From sly at victoria.tc.ca Sun Aug 8 23:52:47 2010 From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly) Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2010 23:52:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Trailers Message-ID: Does anyone else have an opinion on PG#33374 and #33375? They appear to be copyrighted "trailers" containing the "First 25,000 words" of the respective novels. That is the kind of thing that I hope PG does not get many more of. --Andrew From prosfilaes at gmail.com Mon Aug 9 00:04:30 2010 From: prosfilaes at gmail.com (David Starner) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 03:04:30 -0400 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 2:52 AM, Andrew Sly wrote: > Does anyone else have an opinion on PG#33374 and #33375? > > They appear to be copyrighted "trailers" containing the > "First 25,000 words" of the respective novels. > > That is the kind of thing that I hope PG does not get many > more of. The files don't even follow PG guidelines; no text version, no Gutenberg headers on the RTF. This is absolutely what PG does not need. -- Kie ekzistas vivo, ekzistas espero. From richfield at telkomsa.net Mon Aug 9 00:34:06 2010 From: richfield at telkomsa.net (Jon Richfield) Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2010 09:34:06 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4C5FAF6E.6070700@telkomsa.net> Agreed! I hope that these will either be completed or deleted, and that pretty smartly before too many people fall for it and waste time and resources downloading them. > The files don't even follow PG guidelines; no text version, no > Gutenberg headers on the RTF. This is absolutely what PG does not > need. > From marcello at perathoner.de Mon Aug 9 03:47:41 2010 From: marcello at perathoner.de (Marcello Perathoner) Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2010 12:47:41 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4C5FDCCD.6040804@perathoner.de> Andrew Sly wrote: > Does anyone else have an opinion on PG#33374 and #33375? > > They appear to be copyrighted "trailers" containing the > "First 25,000 words" of the respective novels. > > That is the kind of thing that I hope PG does not get many > more of. Looks to me like another try at commercially exploiting PG, like the infamous `Project Gutenberg II? saga. My vote is: UNPost until the author coughs up the complete texts. Why do these things always happen without prior discussion? Greg? -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster at gutenberg.org From gbnewby at pglaf.org Mon Aug 9 08:37:26 2010 From: gbnewby at pglaf.org (Greg Newby) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 08:37:26 -0700 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers In-Reply-To: <4C5FDCCD.6040804@perathoner.de> References: <4C5FDCCD.6040804@perathoner.de> Message-ID: <20100809153725.GD12974@pglaf.org> On Mon, Aug 09, 2010 at 12:47:41PM +0200, Marcello Perathoner wrote: > Andrew Sly wrote: > >Does anyone else have an opinion on PG#33374 and #33375? > > > >They appear to be copyrighted "trailers" containing the > >"First 25,000 words" of the respective novels. > > > >That is the kind of thing that I hope PG does not get many > >more of. > > Looks to me like another try at commercially exploiting PG, like the > infamous `Project Gutenberg II? saga. > > My vote is: UNPost until the author coughs up the complete texts. > > > Why do these things always happen without prior discussion? > > Greg? Dunno what the stink is about. We've had trailers and teasers and extracts and such for many years, though never in huge numbers. This is not likely to be the start of a torrent. It's completely on-mission for us. There's no commercial intention, hidden or manifest. This was just a well-established writer who got in touch to make this offer. It happens sometimes, and I like it when it does. The meta-data for this are intended to be clear that it's an extract/teaser. Maybe we should edit the Title field to make it even clearer? Perhaps this is a situation where many people (rightly) have different views of what PG is, and its strenghts, and where effort should be devoted. Recall that our mission is a single line: To encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks. ...and this is intended to be broad and inclusive. -- Greg From donovan at abs.net Mon Aug 9 08:41:41 2010 From: donovan at abs.net (D Garcia) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 11:41:41 -0400 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers In-Reply-To: <4C5FDCCD.6040804@perathoner.de> References: <4C5FDCCD.6040804@perathoner.de> Message-ID: <201008091141.41425.donovan@abs.net> Marcello Perathoner wrote: >Looks to me like another try at commercially exploiting PG, like the >infamous `Project Gutenberg II? saga. > >My vote is: UNPost until the author coughs up the complete texts. > >Why do these things always happen without prior discussion? > >Greg? Or just UNPost. There are venues for authors to commercially market their works. PG hasn't been (and really shouldn't be) one of them. Maybe 33374/5 are a stunt or experiment, but I have a higher expectation of sense from SF authors with Robert's experience and level of success. (The rest of the industry, not so much.) David From richfield at telkomsa.net Mon Aug 9 11:18:06 2010 From: richfield at telkomsa.net (Jon Richfield) Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2010 20:18:06 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers In-Reply-To: <20100809153725.GD12974@pglaf.org> References: <4C5FDCCD.6040804@perathoner.de> <20100809153725.GD12974@pglaf.org> Message-ID: <4C60465E.9010300@telkomsa.net> > Dunno what the stink is about. We've had trailers and teasers and > extracts and such for many years, though never in huge numbers. This is > not likely to be the start of a torrent. Says who? There are more and more "free downloads" on the web that turn out to be trial versions, only good for a month or week or so. Fine! Anyone who doesn't want to pay need not burden himself with the product! Except that either there is no indication that it is trial only, or sometimes it is so carefully buried in other garbage that one does not want, that you need a bloodhound to be sure that you are clicking on the right button and not downloading something unwanted for sale. But it is free to download, right? No it is not! It takes huge bites out of your bandwidth and can stuff up your monthly surfing. Life-threatening? Not for some folks, but that doesn't mean that I have to like it or that everyone can afford it. We are not all first worlders, remember? As a matter of principle I would never buy crap from such crap-artists. If it has become a torrent on the web, who says it won't happen on gut? Have you noticed what has happened to advertising on the web? > It's completely on-mission for us. There's no commercial intention, > hidden or manifest. This was just a well-established writer who got in > touch to make this offer. It happens sometimes, and I like it when > it does. You are free to like it, but it is nothing like on-mission for PG. It is no product, but a free ride on the bandwidth of the visitor who then blames PG (rightly!) If it is such a hell of a favour, then he can damwell offer a dollar per hit on his teaser. THEN it could be on-mission because it would assist in supporting the real mission. There is every commercial intention. Who do you suppose you are kidding but yourself? If it isn't commercial, then why is it only a teaser? > The meta-data for this are intended to be clear that it's an > extract/teaser. Maybe we should edit the Title field to make it > even clearer? A hell of a lot clearer. We need to have every teaser labelled "Teaser! The source hopes you will like it enough to buy the rest. PG pays him 80% of the take for every full copy you download!" THEN I'd say we were on mission! > Perhaps this is a situation where many people (rightly) have > different views of what PG is, and its strenghts, and where > effort should be devoted. Recall that our mission is a single > line: > To encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks. > > ...and this is intended to be broad and inclusive. > -- Greg Broad, yes. Inclusive to the point of fullness perhaps, but not to bursting. We don't accept current political party puffs, nor yet porn or booze ads just because they are free. Why book ads just because they are free? From marcello at perathoner.de Mon Aug 9 11:22:45 2010 From: marcello at perathoner.de (Marcello Perathoner) Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2010 20:22:45 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers In-Reply-To: <20100809153725.GD12974@pglaf.org> References: <4C5FDCCD.6040804@perathoner.de> <20100809153725.GD12974@pglaf.org> Message-ID: <4C604775.9090806@perathoner.de> Greg Newby wrote: > Dunno what the stink is about. We've had trailers and teasers and > extracts and such for many years, though never in huge numbers. This is > not likely to be the start of a torrent. Who knows? These `ebooks? are incomplete and arbitrarily so. There is no motive to offer "the first 25,000 words" of a text for free, if not for the same reason the fisher offers the worm. Also they have no plain text version, which is a clear violation of PG policy, and do not contain the PG license. > It's completely on-mission for us. There's no commercial intention, > hidden or manifest. This was just a well-established writer who got in > touch to make this offer. It happens sometimes, and I like it when > it does. There is a clear commercial interest in driving people to his site. Following the link and then clicking on the book covers brings up a page that is chock full of book sellers. Kindle versions: $9.65 and $13.79 respectively. There are offers we should clearly refuse. > Perhaps this is a situation where many people (rightly) have > different views of what PG is, and its strenghts, and where > effort should be devoted. The more reason to reach a consensus before creating facts. -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster at gutenberg.org From prosfilaes at gmail.com Mon Aug 9 12:36:10 2010 From: prosfilaes at gmail.com (David Starner) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 15:36:10 -0400 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers In-Reply-To: <20100809153725.GD12974@pglaf.org> References: <4C5FDCCD.6040804@perathoner.de> <20100809153725.GD12974@pglaf.