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World eBook Fair, Gutenberg.com and Chris Andrews: A few boring questions about Michael Hart’s PG trademark and other grubby details
May 5, 2006 | 7:35 am
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By David Rothman
Update, May 6: Additional thoughts are here.
The new World eBook Fair includes “more than 330,000 PDF” e-books and other documents in “100+ languages” from “90 Collections.” The Fair holds worldebookfair.com, a domain name registered in March by John Guagliardo, a friend of Project Gutenberg founder Michael Hart.
I’d be curious about ties between those projects–and far more so about Gutenberg.com, which is registered to Chris Andrews (pictured here) with a meat-space address listed in Los Altos, California. Significantly this is the same Andrews as the digital publishing consultant who owns chrisandrews.com. The Andrews site says: “Being involved in several projects in Europe, he also began two personal projects of his, Mozart.com and Gutenberg.com, both [of] which he owns and are currently in prototype stage. Mozart.com is being produced in collaboration with Imagemark [link added] and will be the center for the worldwide celebrations for Mozart’s 250th birthday in 2006, and Gutenberg.com is slated to be an intellectual property website.” For now, the graphics of Gutenberg.com look like those at Gutenberg.cc, the Project Gutenberg Consortia Center established by John Guagliardo.
Friendly suggestion: Clarify trademark status and other details
On the main Gutenberg site at gutenberg.org, a listing of cooperating sites says: “Project Gutenberg Consortia Center (PGCC). Collections of collections, with numerous languages and formats. Sponsored by the World eBook Library.”
I think it would be cool if the Gutenberg partners-and-affiliates page gave us the names of all the affiliates and explained the relationships–not just in a business sense but in a consumer sense, so people would know which site was best for which purpose, beyond talk of such-and-such number of books on such-and-such site. If nothing else, what’s the Gutenberg trademark situation, especially with gutenberg.com? This .com stuff is fine as long as Project Gutenberg and Distributed Proofreaders volunteers are happy and feel they’ve been levelled with and the trademark issues have been appropriately addressed. Michael Hart claimed the Project Gutenberg service mark (registration number 2549553) personally. I don’t know the history of Gutenberg.com, only that it was created on Feb. 28, 1995, and updated on Jan. 23, 2005. Any changes in ownership in ’05? How did the .com end up with Chris Andrews? Perhaps I’m overlooking something, but a Google search apparently doesn’t turn up previous connections between the nonprofit Gutenberg.org and this particular Andrews.
Meanwhile I hope that the new projects will add up to more money for the original nonprofit Project Gutenberg’s valuable work. LibraryCity, an embryonic and unrelated library effort in which I’m involved, would among other things help increase public domain content for unencumbered use by organizations of all kinds, including Gutenberg. Ideally the same philosophy will apply to Gutenberg.com. LibraryCity wants every PD title to be available for free to the whole cosmos, PG included. That’s our philosophy–I personally dislike the idea of even a small subscription fee for public domain books if other business models can instead suffice. I hope that Project Gutenberg and its affiliates will feel the same way.
The philosophy of the World eBook Fair
As for the present philosopy of the World eBook Fair, which apparently will mix public domain and nonpublic domain content, here is what the FAQ page says:
Ten times as many eBooks are available from private eBook sources without the media circus that comes with 100 billion dollar media mavens such as Google, and The World eBook Fair has gathered up a wide ranging sample of these eBooks, totaling 1/3 million. Here are eBooks from nearly every classic author on the varieties of subjects only previously available through the largest library collections in the world. Now these books are yours for the taking, free of charge, to keep for the rest of your lives. This event is brought to you by the oldest and largest free eBook source on the Internet, Project Gutenberg, with the assistance of The World eBook Library, the providers of the largest collection, and a number of other eBook efforts around the world. The World eBook Library normally charges $8.95 per year for their online collection, and allows unlimited permanent downloading. During The World eBook Fair all these books are available free of charge through a gateway at http://www.gutenberg.org.”
I don’t see the exact name of World eBook Fair listed on Gutenberg’s home page or partners page yet, but I assume that’s on the way.
The World eBook Fair and e-book standards:
While open-minded about the existence of all these Gutenberg cousins if they go by the book, I know the Fair and I would see differently on e-book standards issues. Promoting the World eBook Library, the Fair site says:
… eBooks come in numerous formats with many different presentations, features, and accessibility. Many eBook formats permit only single or partial page viewing and do not allow you to change viewing presentation or font sizes. Such formats also typically fail to capture the rich texture, and visual quality of a printed book. Furthermore, many formats also require the reader to purchase costly software or hardware for proper viewing.
