on Tue, Nov 06, 2001 at 06:48:29PM -0600, measl@mfn.org (measl@mfn.org) wrote:
On Tue, 6 Nov 2001, Karsten M. Self wrote:
Apparently impervious to irony, CRC at the same time acknowledged in its own court filing that the book was the company's best-selling mathematics title! (This, one month after Mr. Stern had "explained" to me that my book was a back list item that I should not be surprised to see dropped from its promotional materials.)
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In addition to its "instant win," CRC will be paid annually for books they don't sell, according to a formula that both sides have accepted--although we continue to believe that any past or future failure to achieve projected sales is far more plausibly attributed to CRC's abysmal marketing efforts than to any abuse of the web site
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Another important change is that, as part of the settlement agreement, CRC Press will now be given permission to create editions of the printed book based on future snapshots of the web site. As a result, CRC insisted that broad reproduction rights to all contributed material be secured. Furthermore, if we are not able to secure such rights, then Wolfram Research and I, at our own expense, must rewrite the entries in question from scratch for CRC to reproduce.
And he *agreed* to this???
Sorry, but as far as I am concerned, he lost any and all right(s) to bitch about this when he agreed to the "instant win".
What kind of dipshit would AGREE to these kind of things?
I certainly don't have the full story. Many lawsuits are ultimately settled by strategic assessment: does it make more sense to stand and fight, or to settle and avoid more legal expenses. Going up against a publishing beheamoth, the decision of Eric Weisstein and Wolfram makes a certain amount of sense, particularly for a risk-averse company (and virtually all companies are risk averse). There's also the case of various organizations which have sued MAPS. Simply doing so is largely a losing proposition. There are effectively two MAPS blacklists: one you can get yourself off of by correcting a situation, and one you'll never get off of by virtue of having reached a "settlement" with the company. named.conf files in domains I control have authoritative entries for 247media.com, blackice.com, exactis.com, experian.com, harrisinteractive.com, and liveprayer.com. These are hardcoded in countless systems, not maintained by MAPS and other RBLs, and they're not negotiable. The CRC / Information Holdings "victory" is likely to have two lasting impacts: - Other authors of useful online scientific sites are going to be far less likely to enter into agreements with the company, and if they do so, under terms other than the contract Eric initially signed. - The general press for scientific authors (particularly of peer-reviewed journal articles) to find terms other than permanent assignment of all (or at least substantive) copyright will increase. I see this as a win battle / lose war scenario. I also see a potential third scenario. The MathWorld archive is largely notable for two characteristics: - It's associated with Eric Weisstein, and benefits greatly from his stewardship. - Its true strength comes form the guided contributions of many individuals to the site. It's not a product, it's a process. One alternative may be for Eric to continue maintenance of existing content on the MathWorld site, but to create a new site, independent in name from MathWorld, to which user contributions are made. Whether or not this is possible depends heavily on the specifics of the CRC settlement. My feeling is that CRC/IH have slain their golden goose in this case. Peace. -- Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Home of the brave http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ Land of the free Free Dmitry! Boycott Adobe! Repeal the DMCA! http://www.freesklyarov.org Geek for Hire http://kmself.home.netcom.com/resume.html