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 11:37 AM, Greg Newby wrote: > Dunno what the stink is about. ?We've had trailers and teasers and > extracts and such for many years, though never in huge numbers. ?This is > not likely to be the start of a torrent. > > It's completely on-mission for us. ?There's no commercial intention, > hidden or manifest. ?This was just a well-established writer who got in > touch to make this offer. ?It happens sometimes, and I like it when > it does. There certainly is a commercial intention; there is no point in putting in making only the first half of a novel online except in convincing people to buy the whole thing. And it degrades the work the rest of us put in; when people start feeling that PG includes a bunch of commercial spam, it'll make them less likely to come here and read what we have. -- Kie ekzistas vivo, ekzistas espero. From prosfilaes at gmail.com Mon Aug 9 12:41:51 2010 From: prosfilaes at gmail.com (David Starner) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 15:41:51 -0400 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers In-Reply-To: <20100809153725.GD12974@pglaf.org> References: <4C5FDCCD.6040804@perathoner.de> <20100809153725.GD12974@pglaf.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 11:37 AM, Greg Newby wrote: > We've had trailers and teasers and > extracts and such for many years, though never in huge numbers. And I think several of them have annoyed me before, too. Just because this has been an continuing small scale issue doesn't mean it hasn't been an issue. -- Kie ekzistas vivo, ekzistas espero. From gbuchana at teksavvy.com Mon Aug 9 17:41:11 2010 From: gbuchana at teksavvy.com (Gardner Buchanan) Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2010 20:41:11 -0400 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers In-Reply-To: <4C604775.9090806@perathoner.de> References: <4C5FDCCD.6040804@perathoner.de> <20100809153725.GD12974@pglaf.org> <4C604775.9090806@perathoner.de> Message-ID: <4C60A027.9040007@teksavvy.com> On 09-Aug-2010 14:22, Marcello Perathoner wrote: > These `ebooks? are incomplete That's enough to decide me. Personally, I am very much against putting copyrighted works on PG at all, but that's a different argument. I think here, the issue is that it isn't the whole book posted. It is a bunch of garbage poisoning the index with things that aren't really there. ============================================================ Gardner Buchanan Ottawa, ON FreeBSD: Where you want to go. Today. From sly at victoria.tc.ca Mon Aug 9 20:09:47 2010 From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 20:09:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers In-Reply-To: <201008091141.41425.donovan@abs.net> References: <4C5FDCCD.6040804@perathoner.de> <201008091141.41425.donovan@abs.net> Message-ID: > There are venues for authors to commercially market their works. PG hasn't > been (and really shouldn't be) one of them. > Personally, this is the view I would tend to share. Although I do understand Greg's message about PG having fairly broad goals. There have in the past been many one-off items that are a little outside of the normal things that PG offers. However, here is another view that I just received via the catalog report address: Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 16:28:51 -0700 (PDT) To: catalog2010 at pglaf.org Subject: Spam disguised as books The publicity samples of Robert J. Sawyer's novels Wake and Watch have somehow been added to your catalog. If Project Gutenberg is now augmenting its finances in this way, there will obviously no longer be any need for me to donate. If not, please either put forth the entire books, or remove the spam. -John Fluker From gbnewby at pglaf.org Mon Aug 9 21:54:34 2010 From: gbnewby at pglaf.org (Greg Newby) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 21:54:34 -0700 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers In-Reply-To: References: <4C5FDCCD.6040804@perathoner.de> <201008091141.41425.donovan@abs.net> Message-ID: <20100810045434.GE3467@pglaf.org> On Mon, Aug 09, 2010 at 08:09:47PM -0700, Andrew Sly wrote: > > > > There are venues for authors to commercially market their works. PG hasn't > > been (and really shouldn't be) one of them. > > > > Personally, this is the view I would tend to share. > > Although I do understand Greg's message about PG having > fairly broad goals. There have in the past been many > one-off items that are a little outside of the normal > things that PG offers. > > However, here is another view that I just received via > the catalog report address: > > Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 16:28:51 -0700 (PDT) > To: catalog2010 at pglaf.org > Subject: Spam disguised as books > > > The publicity samples of Robert J. Sawyer's novels Wake and Watch have > somehow been added to your catalog. If Project Gutenberg is now > augmenting its finances in this way, there will obviously no longer be > any need for me to donate. If not, please either put forth the entire > books, or remove the spam. > > -John Fluker The response I sent: John: There is no financial interest that Project Gutenberg has in those books. If you look at them, you'll see they are of a topic complimentary to the Gutenberg mission. They were offered freely by the author. We have a small number of such extracts, and also a relatively small number of copyrighted works, scattered throughout the collection. The vast majority of the collection is, and will remain, public domain. All is freely available. In the Watch volume, you will see that the author was inspired by Project Gutenberg. This, we believe, motivated his offering these extracts to us. We have tried to make it clear in the metadata that these are extracts of copyrighted works, so that readers won't be surprised by what they get. I hope this explanation helps. Best regards, Greg Newby Dr. Gregory B. Newby Chief Executive and Director Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation http://gutenberg.org A 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization with EIN 64-6221541 gbnewby at pglaf.org From prosfilaes at gmail.com Tue Aug 10 00:29:54 2010 From: prosfilaes at gmail.com (David Starner) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 03:29:54 -0400 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers In-Reply-To: <20100810045434.GE3467@pglaf.org> References: <4C5FDCCD.6040804@perathoner.de> <201008091141.41425.donovan@abs.net> <20100810045434.GE3467@pglaf.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 12:54 AM, Greg Newby wrote: > If you look at them, you'll see they are of a topic > complimentary to the Gutenberg mission. But they aren't. Advertisements masquerading as books, which is really what these are, detract from the Gutenberg mission. > The vast majority of the collection is, and will remain, public domain. And how are you going to insure that? What happens when some other publisher offers to dump a thousand or ten thousands excerpts from their current collection on PG? I have a very hard time with anything on the justification that it'll just be this once, when there's nothing exceptional about it. -- Kie ekzistas vivo, ekzistas espero. From richfield at telkomsa.net Tue Aug 10 01:00:51 2010 From: richfield at telkomsa.net (Jon Richfield) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 10:00:51 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers In-Reply-To: <20100810045434.GE3467@pglaf.org> References: <4C5FDCCD.6040804@perathoner.de> <201008091141.41425.donovan@abs.net> <20100810045434.GE3467@pglaf.org> Message-ID: <4C610733.8010906@telkomsa.net> Greg, I am sure that everyone accepts your good intentions in this matter, but it is plain from the correspondence that I am not the only one to see this as an example of: >> Subject: Spam disguised as books >> >> You said: > There is no financial interest that Project Gutenberg has in those > books. If you look at them, you'll see they are of a topic > complimentary to the Gutenberg mission. The fact that project Gutenberg has no financial interest in those books is not a mitigation but an aggravation. If project Gutenberg were to gain from them, that would at least make some sense. I could have hoped that it would be through something less irritating and possibly more profitable, but needs must. The point was not whether project Gutenberg stood to profit, but who else did? Specifically in this case it was the author who used project