To address these common format limitations, the World eBook Library uses the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) to ensure that each eBook meets our high quality standards while retaining a comparable look and feel to a printed book. Additional advantages of Adobe eBook technology include its compact file size, can be easily downloaded, and the ability to be read while disconnected from the Internet. Unlike other formats the PDF works on all major computing platforms using the widely distributed free Adobe Reader 6.0 software. Adobe reader’s prevalence and familiarly of use also increases readership and eliminates confusion associated with specialized eBook reading software.
I remain disappointed that a particular proprietary format could be so aggressively promoted on a site with Gutenberg ties. There can be great synergies between the commercial and noncommercial sides. But this isn’t one of them.
No judgment right now about Chris Andrews
About Chris Andrews, himself a potential bridge between sectors, I’ll make no such judgments right now. His site describes him as “an executive and consultant in Marketing, Product Management, and Business Development, with special expertise in Internet Marketing, Digital Publishing, and Intellectual Property. In 2005, Mr. Andrews was selected as one of the key people to make the greatest impact in making North America the world’s digital media capital, by the international media magazine One-to-One. Mr. Andrews was awarded a patent for a new Internet sales and shopping engine, designed to increase sales for merchants. He managed the Internet marketing, business development, and digital productions for the Grammy Awards, and as well has worked on major projects with leading technology companies HP, IBM, Apple and others.” More power to the Project Gutenberg if the Andrews involvement is indeed to the advantage of the nonprofit side.
Bottom line
I’m going to query Michael, John and Chris and see if they can fill us in on the details. The existence of the previously known PG affiliates is old old news (even if Michael should have revealed his arrangements with John Guagliard earlier) and their growth could be welcome if it increases the supply of public domain books and everything happens by the rules. I’m just curious how someone can end up with a domain name as valuable as Chris Andrews’ gutenberg.com and use it for Gutenberg-related activities with the apparent cooperation of Michael’s friend. What are the trademark and licensing arrangements and compensation deals? Who’s getting paid? Michael Hart’s ownership of the “Project Gutenberg” trademark does not necessarily mean he’s profiting from gutenberg.com. Even if he is, it could well be in a by-the-book way. Are there any contracts he can share with Gutenberg volunteers? Meanwhile, speaking of licensing and related issues, what’s meant by “intellectual property site”? And will names of users of the Fair site or the eBook Library or any other Gutenberg partners or affiliates be sold?
I’d really like to see these issues and related ones taken care of fast. Turn over that trademark to the Project Gutenberg organization, Michael. It’s ok not to starve in your old age. Just try harder to go by the rules of established nonprofits built with the sweat of thousands of volunteers. Your personal ownership of the trademark will not help PG fund-raising efforts. If nothing else, what happens when you die? Surely you don’t intend for a private party ever to own the trademark, do you? Best to make that clear explicitly–and assure the volunteers that the .org site and the trademark will be forever safe from private ownership. Domains names can be influenced reflect trademark status, so these are not academic questions.
Before I write Michael and the others, I invite readers to come up with their own questions. Let’s keep open minds. Again, for all I know, except for the fixation on the proprietary Adobe format, all this could be A Good Thing if proper procedures are followed, especially the trademark-related ones.
Detail: I spotted news of World eBook Fair via MobileRead, and I really intended this as just a quick, routine mention of World eBook Fair. I hadn’t the slightest idea that gutenberg.com–which I checked at random–would turn up mention of Chris Andrews and raise a whole bunch of new questions about use of the Gutenberg name.
Related: Michael’s announcement to the Book People List. Notice what’s not said in the release about the details of the business model? Also, how did the number of 1/3 mllion come up? Just how many of the books are unique titles? To what extent were volunteers, beyond Michael’s close assocites, consulted? Meanwhile John Mark Ockerbloom, owner of the BPL, has raised questions, and at least one other BL member has done the same.
Update, 11:43 a.m.: From the World eBook Library: “© World eBook Library, WorldLibrary.net. 1996- 2006, All Rights Reserved World Wide. World eBook Library is a branch of the World Public Library, a Non-Profit Organization (501-C6), and is NOT affiliated with any governmental agency or department.” So who’s on the board of WPL? Is Michael among the board members? And what are all the possible ties with Chris Andrews’ “intellectual property” site, beyond the design matching that of John G’s Consortium Center site? Plus, how about possible tax ramifications if contributors get confused?
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Comments:
” Many eBook formats permit only single or partial page viewing and do not allow you to change viewing presentation or font sizes. . . .
“To address these common format limitations, the World eBook Library uses the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) . . .”
So to solve the problem of a page-oriented format and being unable to change the presentation, they’ve selected a format that is page-oriented and doesn’t allow you to change the presentation or font size.
What’s wrong with this picture?
OpenReader anyone?
Yep, definitely an odd statement from the World eBook Library regarding PDF.
The oddities with the PG/WEBL association (whatever that association is) include:
PG has always been focused on easy to access and repurpose digital texts, while WEBL, with PDF, is the “anti-PG” (this is Lee’s point.)
