[Foundation-l] Offering Wikibooks content for sale

Wed Jul 12 07:17:28 UTC 2006

Robert Scott Horning wrote:

>Brad Patrick wrote:
>  
>
>>Robert, what would an efficient process look like to you, assuming the
>>licensing component is a requirement?
>>    
>>
>This needs to be a community-driven approach, where ordinary Wikimedia 
>users who contribute to various project have the opportunity to 
>participate and make this sort of content available.  There is also no 
>need for having a dozen independent "publishers" that all go off on 
>their own direction.  Certainly once it is apparent that you can make 
>some money off of publishing content like this, there will be a dozen 
>different companies offering Wikimedia content for sale, so your caution 
>is justified.  In this case, we are talking about publishing content as 
>a Wikibooks community rather than as a bunch of mavericks.
>
We obviously don't "need" a dozen independant publishers producing the 
same thing., but should we even be trying to stop it.  With more of them 
doing it they will soon end up trying to undercut each others' prices.  
It would also be easy to spread doubts about whether these people are 
even producing the most recent version.  In all likelhood this dozen 
publishers will have a dozen different editions.  What they do to make 
sure that they are producing the latest edition is their problem.

>Ideally, what I'd like to see is some sort of "official" WMF store that 
>is able to offer books like this.  There should be some restrictions 
>placed on such content that are primarily quality based restrictions. 
> This would imply some sort of "editorial board" or some others that 
>would have the ability to accept or offer suggestions on improving the 
>content to meet publication standards.  All of this can be accomplished 
>with volunteers, and doesn't require anything new other than some extra 
>web pages to help organize the effort and helping select the editorial 
>board.  In addition, any such gatekeepers should be selected by the 
>community and come up from the users rather than something appointed by 
>the WMF board, as is the tradition for other such people like admins, 
>stewards, etc.
>
>If you want to "publish" a book you've written that has Wikimedia 
>project content, you can organize it and then submit it to this board 
>for review.  If the book is accepted for publication, it is somehow 
>added to the WMF store.  Other "features" at the store can include 
>featured books, or the host of things you find for book retailers.  Or 
>simply make the book available with an ISBN and it would be available 
>from Amazon.com or a bunch of other on-line bookstores.  The exact path 
>to publication isn't so important as that it is made available.
>
Some of this may be fine for "official" Wikimedia publications, but a 
general policy of requiring approval for all third party versions would 
strike me as contrary to copyleft principles.

>This is something that I see local Wikimedia chapters being involved 
>with, as they can help find local printers to make content like this 
>available to people in their respective countries.  Certainly it would 
>make much more sense to print a book in Poland for Polish readers than 
>ship something from North America to do the same thing.  Still, it would 
>be nice to have an established process to show high quality Wikimedia 
>materials that would enhance rather than detract from Wikimedia projects.
>
Absolutely.  The right of any person to produce the material should not 
be exclusive.

>I guess I would like to see it done through the community as well to 
>help reduce costs.  Particularly in the printing business, there are 
>economies of scale that help to reduce costs significantly.  This book 
>which was for sale at $12 a copy could be brought down to $4 or even 
>less in large volumes.  It only makes sense that this is something that 
>can and should be done with a centralized coordinated effort for this 
>reason alone.
>
>One huge issue on top of everything else is simply inventory control. 
> As this is physical items, that means they can be damaged, stolen, 
>cause damage, and a host of other related problems.  Lulu Press does 
>offer this sort of inventory control, and there are other for-profit 
>businesses who are willing to do print-on-demand, but that does involve 
>other compromises.  Certainly we shouldn't be tied down to one printer 
>in any case, and in this situation the Wikimedia Foundation should be 
>the publisher of the content, not Lulu Press.
>
Allowing others to produce the physical formats does save us the need to 
hire people for inventory maintenance and shipping, or to rent 
facilities for storing these goods.  I agree that longer print runs do 
benefit from economies of scale, but short runs make updating without 
wastage of obsolete stock easier.

>There are some legal issues such as placement and usage of trademarks. 
> You hit that one well, and in this situation we need to have it defined 
>exactly how and in what ways that the WMF would like to have their 
>trademarks and logos used on publications.  If it is an "official" 
>publication, there is obviously some more lieniency than for 
>"non-official" publications, and some clear guidelines should be in 
>place for at least people like me (an admin) can point to and say "it 
>says here that you can (can't) do what you are asking."  I think 
>[[b:en:Wikibooks:Copyrights]] does a pretty good job for instance, but 
>that was something written by decidely a non-lawyer when Wikibooks was a 
>much smaller project  (Thanks mav for your work on that!)  Certainly 
>that needs to be reviewed formally by the WMF to see if that is what is 
>intended, together with similar copyright statements on the other 
>Wikimedia projects.
>
What's really needed in terms of trademarks in general is a clear policy 
statement from the Board about the kind of activities that it considers 
to be violation of its rights.  This may be greater of less than what is 
available in its rights under the law, though it stands to reason that 
the more it deviates from its legal rights the more the policy will be 
challenged.  None of this prejudges what an actual legal proceeding 
would produce.  The primary effect of such a policy would be to give a 
safe harbour for activities that are not clearly forbidden.

>BTW, thanks to everybody for your comments on this matter.
>
Your bold steps in this direction are to be commended.  Without such 
steps there would be no progress.

Ec