Gutenberg for free advertising (spamming). The fact that the topic might be complimentary to the project Gutenberg mission, seems hardly relevant, if not actually an aggravation. Who would want to be complimented by a party that dissociates one with an irritation? > They were offered freely by the > author. We have a small number of such extracts, and also a relatively > small number of copyrighted works, scattered throughout the collection. > The vast majority of the collection is, and will remain, public domain. > All is freely available. Offering advertising material freely to the public at the expense of someone else is a pretty parsimonious act of charity as such things go! Offering them freely to the publisher is not charity, but outright parasitism unless the publisher shares in the profits. The fact that worthless snippets, "teasers" and the like, become or remain public domain is no extenuation. As I think I said, I have no objection to project Gutenberg profiting from some such commercial relationship, as long as it is not so formatted as to annoy either contributors, volunteers, or users, but at the very least I would want the teaser warning to be explicit and visible in the listing entry, including that it is commercial and incomplete. Even better would be to list such teasers only in a separate and explicit category. In that way, as long as project Gutenberg shares in the profits (if any) there should be no problem, because uninterested parties would not be annoyingly and wastefully misled, whether understandably or not. > > In the Watch volume, you will see that the author was inspired by > Project Gutenberg. This, we believe, motivated his offering these > extracts to us. We have tried to make it clear in the metadata that > these are extracts of copyrighted works, so that readers won't be > surprised by what they get. > > I hope this explanation helps. > In turn I hope that my cynicism anent his motivation is clear, as well as my suggestions for the satisfaction of concerns on both sides of the discussion. In summary: volunteers should not be offended by having their work lumped in with spam. If spam of any sort, or anything that might reasonably be interpreted as spam, is to be offered by project Gutenberg, then it should be so clearly characterised as to reduce accidental downloads to trivial levels. Such spam or "teasers" should be separately presented, and possibly separately stored as well. Any such spam should be presented only on some reasonable condition calculated to recompense project Gutenberg reasonably profitably, presumably on the basis of so much per hit and so much per download. If the author does not like that idea, then I have no objection to presenting his works on the project Gutenberg site, as long as whatever is presented is complete. We need not be unreasonable; to present volume 1 of a trilogy complete, or possibly even one short story or one play out of a collection should be unobjectionable, even if it were to include a remark in the text that the full sequels or anthologies were available at such and such a site or shop. But fragments and synopses are impositions and insults, not favours. Any remarks, anyone? Go well, Jon From klofstrom at gmail.com Tue Aug 10 01:09:59 2010 From: klofstrom at gmail.com (Karen Lofstrom) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 22:09:59 -1000 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers In-Reply-To: <4C610733.8010906@telkomsa.net> References: <4C5FDCCD.6040804@perathoner.de> <201008091141.41425.donovan@abs.net> <20100810045434.GE3467@pglaf.org> <4C610733.8010906@telkomsa.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 10:00 PM, Jon Richfield wrote: > I am sure that everyone accepts your good intentions in this matter, but it > is plain from the correspondence that I am not the only one to see this as > an example of ... spam disguised as books I agree. Robert Sawyer is well-known as an indefatigable self-promoter. I don't like his work, I don't like his attitude, and I definitely don't want his spam in PG. He can post teasers on his own website. He shouldn't be allowed to use PG to advertise his stuff. -- Karen Lofstrom From gbnewby at pglaf.org Tue Aug 10 09:56:21 2010 From: gbnewby at pglaf.org (Greg Newby) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 09:56:21 -0700 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers In-Reply-To: <4C610733.8010906@telkomsa.net> References: <4C5FDCCD.6040804@perathoner.de> <201008091141.41425.donovan@abs.net> <20100810045434.GE3467@pglaf.org> <4C610733.8010906@telkomsa.net> Message-ID: <20100810165620.GB25034@pglaf.org> I'm trying to think on a well-considered and reasonable response, but cannot get beyond the label of "spam" which several critics have used. It doesn't fit any definition of spam that makes sense to me. So, here are a few standalone comments, rather than point-by-point responses to some of the messages people have sent. The unfortunate thing about this debate is people have weighed in with a voice of "no," "not," "never," "stop," "remove," and "unpost." As has been argued before (by Michael and me, and others), we do like to try different things, and try to pursue a broad approach to our mission. We like to say "yes." While I'm writing here: I spoke with Michael today (he drove me from O'Hare to a conference in Champaign, Illinois) and he said that he had approached Sawyer, not the other way around. Sorry for getting that wrong. The first messages I saw about the two book extracts seemed like Sawyer had initiated. Also, I think someone wondered, what if a publisher offered thousands of these. My answer is, I don't know how w'd proceed. But it would be a good problem to have to solve. We don't have such a problem today. Ok, my final thought for now: there is no way I would allow PGLAF to accept payment for adding items to the collection. Ever. It's amazing that people would think any such deal could happen. Project Gutenberg is able to do great work with the donations we get ($30-40K/year US), but we are very very conscientiously immune to funding or the lack of it. Not that I don't have great ideas for "what if we had $millions" (who doesn't?), but the fact is that we can continue to function with essentially no $ at all. (Just a little for our few server hosting costs, which I would [and do, sometimes] pay out of my own pocket.) -- Greg On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 10:00:51AM +0200, Jon Richfield wrote: > Greg, > I am sure that everyone accepts your good intentions in this matter, > but it is plain from the correspondence that I am not the only one > to see this as an example of: > >>Subject: Spam disguised as books > >> > >> > You said: > >There is no financial interest that Project Gutenberg has in those > >books. If you look at them, you'll see they are of a topic > >complimentary to the Gutenberg mission. > The fact that project Gutenberg has no financial interest in those > books is not a mitigation but an aggravation. If project Gutenberg > were to gain from them, that would at least make some sense. I could > have hoped that it would be through something less irritating and > possibly more profitable, but needs must. > The point was not whether project Gutenberg stood to profit, but who > else did? Specifically in this case it was the author who used > project Gutenberg for free advertising (spamming). The fact that the > topic might be complimentary to the project Gutenberg mission, seems > hardly relevant, if not actually an aggravation. Who would want to > be complimented by a party that dissociates one with an irritation? > >They were offered freely by the > >author. We have a small number of such extracts, and also a relatively > >small number of copyrighted works, scattered throughout the collection. > >The vast majority of the collection is, and will remain, public domain. > >All is freely available. > Offering advertising material freely to the public at the expense of > someone else is a pretty parsimonious act of charity as such things > go! Offering them freely to the publisher is not charity, but > outright parasitism unless the publisher shares in the profits. The > fact that worthless snippets, "teasers" and the like, become or > remain public domain is no extenuation. > As I think I said, I have no objection to project Gutenberg > profiting from some such commercial relationship, as long as it is > not so formatted as to annoy either contributors, volunteers, or > users, but at the very least I would want the teaser warning to be > explicit and visible in the listing entry, including that it is > commercial and incomplete. Even better would be to list such teasers > only in a separate and explicit category. > In that way, as long as project Gutenberg shares in the profits (if > any) there should be no problem, because uninterested parties would > not be annoyingly and wastefully misled, whether understandably or > not. > > > >In the Watch volume, you will see that the author was inspired by > >Project Gutenberg. This, we believe, motivated his offering these > >extracts to us. We have tried to make it clear in the metadata that > >these are extracts of copyrighted works, so that readers won't be > >surprised by what they get. > > > >I hope this explanation helps. > > > In turn I hope that my cynicism anent his motivation is clear, as > well as my suggestions for the satisfaction of concerns on both > sides of the discussion. > In