one employe of the foundation, and he forwarded my email to two others. I got response from one of these two. They discussed the issue I brought up about my images, but they have never said they did not publish these books and that I should contact some one else. It is all I know.

According to google it's published by "eM Publications, 1960", about which I couldn't find any more information. You might also try contacting Google and complain that your copyrights are being violated. It would be interesting to see where the money is going.

Posted by: melloden

QUOTE(mbz1 @ Thu 5th January 2012, 4:18am) *

Well, I emailed to one employe of the foundation, and he forwarded my email to two others. I got response from one of these two. They discussed the issue I brought up about my images, but they have never said they did not publish these books and that I should contact some one else. It is all I know.

There is a significant difference between not saying "We didn't publish this book" and saying "We published this book." Just because they neglected to deny something doesn't imply that they actually do that.

Posted by: mbz1

QUOTE(melloden @ Thu 5th January 2012, 4:32am) *

QUOTE(mbz1 @ Thu 5th January 2012, 4:18am) *

Well, I emailed to one employe of the foundation, and he forwarded my email to two others. I got response from one of these two. They discussed the issue I brought up about my images, but they have never said they did not publish these books and that I should contact some one else. It is all I know.

There is a significant difference between not saying "We didn't publish this book" and saying "We published this book." Just because they neglected to deny something doesn't imply that they actually do that.

But they did discuss my question with me, and discussed it in length and three employees were involved. If they had nothing to do with these books, the best response would have been: "We have nothing to do with the books. Please address your questions to the publisher."
Anyway I emailed them again, and will wait for their response.

Posted by: dogbiscuit

QUOTE(mbz1 @ Thu 5th January 2012, 5:19am) *

QUOTE(melloden @ Thu 5th January 2012, 4:32am) *

QUOTE(mbz1 @ Thu 5th January 2012, 4:18am) *

Well, I emailed to one employe of the foundation, and he forwarded my email to two others. I got response from one of these two. They discussed the issue I brought up about my images, but they have never said they did not publish these books and that I should contact some one else. It is all I know.

There is a significant difference between not saying "We didn't publish this book" and saying "We published this book." Just because they neglected to deny something doesn't imply that they actually do that.

But they did discuss my question with me, and discussed it in length and three employees were involved. If they had nothing to do with these books, the best response would have been: "We have nothing to do with the books. Please address your questions to the publisher."
Anyway I emailed them again, and will wait for their response.

Is it anything to do with them?

A publishes a photograph on Flickr. B puts it on Wikimedia. C puts it in an article on Wikipedia. WMF, through Wikipedia, published with a licence, correctly. A N Other republishes breaking the terms of the licence. It is not clear to me that it is the last man in the queue is the one responsible as they have acted correctly. As the wronged party, presumably it is up to you to pursue the breach of your licence? What would your complaint against the WMF be (because you are pursuing them as culpable at the moment it seems?) - presumably for failing to enforce the terms of the licence that by a circuitous route you granted them. You pick the WMF as they are the one with pockets deep enough, or last man before the breach. If last man before the breach was you, how would you respond?

All these licenses to is unprotect everyone: they really don't give any protection, so they allow you to take safely, but they don't really allow you to resist giving.

Posted by: lilburne

As far as I know, a reuser of a CC work, at a minimum, has to provide attribution of the author of the content and to provide a reference to the appropriate license for the work. For non-text elements of a wikipedia page, attribution to wikipedia is a violation of the terms of the license. In addition if some images were licensed as CC-BY others as CC-BY-SA then the appropriate original usage license should be specified with each image. If that isn't happening then there is a violation of the terms of the license. These violations are on the part of the re-user / publisher. So the publisher of any book that fails to attribute each and every photographer, or fails to specify the license of each and every image is in violation of copyright.

Posted by: dogbiscuit

QUOTE(lilburne @ Thu 5th January 2012, 11:37am) *

As far as I know, a reuser of a CC work, at a minimum, has to provide attribution of the author of the content and to provide a reference to the appropriate license for the work. For non-text elements of a wikipedia page, attribution to wikipedia is a violation of the terms of the license. In addition if some images were licensed as CC-BY others as CC-BY-SA then the appropriate original usage license should be specified with each image. If that isn't happening then there is a violation of the terms of the license. These violations are on the part of the re-user / publisher. So the publisher of any book that fails to attribute each and every photographer, or fails to specify the license of each and every image is in violation of copyright.

