[Taxacom] PS2: copyright infringement by "Nabu Press"?

[Stephen Thorpe]

one more thought: it makes no sense to me to call BHL's use of the item "non-commercial", not only because BHL are a commercial outfit, but also because they are not the end users of the item. End users go to BHL for the item, and, if they want the item for information for some commercial project, there is nothing to stop them going to BHL for the item, rather than buying it from the original publisher. In other words, there are in principle more commercial uses than just selling a copy of the item on ...



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From: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
To: Doug Yanega <dyanega at ucr.edu> 
Cc: "TAXACOM at MAILMAN.NHM.KU.EDU" <TAXACOM at MAILMAN.NHM.KU.EDU> 
Sent: Thursday, 29 March 2012 1:22 PM
Subject: PS: copyright infringement by "Nabu Press"?


PS: I said that nobody is losing money, but of course the buyer is. BUT, isn't that their own fault, and no reason for the original author/publisher to complain?? They have not been misled, because Nabu presumably don't say that the item isn't available freely elsewhere. Isn't the buyer just guilty of "not shopping around"???



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From: Doug Yanega <dyanega at ucr.edu>
To: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz> 
Cc: TAXACOM at MAILMAN.NHM.KU.EDU 
Sent: Thursday, 29 March 2012 12:54 PM
Subject: Re: copyright infringement by "Nabu Press"?


Stephen wrote:

note that the book is available freely on BHL: http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/22641
 
if Nabu are selling what is already free, then I suspect it is just acaveat emptor situation, rather than a copyright infringement

There is a difference, from my understanding of coypright law, between commercial use and non-commercial use. The BHL online copy is a non-commercial use. The Nabu Press copy is commercial. I am reasonably sure that certain restrictions on the latter do not apply to the former. It is admittedly not impossible that KU has waived its copyrights entirely, and all of KU's publications are public domain now, but I would prefer to hear it from someone in a position to know, definitively. When this company publishes 600,000 works a year, all of them digital copies of online documents, they certainly can't be checking the copyright restrictions very carefully on each and every one. The question is, will anyone ever actually challenge them on it? It bears mentioning that this company may in fact be owned by Amazon itself http://www.shaftek.org/blog/2010/07/11/nabu-press-bibliobazaar/ - as Mike Ivie noted. That would certainly lead to complaints falling on deaf
 ears.

I imagine that the scenario here is that this company is banking on any individual copyright holder being unwilling to take the matter to court, with all the costs that entails, over something so trivial as a minor scientific publication, of which maybe one or two copies were ever actually sold on Amazon (if the lawsuit can only claim a right to proceeds from sale, then who is going to file a lawsuit for a share of $25?). But if they actually sell a total of 80,000 of these minor scientific publictions a year at 12 bucks each, from several thousand different publishers, though, the scale of the issue becomes rather different. Since I myself am not a copyright holder with legal rights to assert, I'm not the one to spearhead anything, but it strikes me that it might require a lawsuit with LOTS of affected copyright holders, acting through a single legal representative, to make a cost-effective legal challenge. That is why I made as public an issue of this
 as I could; while no individual would ever be in a position to take this company to court, maybe someone will get a GROUP organized.

Again, I think it is essential that we confirm that copyright violations have actually occurred, and - if so - work to coordinate efforts to pursue things as far as possible. I've set off the flare, someone else will need to lead the assault.

Sincerely,
-- 

Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314        skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
             http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82