summary: > volunteers should not be offended by having their work lumped in with spam. > If spam of any sort, or anything that might reasonably be > interpreted as spam, is to be offered by project Gutenberg, then it > should be so clearly characterised as to reduce accidental downloads > to trivial levels. > Such spam or "teasers" should be separately presented, and possibly > separately stored as well. > Any such spam should be presented only on some reasonable condition > calculated to recompense project Gutenberg reasonably profitably, > presumably on the basis of so much per hit and so much per download. > If the author does not like that idea, then I have no objection to > presenting his works on the project Gutenberg site, as long as > whatever is presented is complete. We need not be unreasonable; to > present volume 1 of a trilogy complete, or possibly even one short > story or one play out of a collection should be unobjectionable, > even if it were to include a remark in the text that the full > sequels or anthologies were available at such and such a site or > shop. > But fragments and synopses are impositions and insults, not favours. > Any remarks, anyone? > Go well, > Jon From marcello at perathoner.de Tue Aug 10 13:03:18 2010 From: marcello at perathoner.de (Marcello Perathoner) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 22:03:18 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] =?windows-1252?q?Project_Gutenberg_eBooks_available_on_Boston_Pu?= =?windows-1252?q?blic_Library=27s_=91Virtual_Branch=92_website?= Message-ID: <4C61B086.3030706@perathoner.de> http://blogs.overdrive.com/library/post/2010/08/10/Project-Gutenberg-eBooks-available-on-Boston-Public-Librarys-e28098Virtual-Branche28099-website.aspx -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster at gutenberg.org From prosfilaes at gmail.com Tue Aug 10 14:00:41 2010 From: prosfilaes at gmail.com (David Starner) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 17:00:41 -0400 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers In-Reply-To: <20100810165620.GB25034@pglaf.org> References: <4C5FDCCD.6040804@perathoner.de> <201008091141.41425.donovan@abs.net> <20100810045434.GE3467@pglaf.org> <4C610733.8010906@telkomsa.net> <20100810165620.GB25034@pglaf.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 12:56 PM, Greg Newby wrote: > The unfortunate thing about this debate is people have weighed in with a > voice of "no," "not," "never," "stop," "remove," and "unpost." As has > been argued before (by Michael and me, and others), we do like to try > different things, and try to pursue a broad approach to our mission. > We like to say "yes." Which is part of the reason people don't use Project Gutenberg. A project that says yes has a lot of trash in it alongside the good stuff. We, the people who are transcribing material for Project Gutenberg, don't want the value of what we're doing dragged down by commercial advertising which will discourage people from using Project Gutenberg. -- Kie ekzistas vivo, ekzistas espero. From Bowerbird at aol.com Tue Aug 10 16:42:06 2010 From: Bowerbird at aol.com (Bowerbird at aol.com) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 19:42:06 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers Message-ID: i think teasers should be clearly identified. or banned outright, if you were to ask me. but if michael says it's ok, then i'd have to accept it, because nobody knows p.g. policy better than the man who invented the thing. there are thousands of free e-books over at smashwords and feedbooks. will p.g. accept those complete books, too? or is this only a "by invitation" offer made available to a few? i'm more concerned about the announcement by overdrive. is p.g. being paid for that usage? because overdrive certainly is. also, in the past, several e-book producers have stated publicly that they are giving a percentage of their income to project gutenberg, including eucalyptus. have those programmers done so? -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jamie at montgomerie.net Tue Aug 10 17:24:52 2010 From: jamie at montgomerie.net (James Montgomerie) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 01:24:52 +0100 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <62780607-16D3-4EE2-88AE-068A8D7C2D82@montgomerie.net> On 11 Aug 2010, at 00:42, bowerbird at aol.com wrote: > also, in the past, several e-book producers have > stated publicly that they are giving a percentage > of their income to project gutenberg, including > eucalyptus. have those programmers done so? Hello - I'm the author of Eucalyptus (and director of the one-man company that now sells it). I lurk here, but haven't posted much in the past (perhaps not at all - I don't quite recall). Reading this, I just wanted to preempt concerns before a reply comes that we haven't paid royalties yet. That's true, but only because the royalty agreement states that they can be paid at tax payment time, and that hasn't happened for us (based in the UK) since it's been on sale. Rest assured that the royalties /are/ all accounted for here, and will most certainly be paid when the time comes. Project Gutenberg is a great resource - my app couldn't have been made without it - and it's well worth the support. Jamie. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bowerbird at aol.com Tue Aug 10 17:46:22 2010 From: Bowerbird at aol.com (Bowerbird at aol.com) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 20:46:22 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers Message-ID: <78cc2.278243a8.39934cde@aol.com> jamie said: > Rest assured that the royalties /are/ all accounted for here, > and will most certainly be paid when the time comes. very cool, jamie, very cool. and just so people know, you could have proceeded in such a way that you wouldn't have had to pay _anything_ to project gutenberg, so you've most definitely acquitted yourself in an honorable manner, and your dignified response (and presence) here reflects admirably. and if any of the other app producers had created anything that is half as good as eucalyptus, i would've name-checked them as well. so, greg and michael -- any answers on the other app producers? and on overdrive? -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gbnewby at pglaf.org Tue Aug 10 18:21:01 2010 From: gbnewby at pglaf.org (Greg Newby) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:21:01 -0700 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20100811012100.GA9194@pglaf.org> On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 07:42:06PM -0400, Bowerbird at aol.com wrote: > i think teasers should be clearly identified. > or banned outright, if you were to ask me. > > but if michael says it's ok, then i'd have to > accept it, because nobody knows p.g. policy > better than the man who invented the thing. > > there are thousands of free e-books over at > smashwords and feedbooks. will p.g. accept > those complete books, too? or is this only a > "by invitation" offer made available to a few? www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Submitting_Your_Own_Work_How-To ...admitting that I broke a rule or three (formatting, mainly). I really would like to have a spin-off for self-published works, but don't think they are our bailiwick for the main site. I don't think contemporary commercially published works are our bailiwick, either, but I do like variety, trials, and occasional surprises. > i'm more concerned about the announcement > by overdrive. is p.g. being paid for that usage? > because overdrive certainly is. What announcement? > also, in the past, several e-book producers have > stated publicly that they are giving a percentage > of their income to project gutenberg, including > eucalyptus. have those programmers done so? My thanks also, to Jamie. Short answer is that it's hard to tell when they do, but I have not noticed very many new royalty payments that are flagged as such. -- Greg From marcdh at freeliterature.org Tue Aug 10 18:30:07 2010 From: marcdh at freeliterature.org (Marc D'Hooghe) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 03:30:07 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Trailers and blurbs will never work at PG - only contra-productive Imagine the explaining to readers, people doing some proofreading from time to time - 'fans' from years hence. NO 2010/8/9 Andrew Sly > Does anyone else have an opinion on PG#33374 and #33375? > > They appear to be copyrighted "trailers" containing the > "First 25,000 words" of the respective novels. > > That is the kind of thing that I hope PG does not get many > more of. > > --Andrew > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d > -- Marc Freeliterature.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sly at victoria.tc.ca Tue Aug 10 18:37:50 2010 From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:37:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: =?windows-1252?q?Project_Gutenberg_eBooks_available_on_Boston?= =?windows-1252?q?_Public_Library=27s_=91Virtual_Branch=92_website?= In-Reply-To: <4C61B086.3030706@perathoner.de> References: <4C61B086.3030706@perathoner.de> Message-ID: I like the look of that. It's a way to make PG content more availible to people who are looking in a different place. --Andrew On Tue, 10 Aug 2010, Marcello Perathoner wrote: > http://blogs.overdrive.com/library/post/2010/08/10/Project-Gutenberg-eBooks-available-on-Boston-Public-Librarys-e28098Virtual-Branche28099-website.aspx > From marcdh at freeliterature.org Tue Aug 10 18:41:51 2010 From: marcdh at freeliterature.org (Marc D'Hooghe) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 03:41:51 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: =?windows-1252?q?Project_Gutenberg_eBooks_available_on_Boston?