Jasiek Study Journal

[wineandgolover]

Robert,

You still aren't understanding me. This isn't about MJK's actions, it is about your declining free publicity and not gaining the readership and acclaim that, perhaps, you deserve.

You are fully within your right to demand the reviewer cease and desist. Just very misguided IMHO.

Succesful author Cory Doctorow provides free complete downloads on his website for all of his books, even his newest.

His thinking is that current free readers will be future buyers, and that this practice is good publicity. This is an extreme example, and I'd never suggest you or any go-author duplicate this practice. (Actually giving away an early book might be clever marketing)

But to censor a potentially favorable write-up seems like foolishly declining publicity. If you think his approach would give away all the content of your book, then it must be pretty shallow indeed.

Of course, I doubt that your book is shallow, making your choice all the sadder.

[SoDesuNe]

Every time RobertJasiek is called to defend his work, he has to argue with people, who never bought let alone read any of his books - that's how I feel. The whole discussion is almost always about RobertJasiek's statements regarding his general approach to teach and praise of his own work.
People could buy his books and try to proof him wrong through a discussion of his actual work but apparently they feel it's way easier to just make random claims themselves without ever contributing anything in comparison.

The whole discussion is in my eyes entirely personal because - maybe - people don't like the way RobertJasiek presents himself on L19, I don't know. I just know that it's really tiresome to see people again and again questioning his work without regarding it necessary to first study it themselves.

This ongoing discussion about RobertJasiek's decision to ask MJK for a change of approach or limitation is not even the tip of the iceberg anymore. Did any of you - by chance - look at his threads about his books? He not only reviewed them himself which is of course biased but you get the whole TOC and a free sample. You have everything at hand to form yourself an opinion of the book - even reviews by John Fairbairn.

A point-by-point-summarization is not a review-technique, it's way across the border to copyright infringement. And no, copyright does not end when you just rephrase the sentence. It also includes the idea if it's unique enough. (Ohhh, I can see the hordes of comments coming in, explaining why his ideas aren't unique and again, nobody will have read his book beforehand - yawn)


tldr: Bash the book, don't bash RobertJasiek.

[RBerenguel]

Every time RobertJasiek is called to defend his work, he has to argue with people, who never bought let alone read any of his books - that's how I feel. The whole discussion is almost always about RobertJasiek's statements regarding his general approach to teach and praise of his own work.
People could buy his books and try to proof him wrong through a discussion of his actual work but apparently they feel it's way easier to just make random claims themselves without ever contributing anything in comparison.

The whole discussion is in my eyes entirely personal because - maybe - people don't like the way RobertJasiek presents himself on L19, I don't know. I just know that it's really tiresome to see people again and again questioning his work without regarding it necessary to first study it themselves.

This ongoing discussion about RobertJasiek's decision to ask MJK for a change of approach or limitation is not even the tip of the iceberg anymore. Did any of you - by chance - look at his threads about his books? He not only reviewed them himself which is of course biased but you get the whole TOC and a free sample. You have everything at hand to form yourself an opinion of the book - even reviews by John Fairbairn.

A point-by-point-summarization is not a review-technique, it's way across the border to copyright infringement. And no, copyright does not end when you just rephrase the sentence. It also includes the idea if it's unique enough. (Ohhh, I can see the hordes of comments coming in, explaining why his ideas aren't unique and again, nobody will have read his book beforehand - yawn)


tldr: Bash the book, don't bash RobertJasiek.

I agree with your sentiment, and I'd gladly bash the book if I bought it (may happen soon) and it is sub-par. I don't think it will be, though, I've checked several times the sample pages and looks good. The problem is (for me) the way he, as a person presents his points of view. The fact that he has books is a side effect of this, and just amounts to more point-of-view presentation. Even if he wasn't a go writer and teacher, my opinion on him wouldn't be neutral after his post about losing by lack of oxygen.

PS: edited the comment to add a link to said thread.

[tchan001]

And no, copyright does not end when you just rephrase the sentence. It also includes the idea if it's unique enough.

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html

What does copyright protect?
Copyright, a form of intellectual property law, protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed.

How do I protect my idea?
Copyright does not protect ideas, concepts, systems, or methods of doing something. You may express your ideas in writing or drawings and claim copyright in your description, but be aware that copyright will not protect the idea itself as revealed in your written or artistic work.

Now if RJ can get patent protection for his intellectual property which covers all the different countries he is interested in deriving income from his IP, that's a different matter. If he tries this path, he may need to apply to the patent office of each country of interest in gaining protection within a certain period of time dated from his first application or it will not be under patent protection in those countries where it was not applied for within the time limit.

[RBerenguel]

Hmmm maybe we could patent josekis. Make the first 20 games random or pay. Interesting.

[Cassandra]

MJK's summary on what he has read

...
Do not play too early local endgame moves. View the whole board and find the big, important, or urgent areas; play there.

...
A bigger gap or space is more valuable than a smaller one. Identify what is bigger as you know which 'A' on the right is bigger (A A); again, play there.

...
Move to the wider, more valuable direction when developing territory or moyo, securing life, strengthening a weak group, or when attempting to achive multiple intentions stated.

...
When confronted with a choice of attacking or defending different groups, invest your stone in the bigger group. Never overlook or ignore the important weak group.

...

lets us know that several "principles" / "guidelines" / "proverbs", which have bean revealed before a very long time, and are part of common Go knowledge today, are treated in Robert's book.

It does not tell us how to decide on "too early", "big", "important", "urgent", "bigger", "more valuable", "smaller", "wider", "important weak", "developing", "securing", "strenghtening", "attacking", "defending", which all might be part of "new secrets" that Robert probably has found / developed on his own.

In my opinion, Robert's complaint is not covered by "copyright issues", and Robert indeed has destroyed a great chance (concerning the selling of his books) unrequested.

[RobertJasiek]

Succesful author Cory Doctorow provides free complete downloads

He is not an author of English go books or other small market books, right? The topic of free copies was discussed and explained in other threads. Summary: what applies to authors like him does not apply to English go book authors. EOT.

[wineandgolover]

No doubt free publicity and good public relations have been discussed before, too. It's too bad you didn't pay attention, and blew this opportunity.

I wish you the best.

[RobertJasiek]

Cassandra, as tchan has already pointed out, IDEAS are not copyrighted. What is limited by copyright is CITATIONS.

First Fundamentals does (probably) not contain new theory, but contains new wordings of ideas in the principles and contains a particular choice of such principles. I think it would be interesting to compare with descriptions of the same or similar ideas in other sources and selections of such ideas in other sources (or verbal heritage).

[wineandgolover]

Okay I have bought three Jasiek go books from Schaak en Go Winkel het Paard.

Wonder if he returns them.

[daal]

No doubt free publicity and good public relations have been discussed before, too. It's too bad you didn't pay attention, and blew this opportunity.

I wish you the best.

What in the world makes you presume that you have a better idea than Robert about what's in his best interests? Certainly it would be disappointing if MJK indeed decides to abandon his project, but that's not what Robert asked him to do. All he said was that he doesn't want MJK to state more that 1/3 of the book's content. That doesn't seem like an onerous restriction to me. I can't see what good it does to continue to berate Robert for not agreeing with your ideas about the best way for him to publicize and market his books.

[SoDesuNe]

And no, copyright does not end when you just rephrase the sentence. It also includes the idea if it's unique enough.

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html

What does copyright protect?
Copyright, a form of intellectual property law, protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed.

How do I protect my idea?
Copyright does not protect ideas, concepts, systems, or methods of doing something. You may express your ideas in writing or drawings and claim copyright in your description, but be aware that copyright will not protect the idea itself as revealed in your written or artistic work.

Now if RJ can get patent protection for his intellectual property which covers all the different countries he is interested in deriving income from his IP, that's a different matter. If he tries this path, he may need to apply to the patent office of each country of interest in gaining protection within a certain period of time dated from his first application or it will not be under patent protection in those countries where it was not applied for within the time limit.

My apologies for my bad english, I just took "copyright" and "ideas" as the first best substitute but of course in a legal context that is too murky.
The german Urheberrechtsgesetz, which should apply since RobertJasiek is german and sells from Germany, knows general exploitation rights, which grant the author the right of distribution and the Recht der öffentlichen Zugänglichmachung (something like: "right of making your work public", it deals with the internet).
You can't give away the contents of a book because this right does only belong to the author of the book. You may quote the book and the author but only a reasonable amount is allowed.

The only debatable point here is whether RobertJasiek book shows a substantial accomplishment from the author, which can't be reproduced from anyone anytime (non-legal translation of "Der Urheber muss also etwas geschaffen haben, das mehr Eigenes enthält als eine Leistung, wie sie allgemein von jedem bzw. jedem anderen mit vergleichbarer Ausbildung und Begabung erbracht werden kann"; Möhring/Nicolini, Urheberrechtsgesetz, 2. Aufl. 2000, § 2 Rdn. 65).

[Bantari]

I have to say - this time I am 100% on RJ's side. He is the author, and it is his decision to make how his book should and should not be presented. It is not for us to judge what is better for him and what supports his business model and what does not. Simply put - it is his decision, and he knows better. So if he asks politely: please do not do that to my book - it is his right and it is our responsibility to say: sure, will do.

About the actual request:
As some people mentioned, RJ did not ask OP to stop, just to modify the review slightly as to not give away so much content. I find that request perfectly reasonable. There are plenty of book review out there which do a good job reviewing without giving away any of the content at all. You don't need to look any further than this forum. So it is possible.

About the content of the book:
From what I understand, RJ's unique approach to teaching/writing is centered around enumerating his knowledge and presenting it in form of 'principles'. It is a very good approach, and in many ways this is what makes his work more or less unique. And certainly the actual principles and their organization makes it unique. So I understand that he is reluctant to allow somebody to just state all of the principles from the book in an open forum - because this is the very cornerstone of the book. Sure, people can still buy it for additional explanation or examples, but the biggest cat is out of the bag.

About this thread:
I think this thread is a stroke of genius, in its idea, even if its not a new idea - and this is exactly what I thought when I read the first post explaining what its all about. This is why I got interested. I think study journals like that, centered around specific book or series of books are extremely interesting. Not just because they provide a great book review, but also because they are more focused and targeted than the usual "1 dan in a year" stuff. I would very much like this journal to continue. But I would also like it to respect RJ's wishes regarding how his works gets presented. I see no contradiction in that - it is certainly possible, even easy, to accomplish both at the same time.

That's all.
For now.

[MJK]

Let me start with an example. I am much interested in the English grammar, Korean grammar as well, and especially the Syntax of the English language although I do not wish some kind of a degree for it; rather hobbywise. There is a book called '맨투맨 기초영어 (Literally, Man to Man Basic English)'. It is the first book about English that I seriously studied, and is about the English grammar, more specifically the syntax. It is 'basic' as the title shows, and although having 367 quite a lot pages, the explanations are brief and a lot of example sentences with big and clear font forms a considerable part of the book. Still, my English sentences are mainly or even virtually based on the principles stated in this book. There is also a book named 'A Student's Grammar of the English Language' and moreover 'A Comprehensive Grammar of the English language'. They have 490 pages and 1779(!) pages each. The former is more comprihensive than the 'Man to Man' and the latter certainly the most as the title and the page number suggest. What is in 'Man to Man' is in 'Student's Grammar' and what is in 'Student's Grammar' is in the 'Comprehensive Grammar'. If 'Man to Man' is enough for me to understand the English grammar and apply it to actual sentences, why would I ever attempt to read the other two? And why is that 'Student's Grammar' currently in my bookshelf wating to be read by me? If anyone has read the 'Man to Man' or any other similar grammar book, would they not read more detailed, academic, comprehensive etc. books of the related subjects?

When trying to learn something by reading, you do not start with, for example, a book for a PhD student. You might at first look up the wikipedia or some simple books in your shelf or the library. A moment of reading PhD level books might finally be reached, but again, finally.

I intended to make a bridge to Robert's books. But the method seems to have been inappropriate. I will for sure read all of Robert's books and will post a review, not a summary, every time I finish reading a single book, and this will be in 'Go Book Reviews'.

[wineandgolover]

I can't see what good it does to continue to berate Robert for not agreeing with your ideas about the best way for him to publicize and market his books.

My initial goal was certainly not to berate Robert, but I can certainly see how it comes across that way, and I apologize for the tenor.

I think I got frustrated because he refused to discuss or even acknowledge my points about publicity and PR, and their impact on sales.

What makes me qualified to discuss these things? I built, grew, and sold a business by embracing these, erm, fundamental principles. And I want go-related authors and companies to succeed.

But you are correct. It's Robert's business and I will drop it now.