Comments on: The German Wikipedia: Rip-Off Incorporated

By: Simon Slade

Simon Slade — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:41:57 +0000

Similar thing is going on with Facebook and German social networking site, StudiVZ. Wonder if the companies are related hehe

- Simon Slade

By: Dean

Dean — Wed, 21 May 2008 19:11:15 +0000

This is the first I’ve heard of it, but I’m not surprised the least bit that someone is trying to monetize on Wikipedia. I’m shocked it hasn’t happened earlier. Without backreading through all the comments, it seems like Wikipedia can do whatever they want with the content because they’re bound to have wording in there somewhere that says anything submitted becomes Wikipedia’s property.

I don’t think the book will be a hit considering people use wikipedia so much because it’s really updated.

By: Esteban

Esteban — Fri, 09 May 2008 10:57:59 +0000

It seems to me that the main concern here is that Wiki authors could have misunderstood their rights. I’d like to point out that an author who knows his dead-tree rights knows that putting his work out in a public forum automatically gives up his first-serial-rights. And unless you’ve got leverage like Stephen King all reprint rights revert to the publisher, which in this case would be Wikipedia — if they hadn’t expressly given away those rights for free, which they have.

We need to utterly revamp our laws regarding Intellectual Property. It’s clear that it’s nearly impossible to apply the old laws fairly or sensibly to new media.

By: It’s free and open for a reason!

It’s free and open for a reason! — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:53:45 +0000

[...] source models, there was news of a major publisher making a print edition of Wikipedia. This led to backlash reactions which illustrate exactly the kind of misunderstanding that arises when people don’t get [...]

By: Simon Slade

Simon Slade — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:33:03 +0000

I thought the whole point of the Wikiedia project was to be non-commercial. I think this runs against the spirit of it!

By: Mathias Schindler

Mathias Schindler — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:58:47 +0000

@Andrew:

You can make money from it through various means and we certainly encourage you to use the content. Of course, we would prefer if you (or anyone else) did it in the same open fashion we do, for example by releasing software tools under GPL or similar.

In fact, I would love to see an open sourced effort to automatically produce print encyclopedias from Wikipedia content.

Mathias Schindler’s last blog post..Nando Stöcklin im Schweizer Fernsehen

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:23:58 +0000

Here’s the first line of this “obscure license”:

“The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other functional and useful document “free” in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially.”

Terribly hard to understand.

The fact is, anybody can make a book out of the wiki. If you want money from it, go make a book out of it.

By: A Wikipedia Controversy — Dean’s World

A Wikipedia Controversy — Dean’s World — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:33:01 +0000

[...] started here and continued here and then [...]

By: Don Bee

Don Bee — Thu, 08 May 2008 04:55:37 +0000

I enjoyed reading the blogs re: Mark/Wikipaedia. I am not up to the intelligence level as you folks contributing these blogs. It does seem to me, however, that just because someone finds a way to capitalise on the efforts of others but that there is no law against those efforts does not make the act reprehensible. An in-the-ballpark comparison might be selling 20 grams of crack cocaine compared to embezzling US$5 millions dollars. The coaine sale will net the convicted seller 10yrs in prison(US); the embezzlement conviction may well net only 5 years in prison (or possibly total parole) if all the criminal’s assets are used to pay back most of the stolen money. Something is wrong here. Meanwhile, you writers who depend upon writing pieces for added/primary income, notice that the world is not to be trusted. (Added blog subject: how per centage of the Myanmar aid do you think the victims of the typhoon will wind up with?) One other thing: the material in Wikipaedia should not be relied upon. Google several resources for the world’ 10 most venomous snakes, the inland taipan, and Clair Patterson. For one thing Mr Patterson traveled the total coastline of the US gathering samples from equa-distant spaces (1 mile or 10, I forget which he told me — I was only 15 years old) to investigate his hypotheseis on the age of the earth. He did not write his doctorial thesis until he had gathered and evaluated all of his information.

By: Brent Hutchison

Brent Hutchison — Thu, 08 May 2008 04:07:01 +0000

Interesting blog, I have been both enlightened and entertained.
Enlightened as many wise contributers (not authors, note) have given me more of in insight into Wiki’s than being a contributer for over 3 years could ever have provided, thank you all, even poor misguided Mark
I sympathise with Marks point of view, but can clearly see how he has dug his own hole.
It is obvious from his comment “SHAFTING THEM” he was quite incensed, and I agree with Michael somewhat that he should stop complaining as his own ignorance and knee jerk recation to being “ripped off” was a little over the top, and makes it hard to justify later claiming “I wished to create a discussion”….
Discussions do not initiate with accusations of dishonesty in my experience, you came looking for a fight and you found one.

Although I do think Michael could possibly have been a little kinder to Mark, it does not come accross to me as “aggressive” and think Mark took these comments a little too harshly, again showing his ignorance of online forums and the consequenses of publishing to them.
You will find ANY forum, blog or wiki site has conditions and rules etc, clearly defined and always made obvious

Its my experience that if you want to “blog” and make accusations in a blog you should be prepared for a certain amount of critisism and may need to get a thicker skin (aimed at Mark, no offence intended buddy)
And also for Mark, I see why you feel this way as a “professional writer”, the system in place for the last few centuries where a writer was protected by copywrite laws and anti-plagerism laws regarding the printed word…welcome to the 21st century my freind.
If you place it on the net, it will be stolen, end of story welcome to the real world
If you VOLUNTARILY place it on a PUBLIC FREE ENCYCLOPEDIA (sorry if that description offends anyone from wiwki) then what royalties could you possibly expect?
Although I do sympathise with you, your mistaken and may have to have your intellegent, mature discussions somewhere other than a blog site, such as at ye olde time writers club rooms at Yale, Oxford Cambridge, wherever the fossils gather and smoke thier pipes

But as for the rest of you, give poor old Mark a break, he had a valid viewpoint he just left himself wide open for some abuse and some people in other blogs (obviously not so well moderated as this one) have really hammered the poor guy when he was only defending his historical turf.
Shame on those who did, shame on you for making us bloggers look aggressive and nasty and not considering this blokes feelings.(Michael being the exception because I see no aggression there just unwillingness to suffer fools)