On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 11:37 AM, Jim Adcock <jimad@msn.com> wrote:
The "end result" to date is that a commercial company has taken my not-for-profit work off DP at SR time and redistributed it under DRM such that it cannot to date be "scooped up" by any other entity, commercial or non-commercial. The "end result" to date is that the donation of my time and effort to a non-profit activity has been privatized for other's profit without any contribution to the non-profit community. This is typically called "conversion" and is typically considered at least morally to be theft of non-profit contributions. If I wanted to work for profit I would do so in the first place -- and would do so for my own profit rather that of bottom feeders who prey on DP. Again, if "DP" [whoever that is] doesn't care about these issues, *I DO*, and so I will put my volunteer efforts elsewhere -- where my volunteer efforts WILL go in fact into NFP, and where my volunteer efforts WILL make a positive impact on the world in a finite amount of time.
I'm not sure if you understand what "Public Domain" means. It is not not-for-profit... it means there is _no_ restriction on further use of the text. Someone can reprint it, use it for derivative works, fold, spindle, mutilate, write slash, whatever, at any point[0]. There is no copyright restriction attached, and *no legal way to prevent redistribution*[1]. It also works the other way... the independent commercial entity that republished the text on Amazon has no way to prevent us from putting the final, polished text up *for free* at PG once it finishes PP/PPV. Also, it can indeed be "scooped up" by anyone else who wishes to at DP before that point. DP, the organization, is a not-for-profit. The material that the organization works upon are Public Domain in the US. R C [0] Technically there is an automatic copyright on the annotations that the proofers insert... they'd have to strip the [**] notes. [1] Trademarks can turn up in specific cases, but that's another issue entirely.