I came across an article on Neowin earlier today and was intrigued by not only the concept but the fact that somebody would actually undertake such an act.
In a nutshell, a company has taken to copying Wikipedia content, publishing and binding them and then selling them to the public. The interesting thing is that this practice isn’t illegal under Creative Commons licensing used by Wikipedia so long as the source is cited.
I guess the question is if this makes any sense?
Personally, I think it is a bit low for a company to be profiteering off the collective work of individuals who donate their time, knowledge and experience to enrich an informal source of information. Having said that, if people are silly enough to actually buy this repackaged content when it is available online for free is it a case of “too bad, so sad”?
That sort of thing would have tabloid journalism written all over it.
Another consideration is the volatility of the subject matter that is being republished. Some articles are more prone to change than others and it could be possible that the republished version could be old even before someone has bought a copy. Print media has always been a “point in time” record of information and has only managed to remain up to date by means of updated editions of a given publication. I’m not sure of how economical it is to release an updated edition of a reference book for example but I am sure it would be more expensive than updating an online article.
Still, money makes the world go round and if someone is willing to part with their hard-earned cash with or without researching the informational source then I guess it comes down to “caveat emptor”. I can imagine that all of those contributors on Wikipedia would be rather annoyed that a third party is financially benefiting from their hard work nonetheless.
2 comments
I personally think its ok to sell the content – best of luck to them. In my mind its about packaging and make things convenient for the customer. The best example in my mind is water. 🙂 Another example, and well used within marketing circles, is the sale of anti-freeze. There was a test to see which would sell the most; the concentrated form where you had to mix with 2 parts water, or the pre-mixed form where you had to do nothing. The latter sold twice the amount.
Author
An interesting morsel of information there, Christopher!
I’ve also heard of people selling software manuals covered by GNU copyleft licensing scheme.
I guess if there is a buck to be made and it’s not illegal then people will do it!