= =?windows-1252?q?_Public_Library=27s_=91Virtual_Branch=92_website?= In-Reply-To: References: <4C61B086.3030706@perathoner.de> Message-ID: It is - was on teleread (Paul Biba) 2010/8/11 Andrew Sly > > I like the look of that. > > It's a way to make PG content more availible to people who > are looking in a different place. > > --Andrew > > On Tue, 10 Aug 2010, Marcello Perathoner wrote: > > > > http://blogs.overdrive.com/library/post/2010/08/10/Project-Gutenberg-eBooks-available-on-Boston-Public-Librarys-e28098Virtual-Branche28099-website.aspx > > > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d > -- Marc Freeliterature.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bowerbird at aol.com Wed Aug 11 01:17:39 2010 From: Bowerbird at aol.com (Bowerbird at aol.com) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 04:17:39 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers Message-ID: <5006b.73f34603.3993b6a3@aol.com> greg said: > What announcement?? well, he said chuckling out loud, i guess that answers _that_... ;+) search twitter -- always the very best way to see how the gossip-vines are misinterpreting the news -- for "overdrive gutenberg", and see... the two biggest descriptors are an "integration" between overdrive and project gutenberg, which is sometimes described as "a partnership"... you can thank paul biba at teleread for the "integration" blooper, but i'm not sure which poor comprehender kicked the "partnership" meme. on the one hand, i hear michael saying "they are doing our job for us". and i can see that side of the coin. still, i can also see the other side, which is that they're being paid a ton of library money to "do that job". do you know that some publishing houses are charging libraries some tremendously outrageous prices for e-books, via overdrive as vendor? and i don't mean something like $30 for an e-book when the p-book is $30, which would be shocking enough all by itself, if you think about it. nope, i mean more like _$120_ for an e-book, when the p-book is $30. and they'll order dozens of copies of one of these high-priced e-books! all because "patrons are requesting these books, in the e-book format." but i'm guessing the patrons do not know they are being ripped off so! overdrive is doing this highway robbery. and now they're using free p.g. e-texts as a come-on to lure libraries; to make them feel like they're getting more bang for their big bucks... do you really want to be in bed with a robber baron? does having an "integrated partnership" with a thief like this sound like a good idea? michael hart, maybe it's time for you to do the distribution job yourself. -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From marcello at perathoner.de Wed Aug 11 07:02:37 2010 From: marcello at perathoner.de (Marcello Perathoner) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:02:37 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: =?windows-1252?q?Project_Gutenberg_eBooks_available_on_Boston?= =?windows-1252?q?_Public_Library=27s_=91Virtual_Branch=92_website?= In-Reply-To: <4C61B086.3030706@perathoner.de> References: <4C61B086.3030706@perathoner.de> Message-ID: <4C62AD7D.4070506@perathoner.de> Marcello Perathoner wrote: > http://blogs.overdrive.com/library/post/2010/08/10/Project-Gutenberg-eBooks-available-on-Boston-Public-Librarys-e28098Virtual-Branche28099-website.aspx I just downloaded a couple and they just grabbed our epub files, although they carry only 15,000. It just shows how important it is to get our epubs right or, at least, usable. Besides the Boston Public Library, Overdrive distributes for the New York Public Library and the State Library of Kansas which may soon follow Boston's example. -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster at gutenberg.org From nicestep at gmail.com Wed Aug 11 07:17:59 2010 From: nicestep at gmail.com (James Simmons) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 09:17:59 -0500 Subject: [gutvol-d] Rule 6 Copyright Clearance requirements Message-ID: I just had a couple of TP&V's rejected because the books were published after 1922 and I didn't follow the Rule 6 procedures. I have read every word on the PG website related to Rule 6 and I'll be damned if I can figure out just what those procedures are. The Rule 6 HOWTO is blank and has been for months. Specifically I have several books that the Stanford copyright renewal database does not show being renewed. In several cases books by the same author *are* shown as being renewed, so I would have assumed that if the books in question had been renewed there would be a record of it. I pointed this out when I submitted the TP&V's. Is it even possible to get a Rule 6 clearance without a letter from the author or a professional search by the LOC? James Simmons From grythumn at gmail.com Wed Aug 11 07:27:13 2010 From: grythumn at gmail.com (Robert Cicconetti) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 10:27:13 -0400 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Rule 6 Copyright Clearance requirements In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: For one thing, you need to check the nationality of all contributors - author(s) and illustrator(s), check for misspellings, check for renewals under the publisher name, etc. The official rule 6 notes are linked off the PGLAF page: http://copy.pglaf.org/rule6-new.txt Unofficially, most of our Rule 6 notes are on the DP wiki: http://www.pgdp.net/wiki/PGRule6 I'd start with: http://www.pgdp.net/wiki/PGRule6/DetailedRule6Procedure http://www.pgdp.net/wiki/PGRule6/Rule6Template Our author notes are SF heavy, of course. Periodicals also have their own wrinkles. I've processed many Rule 6 clearances, but they sometimes take quite a bit of research. -R C On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 10:17 AM, James Simmons wrote: > I just had a couple of TP&V's rejected because the books were > published after 1922 and I didn't follow the Rule 6 procedures. I > have read every word on the PG website related to Rule 6 and I'll be > damned if I can figure out just what those procedures are. The Rule 6 > HOWTO is blank and has been for months. > > Specifically I have several books that the Stanford copyright renewal > database does not show being renewed. In several cases books by the > same author *are* shown as being renewed, so I would have assumed that > if the books in question had been renewed there would be a record of > it. I pointed this out when I submitted the TP&V's. > > Is it even possible to get a Rule 6 clearance without a letter from > the author or a professional search by the LOC? > > James Simmons > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nicestep at gmail.com Wed Aug 11 07:34:51 2010 From: nicestep at gmail.com (James Simmons) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 09:34:51 -0500 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Rule 6 Copyright Clearance requirements In-Reply-To: <881F54DCA3F26C4696683605F62B40220ACE1136@VSEXMS-03.coventry.ac.uk> References: <881F54DCA3F26C4696683605F62B40220ACE1136@VSEXMS-03.coventry.ac.uk> Message-ID: David, This is where the link to the blank page is: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Category:How-To This is the actual link: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Copyright_Rule_6_How-To It is not *literally* blank, but close enough. I have no idea how I would get from the PG website to the text file you shared with me. Thanks for sharing, though. James Simmons On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 9:23 AM, David Price wrote: > Hi James, > > The Rule 6 page is: > > ? ? ? ?http://copy.pglaf.org/rule6-new.txt > > Where's the blank page. > > As to Rule 6 clearances - I don't do them but there are plenty of them > every month so they are possible. > > All the best, > David Price, > UK Project Gutenberg Coordinator From gbnewby at pglaf.org Wed Aug 11 08:50:45 2010 From: gbnewby at pglaf.org (Greg Newby) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 08:50:45 -0700 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Rule 6 Copyright Clearance requirements In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20100811155045.GA2701@pglaf.org> James, I'm just confirming what others have written. Use the procedures here: http://copy.pglaf.org ...they're more detailed than what's on www.gutenberg.org, and this is on purpose. -- Greg On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 09:17:59AM -0500, James Simmons wrote: > I just had a couple of TP&V's rejected because the books were > published after 1922 and I didn't follow the Rule 6 procedures. I > have read every word on the PG website related to Rule 6 and I'll be > damned if I can figure out just what those procedures are. The Rule 6 > HOWTO is blank and has been for months. > > Specifically I have several books that the Stanford copyright renewal > database does not show being renewed. In several cases books by the > same author *are* shown as being renewed, so I would have assumed that > if the books in question had been renewed there would be a record of > it. I pointed this out when I submitted the TP&V's. > > Is it even possible