Feedback I’ve received is that a large number of the WEBL books are not books as we know them, and there are many duplicates — we have severe “count inflation.”
Related to count inflation, why this over-obsession with the number of books?
The overall fuzziness of the exact relationship between PG and WEBL.
The unusualness of Michael Hart’s press release not being posted to the Project Gutenberg volunteer’s list, gutvol-d.
Comments on the above points? Am I offbase?
And has anyone reading this paid for a WEBL membership? For a site claiming the moon, they certainly are operating outside the radar of the ebook mainstream.
Michael Hart has always been obsessed with the number of books. As a Gutenberg volunteer, I am getting a touch tired of all these bizzare commercial connections when there’s a wide variety of noncommercial non-English groups, like lib.ru, that we really should be working closer with.
the number fetish has been there since the beginning. I think it’s probably due to the fact that they can’t exactly give any sort of quality goals decides a numerical one. Since volunteers pick what to produce its very scattered as to what exactly the collection is. I spend the last year on their announcements mailing list and have seen more obscure novels and religious tracts than I care to name. If they were to write a short paragraph about why they bothered to scan something it would be helpful.
For more then five year David Rothman and Jon Noring have waged a war to take over Project Gutenberg for their personal financial benefit. You two guys make us volunteers sick. I have worked hard to support Mike Hart’s PG. All this time all I have heard from you is bizarre conspiracy theories and negativities. Just shut-up already.
Talk about strange theories. I’m the one saying that PG books should if at all possible be absolutely free. WEBL and the rest are the ones trying to get a subscription fee in under the camel’s tent. There is a place for fees–for copyrighted content–but I don’t want to see them for public domain works, the focus of PG. I just don’t envision money in PG if it truly follows the “free” philosophy.
No, we are not trying to take over PG, as if we could (PG was deaf for our original pleas for major reforms)! We are busy enough with our own library project and wish PG all kinds of luck. In fact, we’ll look forward to using PG/DP’s public domain texts for our project, just so they’re in compliance with DP and library standards. Beyond that, I want to see PG thrive as a way for ordinary folks to get their favorite books online without having to deal with publishers or librarycrats.
The people I’d most like to see on the PG board would be Distributed Proofreaders along with especially outstanding PG contributors. If, however, I were on the board, I’d insist on organizational ownership of the trademark so it would be easier to raise money and properly compensate the guys who most deserve it–Michael and Greg Newby, his executive director.
Despite my disagreements with Michael on the trademark and some other issues, I believe he deserves decent pay and a comfortable old age. Organzational ownership of the trademark would make it easier to raise money for PG and accomplish those objectives.
David Rothman is waiting for Michael Hart to Die
Why are you so obsessed with taking ownership of PG’s trademark, and keep mentioning what happens when he dies, and suggesting that he should retire. I just found hundreds of different postings you have made talking about who should inherent the PG trademark. Do you think you are entitled to it? You keep mentioning that DP should have it. Could you clarify your relationship with DP. I assume that you are involved with DP in some capacity. It sounds to us readers like you feel you should have it. Could you clairify to us your qualifications for manager of the PG trademark. If DP was able to get it what would they do with it? Do you and DP want to market it differently?
All I can say is, it is most disrespectful to PG and all of the PG volunteers that you, who has done little, if nothing, to help PG, would posture yourself is such a way to say you could do it better – while offering sleazy criticism and no substantial suggestions.
Wow, your PG comments are curious at the very least. I’ve done HUNDREDs of postings on the trademark issue?
Oh, and here’s another little detail. I’ve suggested that PG itself get ownership of the trademark, so that when Michael dies (hopefully not soon!) there won’t be complications for the group.
By “group,” incidentally, I mean the wonderful nonprofit PG–rather than the problematic offshoots, or whatever they are, that have popped up. What about the truth behind domains such as gutenberg.com, now owned by marketer Chris Andrews, who, at least for now, is using Hawaii John’s favorite layout? How about the question of an Andrews-HJ relationship? Or one with Michael Hart? Were trademark-related permissions given? The terms?
As for DP, I’ve suggested that it get a seat on the PG board. So what’s the problem? DP is the largest contributor of e-texts for PG.
The frustration is that I’d LOVE to see PG get some nice funding for digitization of e-books. If PGLAF owned the trademark, that would be simpler. A board with DP’s Juliet Sutherland or Charles Franks and other e-book people on it would help as well. I’ve got a pretty busy life and am NOT campaigning for the PG board. Is someone else, however, campaigning to keep the board in the hands of Michael’s Illinois friends rather than involving the likes of Juliet and Charles? Your comments suggest an agenda, to phrase things politely.
Note: Juliet and Charles are innocent–I’m making the board-related recommendation without their asking me to. Nor have they suggested my posts on the trademark issue.
Thanks,
David