- gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

let's sweat -- i.s.b.n. anyone?
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 05 Mar '06

05 Mar '06

i.s.b.n. are relatively cheap in lots of 10,000... howsabout y'all buy enough for your library? and has there been any progress on putting your free versions of your e-texts into google? or would you just rather wring your hands and shake your fists at the people reselling them? if you want your distribution to be "unlimited", these are some simple steps that you can take. -bowerbird p.s. issue 1 of "monday morning quarterback" will go up tomorrow, in case you were wondering.

1 0

Sweat of brow
by Wallace J.McLean 04 Mar '06

04 Mar '06

>> AFAIK the copyright notice is valid, but only applies to the page and line >> layout plus cover layout of the new paper edition, not the PG text. Not >> that they would tell you that. > Not in our opinion (which has been vetted by several expert > copyright lawyers): > No Sweat of the Brow Copyright > http://www.gutenberg.org/howto/sweat-no-c Not sure about in the US, but the case law, at least when I researched it about 7 or 8 years ago, was still unsettled in Canada and other commonwealth countries. I don't know off hand that that situation has changed. In the UK, most if not all EU countries, and much of the Commonwealth - - though not in Canada -- there is also an express provision protecting "editions" or "typographical arrangements". The term is generally shorter than full copyright, and of course they aren't exclusive. You can prepare another edition or typographical arrangement of Shakespeare in the UK, you just can't republish an exact copy of someone else's in the first 25 years after publication. Quaere; does "edition" or "typographical arrangement" copyright subsist in PG e-texts, in countries which recognize those types of copyright?

2 1

Re: [gutvol-d] Commercial paper editions of PG texts
by Joshua Hutchinson 01 Mar '06

01 Mar '06

> ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Dave Fawthrop" <hyphen(a)hyphenologist.co.uk> > To: gbnewby(a)pglaf.org, "Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion" <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> > Subject: Re: [gutvol-d] Commercial paper editions of PG texts > Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 20:18:22 +0000 > > > |> > |> AFAIK the copyright notice is valid, but only applies to the page and line > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > |> layout plus cover layout of the new paper edition, not the PG text. Not > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > |> that they would tell you that. > | > |Not in our opinion (which has been vetted by several expert > |copyright lawyers): > | > | No Sweat of the Brow Copyright > | http://www.gutenberg.org/howto/sweat-no-c > > Which is what I said :-( If I understand it right, there is no separate layout copyright in the US (which is the law PG operates under). So, no, the copyright notice is not valid because there is no copyright available for layout. Josh

1 0

re: [gutvol-d] Commercial paper editions of PG texts
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 01 Mar '06

01 Mar '06

marcello said: > Why do you require ethical behaviour from > Google and not from those other publishers? it's folly to try to "require ethical behaviour" from _anyone_ in the publishing industry... but nobody's doing any "unethical" anyway... as i pointed out just now, the copyright issue has absolutely no bearing on viewability of any pages. if you think google should display the pages of a public-domain title without any restrictions, then all you need to do is submit it to their program... heck, the first book i would submit would be "books and culture", the public-domain title that google made available as its first example. you can see my reworking of this title right now: > http://snowy.arsc.alaska.edu/bowerbird/mabie/mabie.html > http://snowy.arsc.alaska.edu/bowerbird/mabie/mabiep001.html and when i submitted my .pdf to their program, i would even leave in the "google print" stamp that they put on each page, just as a little joke... these scans actually came from "google library", now known as "google book search", and not the "google print" program, which is the one geared towards commercial publishers, but google was a little casual with their project-names early on. and now i don't think anyone is very clear about where one program ends and another begins, not even google... but i just looked, and the program is indeed free: > http://books.google.com/intl/en/googlebooks/publisher.html so if you want unfettered titles in the program, the only thing you need to do is take action... by the way, here's my mabie example for displaying a scan-book: > http://snowy.arsc.alaska.edu/bowerbird/mabie/mabied002003.html readers will find my interface more pleasant than the google one: > http://books.google.com/books?id=yGZZXIrbUKQC&pg=PA5 > They didn't even proof-read the text, > or they would have noticed those errors. this is so funny it's not even funny... :+) -bowerbird p.s. yes, "monday morning quarterback" _is_ late, but it's coming...

1 0

re: [gutvol-d] Commercial paper editions of PG texts
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 01 Mar '06