to get a Rule 6 clearance without a letter from > the author or a professional search by the LOC? > > James Simmons > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d From ajhaines at shaw.ca Wed Aug 11 14:41:54 2010 From: ajhaines at shaw.ca (Al Haines) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:41:54 -0700 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Rule 6 Copyright Clearance requirements In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <752CCA626A7642968B8CDF2B3347C891@alp2400> James, as other responders have said, Rule6 submissions are do-able, but can be painful. I've successfully done 15-20 of them over the last few years, all for books published from 1923 up to the late 1930's, most recently PG#33381, 33382, and 33383. I use this link at Rutgers to do a quick check: http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~lesk/copyrenew.html If some combination of the book's title words and author turn up, the book was renewed and a Rule6 submission isn't possible. If this check shows that the book's copyright apparently wasn't renewed, then I start work on the Rule6 submission form mentioned in David Price's response. I start with #4 (author nationality), since Rule6 applies (as I understand it) only to U.S. published books by U.S. authors, so if the author isn't/wasn't American, Rule6 fails. There's no point in doing all the date/renewal research only to find out the author was, for example, British. To actually check renewals, go to http://www.ibiblio.org/ccer/ or http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/cce/. You'll have to check all four years specified in the Rule6 submission form (copyright+26 to +29), twice for each of those years (Jan-June, July-Dec), checking all the keywords in the book's title, the publisher's name, and the author's name. The whole thing involves a LOT of checks. Assuming a two-name author, a one-name publisher, and a two-word title, done twice each for the four years, it works out to 40 separate checks (5x2x4=40). This used to be fairly simple, if tedious, when the above sites had links to the individual renewal record page scans. Somewhere along the line, this changed to point to Google, which has the page scans and PDF compilations of them. Problem is, Google seems to have screwed up some of the PDF files in that some scansets are misordered, others' pages have been cropped. The actual scans are OK, but you can't link directly to a specific page, as Ibiblio/Onlinebooks used to do. If the PDF file for a given year is OK, it doesn't take long to find the page with the desired range of records, but if the PDF file is bad, you have to (very painfully and slowly) scroll up/down to find the page scan with the desired range of records. A simpler alternative, if you can prove the author (of whatever nationality) has been dead more than 50 years, might be to check if the book is of interest to Project Gutenberg Canada (http://www.gutenberg.ca/). For more info on Canadian copyright law (which has wrinkles of its own), Google the words "canadian copyright law". I hope this helps, and good luck! Al > -----Original Message----- > From: gutvol-d-bounces at lists.pglaf.org > [mailto:gutvol-d-bounces at lists.pglaf.org] On Behalf Of James Simmons > Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 7:18 AM > To: Gutenberg Volunteers > Subject: [gutvol-d] Rule 6 Copyright Clearance requirements > > > I just had a couple of TP&V's rejected because the books were > published after 1922 and I didn't follow the Rule 6 procedures. I > have read every word on the PG website related to Rule 6 and I'll be > damned if I can figure out just what those procedures are. The Rule 6 > HOWTO is blank and has been for months. > > Specifically I have several books that the Stanford copyright renewal > database does not show being renewed. In several cases books by the > same author *are* shown as being renewed, so I would have assumed that > if the books in question had been renewed there would be a record of > it. I pointed this out when I submitted the TP&V's. > > Is it even possible to get a Rule 6 clearance without a letter from > the author or a professional search by the LOC? > > James Simmons > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d > From nicestep at gmail.com Wed Aug 11 16:22:12 2010 From: nicestep at gmail.com (James Simmons) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 18:22:12 -0500 Subject: [gutvol-d] My FLOSS Manual on E-Books Message-ID: I am working on a FLOSS Manual on E-Books, specifically aimed at teachers and students working with One Laptop Per Child. I have some experience in this area, because I wrote the Activity that XO Laptop users use for reading PG Plain Text files, plus another one that lets you search the Internet Archive catalog and download the books you find in your choice of formats. As research for the book I designed and built my own book scanner and scanned and donated a number of books to IA. I'm working on submissions to PG and PG Canada. If you want to check the book out it's here: http://en.flossmanuals.net/bin/view/ActivitiesGuideSugar/WebHome This page will let you look at my work in progress. The normal link shows content that has since been updated. I have some people from the Rural Design Collective working with me on the book, including a young artist who is drawing illustrations for it. (The illustrations aren't in the book yet because she needs to pick out a CC license). I've gotten a lot of useful information and feedback on this but can always use more. Nobody is making a dime on this, with the possible exception of the FM website who will eventually sell bound and printed copies through Lulu. PDF, web, and EPUB versions will always be free. If you see anything in the book you disagree with don't hesitate to point it out. If you would like to contribute content to the book that would be even better! Thanks, James Simmons From vze3rknp at verizon.net Thu Aug 12 06:23:36 2010 From: vze3rknp at verizon.net (Juliet Sutherland) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2010 09:23:36 -0400 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Rule 6 Copyright Clearance requirements In-Reply-To: <752CCA626A7642968B8CDF2B3347C891@alp2400> References: <752CCA626A7642968B8CDF2B3347C891@alp2400> Message-ID: <4C63F5D8.7020509@verizon.net> The Stanford database that others have mentioned is a better place to start than the Rutgers one. It incorporates the Copyright Office's online records and the data in it, derived from the PG files, has had more consistency checks, etc than the Rutgers version. The Stanford folks started with the Rutgers files, but improved them substantially. But checking it is not sufficient in itself. As others have said, the nationality of the author must be checked. Also, please note that I usually leave these clearances for Greg to approve and he usually only gets to them about once a month. So you'll probably have a much longer wait than usual for approval. Juliet On 8/11/2010 5:41 PM, Al Haines wrote: > James, as other responders have said, Rule6 submissions are do-able, > but can be painful. I've successfully done 15-20 of them over the > last few years, all for books published from 1923 up to the late > 1930's, most recently PG#33381, 33382, and 33383. > > I use this link at Rutgers to do a quick check: > > http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~lesk/copyrenew.html > > If some combination of the book's title words and author turn up, the > book was renewed and a Rule6 submission isn't possible. > > If this check shows that the book's copyright apparently wasn't > renewed, then I start work on the Rule6 submission form mentioned in > David Price's response. I start with #4 (author nationality), since > Rule6 applies (as I understand it) only to U.S. published books by > U.S. authors, so if the author isn't/wasn't American, Rule6 fails. > There's no point in doing all the date/renewal research only to find > out the author was, for example, British. > > To actually check renewals, go to http://www.ibiblio.org/ccer/ or > http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/cce/. You'll have to check all > four years specified in the Rule6 submission form (copyright+26 to > +29), twice for each of those years (Jan-June, July-Dec), checking all > the keywords in the book's title, the publisher's name, and the > author's name. The whole thing involves a LOT of checks. Assuming a > two-name author, a one-name publisher, and a two-word title, done > twice each for the four years, it works out to 40 separate checks > (5x2x4=40). > > This used to be fairly simple, if tedious, when the above sites had > links to the individual renewal record page scans. Somewhere along > the line, this changed to point to Google, which has the page scans > and PDF compilations of them. Problem is, Google seems to have > screwed up some of the PDF files in that some scansets are misordered, > others' pages have been cropped. The actual scans are OK, but you > can't link directly to a specific page, as Ibiblio/Onlinebooks used to > do. > > If the PDF file for a given year is OK, it doesn't take long to find > the page with the desired range of records, but if the PDF file is > bad, you have to (very painfully and slowly) scroll up/down to find > the page scan with the desired range of records. > > > A simpler alternative, if you can prove the author (of whatever > nationality) has been dead more than 50 