Fine, but where is the "So what?" test here?

The reality is that as an individual, what real redress is there? An ethical publisher might offer to correct the situation in future publications, but you couldn't really claim substantial damages when the creator quite clearly was prepared to offer the work for free so there was no real world financial loss, have no public stature as a photographer so no real loss of reputation (or trading on someone else's) there and so on, so there is no point in a legal fight.

A less ethical publisher, and I think what we have here is a cottage industry home made publisher than anything serious, will simply ignore you. Get serious and employ a lawyer, they simply withdraw the specific work as not worth the hassle (costs of legals > likely profit) and move onto the next scam publication - you have spent money, and they have acted, I doubt a lawyer would recommend pursuing for costs - risking further costs to recoup say $200 for the original letters.

Posted by: lilburne

The license is based on the re-user fulfilling the requirements. Courts have already established that a free license has an economical value to the licensor even if cash doesn't change hands and the free license brigade are actively arguing for injunctions to stop distribution of works where a licenses terms have been broken:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobsen_v._Katzer

Posted by: dogbiscuit

QUOTE(lilburne @ Thu 5th January 2012, 1:57pm) *

The license is based on the re-user fulfilling the requirements. Courts have already established that a free license has an economical value to the licensor even if cash doesn't change hands and the free license brigade are actively arguing for injunctions to stop distribution of works where a licenses terms have been broken:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobsen_v._Katzer

I'm still going to Yes But this, I don't doubt that you are correct, but my point is what is the relevance of this to your average Wikipedian who in reality has a minor problem, though there may be a major principle at stake.

There is an activist movement who may pursue headline cases, but as for Joe Public, are they really going to take the time and effort to pursue this?

A user has a few of his pictures used not in the terms of the licence. What is the real economic value of these? What is the cost of an injunction? Who is going to pay for that injunction? Is the WMF going to follow this up on a matter of principle to protect its asset, Wikipedia, or is the "free licence brigade" going to step in?

Posted by: melloden

QUOTE(dogbiscuit @ Thu 5th January 2012, 2:23pm) *

I'm still going to Yes But this, I don't doubt that you are correct, but my point is what is the relevance of this to your average Wikipedian who in reality has a minor problem, though there may be a major principle at stake.

There is an activist movement who may pursue headline cases, but as for Joe Public, are they really going to take the time and effort to pursue this?

A user has a few of his pictures used not in the terms of the licence. What is the real economic value of these? What is the cost of an injunction? Who is going to pay for that injunction? Is the WMF going to follow this up on a matter of principle to protect its asset, Wikipedia, or is the "free licence brigade" going to step in?

Mila isn't Joe Public. She's unique. Obviously the WMF is not going to give a shit about this. Mila just wants to play the finger-pointing game because how else is she going to feel "accepted" by the rest of the WRers?

It's like WP:POINT, except it's not about WP here.

Posted by: mbz1

QUOTE(melloden @ Thu 5th January 2012, 9:13pm) *

QUOTE(dogbiscuit @ Thu 5th January 2012, 2:23pm) *

I'm still going to Yes But this, I don't doubt that you are correct, but my point is what is the relevance of this to your average Wikipedian who in reality has a minor problem, though there may be a major principle at stake.

There is an activist movement who may pursue headline cases, but as for Joe Public, are they really going to take the time and effort to pursue this?

A user has a few of his pictures used not in the terms of the licence. What is the real economic value of these? What is the cost of an injunction? Who is going to pay for that injunction? Is the WMF going to follow this up on a matter of principle to protect its asset, Wikipedia, or is the "free licence brigade" going to step in?

Mila isn't Joe Public. She's unique. Obviously the WMF is not going to give a shit about this. Mila just wants to play the finger-pointing game because how else is she going to feel "accepted" by the rest of the WRers?

It's like WP:POINT, except it's not about WP here.



