Print-on-Demand Wikipedia Content

[Zadignose]

All right. What is the recommended action for the content related to "authors" Ronald Cohn and Jesse Russell?

I put "authors" in quotes because, with one exception (Bog-imperator Dyuny) they are listed only as editors of several thousand "books" which have no authors listed.

The description of every one of their works that I've bothered to look at has been the same: "High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles!"... followed by some information about a subject.

So, restating and summarizing, their books appear to be collections of Wikipedia articles that can be printed on demand. Together they have "written" approximately 89,000 "books" of this sort.

What to do?

[Lobstergirl]

Nothing. They're legit books.

Wikipedia is public domain text. Any print on demand publisher, or you or I, can compile wikipedia articles into books and sell them.

Do a search in this group on "Wikipedia" or "Books LLC" - it will bring up a bunch of threads on this topic.

[Zadignose]

I see. All right then. But with a bit of scripting, it would probably be possible to "publish" so many books that the 13-digit ISBN standard is too small to contain them... about ten trillion... called "from the internet."

Odd that a print-on-demand can be a book even if it has never been printed or demanded.

Edit: Silly or not, maybe I should take my gripe to one of the threads which have dealt with this issue... hmmm...

[Lobstergirl]

Zadignose wrote: "Odd that a print-on-demand can be a book even if it has never been printed or demanded."

Actually there are some publishers (of non-wikipedia content) that only do print on demand. I've also seen university presses where, if a book is not anticipated to sell very many copies, it will be a print on demand book. Otherwise they might print too many copies and have to pay for the book to be stored in a warehouse until it's remaindered.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

One of our more active members who owns a bookstore sells some of these books. Her tourist clientele find them quite valuable.

[Lobstergirl]

And, as I've said in other threads, my library occasionally buys these wikipedia compilations. (Yes, I'll admit it shocked me at first.) They can be useful for people who don't have internet access, or just don't have the inclination to look at 40 different wikipedia entries.