01 Mar '06

bruce said: > It's a shame that they are able to hide a PD > book behind a copyrighted cover. major publishing houses do it all the time with p-books. and there's nothing wrong with it legally. or even "morally". most especially if they're delivering hardcopy. paper doesn't grow on trees. (ha ha, i funny!) (i would agree that it would be kind of sleazy to charge people for an electronic-copy, especially if all they got was a download, not an actual c.d. then again, if p.g. wasn't getting free hosting from ibiblio, and they had to pay for all the bandwidth...) *** again, there is nothing to "report". what they're doing is (a) perfectly legal, and (b) a service to their customers. if we want to give people an unrestricted view of the pages, we need to submit the book to the program and specify that. i'll get around to doing it myself sooner or later, providing google doesn't charge publishers to get their titles listed... but it's really something i think p.g. should do, systematically. not that anyone gives a flying burrito what i think p.g. should do. *** greg said: > If the books are in there because the publisher added them > and the publisher claims they are under copyright > there is nothing you can do to change it. i don't think you have to claim the text is under copyright to restrict viewing access on any or even all of your pages. like i said, our job is to submit books to the program that have _no_ restrictions on their viewing. that will serve to drive some of the parasites from the scene, but have little negative effect on the people who are offering a _service_ to end-users by giving them a hard-copy option. (indeed, visibility might have a positive effect on those businesses.) another question is whether project gutenberg wants to get in the hard-copy business itself. p.g. could probably make a little bit of money doing it, or maybe lose a little, because it ain't always easy to satisfy the general public, but either way, i don't see any volunteers for the task... (as branko will tell you, it can take a few hours of work to get an e-text into the shape where you could feel good offering it for sale, and that means a heckuva lot of work for a library that stands at 18,000+ e-texts and growing. of course, if the e-texts had been formatted consistently, it'd be a piece of cake to get them into publication shape. that's one reason i've hollered so long about consistency.) you wouldn't _have_to_ get into the hard-copy business in order to _list_ the titles so that people could view your pages without restriction. you could just specify a cost of $8,000 per title, and probably drive away any customers. (and if you did get a customer, it would be worth it, not?) but meanwhile, the pages would be sitting there, viewable. -bowerbird

1 0

Commercial paper editions of PG texts
by Marcello Perathoner 28 Feb '06

28 Feb '06

Lately I've been using Google Book Search to check error reports against paper editions I don't have. It turns out that some of the more embarrassing errors in PG texts turn up in many commercial paper editions. See: http://books.google.com/books?q=%22but+stating+it+to+be+such+as+such+as+mig… http://books.google.com/books?q=%22what+has+been+sometimes+been+found+befor… All you need is a TeX installation and some imagination to write a real good copyright notice. -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster(a)gutenberg.org

1 0

while you're waiting
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 27 Feb '06

27 Feb '06

while you're waiting for "monday morning quarterback"... this page will remind you what my idea of "continuous proofreading" would look like: > http://users.aol.com/bowerbird/proof_wiki.html basically, it's the traditional "proofing" interface, with the scan on one side, the text on the other. if someone spots an error, they can report it using the form right on the page, which adds the report instantly to the bottom of the page. that kind of transparency means that end-users don't "wonder" if an error was already reported, because they see each and every one reported... (the disposition of each report will be posted too, so people don't keep repeating the same report...) the reports are also collected on a separate page, sortable by report-date and page-in-the-book, so administrators get a quick-and-easy overview... of course, text has to be fairly clean before you can put it into "continuous proofreading" like this, but i anticipate i can take most o.c.r. to an accuracy of 1-error-per-10-pages, using my clean-up tools, an acceptable rate for continuous proofreading... -bowerbird

1 0

monday morning quarterback -- a new weekly series
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 27 Feb '06

27 Feb '06

later today, when i get comments back from reviewers, i will debut a new weekly series called "m.m.q.", or "monday morning quarterback"... m.m.q. is a series where i politely tell all of you good people working here at project gutenberg and distributed proofreaders how you _should_ be doing your jobs... :+) i'll let you know when it's posted, and where. and that's not all the good news i have, either! i've also picked up a smidgen of perl, lately, and you know what they say about a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. yes, that's right, folks, bowerbird is now something of a script kiddie... imagine that! better lock down the web soon, or you don't know what damage i might cause... ;+) -bowerbird

2 1

Random mention of Project Gutenberg
by Andrew Sly 25 Feb '06

25 Feb '06

Here is an interesting mention of Project Gutenberg that I found in the group alt.books.david-weber The context is a discussion of the character Ludmilla, travelling back in time from a technologically advanced future. "Also given molecular density storage its quite possible that Ludmilla's suit and/or the escape capsule has an awful lot of eBooks onboard. The twenty fifth century version of Project Gutenberg would fit on something microscopically small, and would probably contain designs for early versions of the phase drive and related tech, or at the very least books relating to their development." Andrew

2 1

Re: [gutvol-d] clearing the decks
by Joshua Hutchinson 24 Feb '06

24 Feb '06

(I'm bored, so I'm responding to the troll today. This is a one off ... it'll be out of my system after this) > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Bowerbird(a)aol.com > > yet a mere 2 out of the 10 reported errors were actually fixed! wow! > is that a performance that you all believe that you can feel proud of? > Did you actually send that to the errata e-mail address on PG? Or just post it here where everyone has learned to tune you out? unless you send it to the errata email, no one is going to act upon it. The 2 that were fixed were very likely fixed because someone else DID forward them to the correct place. If you yell out of your front door, it is unlikely that Congress will hear and pass a new law. If you point out errors in books to people OTHER than the ones who fix it, it is unlikely that the right people will hear about it and fix the issues. > p.s. if jim's thinly-veiled insults persist over at d.p., > i'll have to start posting in those forums in response; > is that _really_ what you guys want? think about it... > Who's veiling the insults? We insult you quite openly when you deserve it. The problem is you're like a demon. Saying your name invokes the evil to appear. Josh

1 0