Remember this famous dialog from "Some like it hot"
QUOTE
Jerry: Oh no you don't! Osgood, I'm gonna level with you. We can't get married at all.
Osgood: Why not?
Jerry: Well, in the first place, I'm not a natural blonde.
Osgood: Doesn't matter.
Jerry: I smoke! I smoke all the time!
Osgood: I don't care.
Jerry: Well, I have a terrible past. For three years now, I've been living with a saxophone player.
Osgood: I forgive you.
Jerry: [Tragically] I can never have children!
Osgood: We can adopt some.
Jerry: But you don't understand, Osgood!
[Finally gives up and pulls off his wig]
Jerry: Ohh... I'm a man!
Osgood: Nobody's perfect!

It is what happened with my communications to two attorneys from WMF.
We exchanged countless emails, we argued about the license, about attributions and about other things, and in the end I got this email today.
QUOTE
Hello Mila,
<name redacted> looked into the information about the book and attributions at issue and discovered that the publisher is a company called eM Publications. They published your images and created the attributions independent of Wikimedia Foundation. In order to address your concerns, you will need to contact them directly.

It would have been funny, if it were not so sad.
High payed attorneys from WMF spent hours discussing with me the matter that has no connection to them! No wonder WMF needs all the donations they could get.

Posted by: thekohser

QUOTE(mbz1 @ Tue 10th January 2012, 5:07pm) *

High payed attorneys from WMF spent hours discussing with me the matter that has no connection to them! No wonder WMF needs all the donations they could get.

Not to be smart, but didn't a couple of people from here tell you as much, within just a matter of minutes of hearing your "case"?

Posted by: mbz1

QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 10th January 2012, 10:35pm) *

QUOTE(mbz1 @ Tue 10th January 2012, 5:07pm) *

High payed attorneys from WMF spent hours discussing with me the matter that has no connection to them! No wonder WMF needs all the donations they could get.

Not to be smart, but didn't a couple of people from here tell you as much, within just a matter of minutes of hearing your "case"?

Well, yes,but anyway, it was sooo much fun reading these emails from WMF. biggrin.gif
Only after I emailed to them that every honest attorney who has at least some self-respect would agree that I am right, they told me they've nothing to do with this publications.

Posted by: melloden

QUOTE(mbz1 @ Wed 11th January 2012, 12:11am) *

QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 10th January 2012, 10:35pm) *

QUOTE(mbz1 @ Tue 10th January 2012, 5:07pm) *

High payed attorneys from WMF spent hours discussing with me the matter that has no connection to them! No wonder WMF needs all the donations they could get.

Not to be smart, but didn't a couple of people from here tell you as much, within just a matter of minutes of hearing your "case"?

Well, yes,but anyway, it was sooo much fun reading these emails from WMF. biggrin.gif
Only after I emailed to them that every honest attorney who has at least some self-respect would agree that I am right, they told me they've nothing to do with this publications.

You are stupid. What did you prove? That you wasted your own time to prove nothing except that you are stupid.

Grow up, Mila.

Posted by: mbz1

fool.gif

QUOTE(melloden' date='Wed 11th January 2012, 9:49pm @ Wed 11th January 2012, 9:49pm) *

QUOTE(mbz1 @ Wed 11th January 2012, 12:11am) *

QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 10th January 2012, 10:35pm) *

QUOTE(mbz1 @ Tue 10th January 2012, 5:07pm) *

High payed attorneys from WMF spent hours discussing with me the matter that has no connection to them! No wonder WMF needs all the donations they could get.

Not to be smart, but didn't a couple of people from here tell you as much, within just a matter of minutes of hearing your "case"?

Well, yes,but anyway, it was sooo much fun reading these emails from WMF. biggrin.gif
Only after I emailed to them that every honest attorney who has at least some self-respect would agree that I am right, they told me they've nothing to do with this publications.

You are stupid. What did you prove? That you wasted your own time to prove nothing except that you are stupid.

Grow up, Mila.

When I am having fun I gain time not loose it. I was having fun, and besides I have learned something new. That's why with your permission I have added "fool" to your user name above. biggrin.gif

Posted by: melloden

QUOTE(mbz1 @ Thu 12th January 2012, 2:24am) *

When I am having fun I gain time not loose it. I was having fun, and besides I have learned something new. That's why with your permission I have added "fool" to your user name above. biggrin.gif

Wow, you really do need to grow up.