years, might be to check if > the book is of interest to Project Gutenberg Canada > (http://www.gutenberg.ca/). For more info on Canadian copyright law > (which has wrinkles of its own), Google the words "canadian copyright > law". > > > I hope this helps, and good luck! > > > Al > > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: gutvol-d-bounces at lists.pglaf.org >> [mailto:gutvol-d-bounces at lists.pglaf.org] On Behalf Of James Simmons >> Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 7:18 AM >> To: Gutenberg Volunteers >> Subject: [gutvol-d] Rule 6 Copyright Clearance requirements >> >> >> I just had a couple of TP&V's rejected because the books were >> published after 1922 and I didn't follow the Rule 6 procedures. I >> have read every word on the PG website related to Rule 6 and I'll be >> damned if I can figure out just what those procedures are. The Rule >> > 6 > >> HOWTO is blank and has been for months. >> >> Specifically I have several books that the Stanford copyright >> > renewal > >> database does not show being renewed. In several cases books by the >> same author *are* shown as being renewed, so I would have assumed >> > that > >> if the books in question had been renewed there would be a record of >> it. I pointed this out when I submitted the TP&V's. >> >> Is it even possible to get a Rule 6 clearance without a letter from >> the author or a professional search by the LOC? >> >> James Simmons >> _______________________________________________ >> gutvol-d mailing list >> gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org >> http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d >> >> > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d > > From nicestep at gmail.com Thu Aug 12 07:11:57 2010 From: nicestep at gmail.com (James Simmons) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2010 09:11:57 -0500 Subject: [gutvol-d] Thanks for the Rule 6 info! Message-ID: Thanks for all the responses to my questions. I plan to use this information in my FLOSS Manual. I already have chapters on Copyrights and on preparing submissions to PG, but the Rule 6 submission procedure probably deserves its own chapter in the Appendix. I plan to both link to and quote extensively from the sources you have given me. One of you seemed to suggest that the Rule 6 procedures were hard to find (that is, not on the PG site or linked from it) on purpose. I'm a little puzzled by that. I'll probably re-do some of my Rule 6 clearance requests when the books I'm preparing for PG Canada are done. Thanks again, James Simmons From gbnewby at pglaf.org Thu Aug 12 07:48:10 2010 From: gbnewby at pglaf.org (Greg Newby) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2010 07:48:10 -0700 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Thanks for the Rule 6 info! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20100812144810.GA8158@pglaf.org> On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 09:11:57AM -0500, James Simmons wrote: > Thanks for all the responses to my questions. I plan to use this > information in my FLOSS Manual. I already have chapters on Copyrights > and on preparing submissions to PG, but the Rule 6 submission > procedure probably deserves its own chapter in the Appendix. I plan > to both link to and quote extensively from the sources you have given > me. I don't recommend putting Rule 6 into a book that won't be updated quite frequently. The procedures change sometimes, and the canonical information is at http://copy.pglaf.org > One of you seemed to suggest that the Rule 6 procedures were hard to > find (that is, not on the PG site or linked from it) on purpose. I'm > a little puzzled by that. That was me. The reason is that we don't accept rule 6 evidence from people who haven't already demonstrated their diligence and attention to detail. For such people, we actually replicate their research. In short, we prefer people to first do some rule 1 work, then move to rule 6 once they are a little more comfortable with how things work. FWIW, our copyright lawyer wants us to have much stricter (more difficult) processes for rule 6. I have resisted this, instead choosing to make a decision based on the evidence presented, the history of the submitter, and assessment about the author, subject matter, and other factors that might indicate risk. Essentially, I have opted to have a squishier process, rather than have a much more difficult series of evidence to present. -- Greg > I'll probably re-do some of my Rule 6 clearance requests when the > books I'm preparing for PG Canada are done. > > Thanks again, > > James Simmons > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d From jimad at msn.com Mon Aug 16 11:36:54 2010 From: jimad at msn.com (Jim Adcock) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 11:36:54 -0700 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers In-Reply-To: <4C604775.9090806@perathoner.de> References: <4C5FDCCD.6040804@perathoner.de> <20100809153725.GD12974@pglaf.org> <4C604775.9090806@perathoner.de> Message-ID: >These `ebooks? are incomplete and arbitrarily so.... Or, stated another way, if a trailer is to be considered a "free ebook" then Amazon offers 500,000 "free ebooks." Taking such a position would be an insult to all the volunteers who work so hard to provide *complete* and accurate books to PG. Tracking down and fixing even one missing or damaged page in a book we are trying to get submitted to PG can often easily represent a hard day's work. Rather, let us state clearly what a trailer is: it is an *advertisement*. And people who place advertisements on PG are attempting to *advertise* for free rather than placing their advertisements on a for-pay venue where they belong. Accepting free advertisements on PG would IMHO violate its NFP status, not to mention other obvious problems, like hiding the real value provided by the real [complete] books on the PG website. At the very least PG would need to remove the byline: "We carry high quality items..." From richfield at telkomsa.net Tue Aug 17 02:54:27 2010 From: richfield at telkomsa.net (Jon Richfield) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 11:54:27 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Trailers In-Reply-To: References: <4C5FDCCD.6040804@perathoner.de> <20100809153725.GD12974@pglaf.org> <4C604775.9090806@perathoner.de> Message-ID: <4C6A5C53.2060204@telkomsa.net> Exactly!!! On 2010/08/16 20:36 PM, Jim Adcock wrote: >> These `ebooks? are incomplete and arbitrarily so.... > Or, stated another way, if a trailer is to be considered a "free ebook" then > Amazon offers 500,000 "free ebooks." > > Taking such a position would be an insult to all the volunteers who work so > hard to provide *complete* and accurate books to PG. Tracking down and > fixing even one missing or damaged page in a book we are trying to get > submitted to PG can often easily represent a hard day's work. > > Rather, let us state clearly what a trailer is: it is an *advertisement*. > And people who place advertisements on PG are attempting to *advertise* for > free rather than placing their advertisements on a for-pay venue where they > belong. > > Accepting free advertisements on PG would IMHO violate its NFP status, not > to mention other obvious problems, like hiding the real value provided by > the real [complete] books on the PG website. At the very least PG would need > to remove the byline: > > "We carry high quality items..." > > > > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d > From jimad at msn.com Sat Aug 28 19:22:19 2010 From: jimad at msn.com (James Adcock) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2010 19:22:19 -0700 Subject: [gutvol-d] Wifi Kindle Review Message-ID: I just got the new Kindle generation 3 Wifi model (without 3G) and here's a first review in regards to PG: Disclaimer: If you like iPads, you probably don't like Kindles, and if you like Kindles, you probably don't like iPads. So, this review is for people who are looking for a dedicated reader device that uses e-Ink. In general, I like it pretty well. The Good: Price is "below cost" at $140. The e-Ink is now MUCH sharper and darker blacks than any e-Ink device I've seen. Very much like reading newsprint, or a laser printer on lower quality paper stock. WIFI reception is "brilliant" compared to 3G - at least in my reception area. Web browser is much more functional than before. Now contains glyph support for much of "all" of the Unicode glyph points - except no support for Hebrew nor Arabic. Includes CJK support and Eastern European. No Georgian extensions. Includes Unicode braille, Canadian Syllabics, IPA, etc. - lots of weird stuff. Web browser, including downloading .mobi formatted books directly from www.gutenberg.org works really great. Web browser, including downloading .mobi formatted books directly from m.gutenberg.org works really great. Really small and light, could easily fit in a purse if one has one - I don't. Controls work well, unobtrusive while reading. I was able to set up a local internal web site in my house where I can transfer .mobi formatted copies of the books I'm working on to that web site, and then download them using WIFI to the Kindle at my leisure without having to physically wire the devices together. [Hint: web site has to be set up to know MIME Type .mobi = application/x-mobipocket-ebook] If you buy a book from Amazon you can share it between multiple Kindles you own. The Bad: Kindle is still .mobi - I'd rather see it be .epub compatible While it can directly read .pdf files it will not download .pdf via its web browser. You either have to email them to your Kindle (free) or transfer them using USB. The screen is pretty small to read most .pdf files Still no "trivial" way for friends to share free books (non-DRM) without hassle from Kindle to Kindle. You can do so with the help of a laptop and a USB cable. Still can't check e-books out of a public library for your Kindle (unless those books are PD) Still no way (unlike Nook) to share for-pay (DRM) books between friends. AKA "borrowing" books. Software, while overall more functional than previous generation Kindles, is still in the typical "raw" state that Amazon initially releases its software in. IE Pretty easy to crash. Cheers, and I hope this informs your decisions - if any. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davedoty at hotmail.com Sun Aug 29 13:53:15 2010 From: davedoty at hotmail.com (Dave Doty) Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 20:53:15 +0000 Subject: [gutvol-d] I-Phone App Question Message-ID: I only recently got a smartphone, so I beg your indulgence as I admit ignorance of the many threads like this I undoubtedly deleted unread that would have answered my question. I notice there are a huge number of Iphone apps that contain a large number of Gutenberg texts, far too many to be able to explore them all. Is there a generally recommended app that both contains the full catalog, and updates regularly with all the new releases? I can just start downloading and experimenting apps until I find one, but I'm hoping someone can save me the trouble because they already know off the top of their heads. Thanks, Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bowerbird at aol.com Sun Aug 29 18:54:50 2010 From: Bowerbird at aol.com (Bowerbird at aol.com) Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 21:54:50 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: I-Phone App Question Message-ID: <8cbcf.5b36547f.39ac696a@aol.com> dave- get eucalyptus. it costs $10. for project gutenberg fans, it's worth it. you'll also want to snare stanza. it's free. it's also worth it. between those two, that's about all you'll need. -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sly at victoria.tc.ca Mon Aug 30 12:04:50 2010 From: sly at victoria.tc.ca (Andrew Sly) Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:04:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: I-Phone App Question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I would also give a vote for Stanza. I've had the chance to use it, and I've found that it works very well. I was impressed that it could deal with multiple languages, and show the correct characters without needing any tweaking. (Too often, programs like that are written that assume that no one needs any characters outside of the Latin-1 repertoire.) --Andrew On Sun, 29 Aug 2010, Dave Doty wrote: > > I only recently got a smartphone, so I beg your indulgence as I admit ignorance of the many threads like this I undoubtedly deleted unread that would have answered my question. > I notice there are a huge number of Iphone apps that contain a large number of Gutenberg texts, far too many to be able to explore them all. Is there a generally recommended app that both contains the full catalog, and updates regularly with all the new releases? I can just start downloading and experimenting apps until I find one, but I'm hoping someone can save me the trouble because they already know off the top of their heads. > Thanks, > Dave From davedoty at hotmail.com Mon Aug 30 22:43:40 2010 From: davedoty at hotmail.com (Dave Doty) Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 05:43:40 +0000 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: I-Phone App Question In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: Thanks to both of you for the recommendation. Dave > Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:04:50 -0700 > From: sly at victoria.tc.ca > To: gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org > Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: I-Phone App Question > > I would also give a vote for Stanza. I've had the chance to use it, > and I've found that it works very well. I was impressed that it could > deal with multiple languages, and show the correct characters without > needing any tweaking. (Too often, programs like that are written that > assume that no one needs any characters outside of the Latin-1 > repertoire.) > > --Andrew > > On Sun, 29 Aug 2010, Dave Doty wrote: > > > > > I only recently got a smartphone, so I beg your indulgence as I admit ignorance of the many threads like this I undoubtedly deleted unread that would have answered my question. > > I notice there are a huge number of Iphone apps that contain a large number of Gutenberg texts, far too many to be able to explore them all. Is there a generally recommended app that both contains the full catalog, and updates regularly with all the new releases? I can just start downloading and experimenting apps until I find one, but I'm hoping someone can save me the trouble because they already know off the top of their heads. > > Thanks, > > Dave > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d at lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From a at avenarius.sk Mon Aug 30 23:54:43 2010 From: a at avenarius.sk (a at avenarius.sk) Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 08:54:43 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: I-Phone App Question In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: <1047541858.20100831085443@avenarius.sk> On Tuesday, 31st August 2010 at 05:43:40 (GMT), which was 7:43 a.m. in Bratislava, Slovakia, Dave Doty wrote: >> I would also give a vote for Stanza. > Thanks to both of you for the recommendation. Stanza absolutely rules; the wealth of its viewing customization options is unrivalled. However, Stanza also has a couple of big deficienciec: notes taking / highlighting / dictionary lookup. This is awful in Stanza. I have yet to find a way to highlight a short paragraph, for example! You're supposed to tap a paragraph and hold, and the paragraph should light up so you can highlight it or select a word to look up in the dictionary. However, this never works for me if a paragraph is short, for example only 1 or 2 lines. :-( This means I can never highlight a short paragraph, or look up any words from short paragraphs in dictionaries. :-( Also, you cannot highlight multiple paragraphs at once. Also, there is no reasonable way to export your comments and highlights. You would need to export each and every comment and highlight individually via email, Facebook or Twitter. Particularly silly is that if you export a comment via email, the entire book file (!) gets attached to your email. There is no way to disable this. So if you email 3 highlights to yourself, you email the same whole book 3 times to yourself! Imagine the overhead. And despite all this, Stanza is fabulous software that I can only recommend for your iPhones/iPads. Both the iBooks and Kindle software for those devices are very poor-featured compared to Stanza, and that's why I never use them on those devices. Kindle (I have both Kindle 2 and Kindle 2 DX) is still my favourite digital reading device *in daytime*. However, after it gets dark, and especially if you want to read in bed just before falling asleep, I don't think you'll find better software than Stanza. -- Yours, Alex. www.aboq.org [processed by "The Bat!", Version 4.2.10.12] From schultzk at uni-trier.de Tue Aug 31 00:19:44 2010 From: schultzk at uni-trier.de (Keith J. Schultz) Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 09:19:44 +0200 Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Wifi Kindle Review (OT) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <12F0C54A-A29C-4FB2-878E-980F55499623@uni-trier.de> Am 29.08.2010 um 04:22 schrieb James Adcock: > WIFI reception is ?brilliant? compared to 3G ? at least in my reception area. Hi James, You actually, can not compare WiFi to 3G. Gernerally, WiFi will have better reception than 3G, but that is due to the fact that you are always near the sender. Yet, on the other side your data through put can be different, even though WiFi can in general have higher data transfer rates than 3G. It always depends on the WiFi network and its internet connect. I have had cases where my 3G data connect was way faster than the WiFi connect because the internet connect only had a 2Mbit. My 3G gave me 7Mbit. regards Keith. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bowerbird at aol.com Tue Aug 31 13:38:54 2010 From: Bowerbird at aol.com (Bowerbird at aol.com) Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:38:54 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [gutvol-d] kindles to be sold at staples Message-ID: <4cb19.4d196437.39aec25e@aol.com> staples will begin selling the kindle. those of you who thought amazon would roll over and die have no idea how much spunk the company has in its being. > http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_STAPLES_KINDLE?SECTION=HOME& SITE=AP&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT in other news, borders has just announced a partnership with "build-a-bear" so patrons of the bookstore will now be able to create a custom-crafted stuffed animal. and no, i'm not joking. -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: