Life In 19x19

http://www.amazon.co.uk/game-equipment- ... 6130079648

Something about this book cover really puts me off buying this go book. I mean even to a serious collector of go books, the cover just keeps flashing "Keep away! Keep away!" And this isn't even looking at the price yet.

Clicking on the author's link at Amazon and it reads like they are masters of everything and knowers of nothing.

Digging deeper, I found that the book is from "Alphscript Publishing" from the publisher VDM Publishing.

Checking Wikipedia on VDM Publishing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDM_Publishing

Alphascript Publishing (created in April 2009),[23] Betascript Publishing (created in January 2010) and Fastbook Publishing (created in July 2009)[24] are imprints of VDM Publishing House, which publish and sell collections of freely available Wikipedia articles as commercial printed-on-demand books: "with the Wikipedia-texts at free disposal we create books on interesting topics."

There is an interesting article on Alphascript Publishing at
http://www.chrisrand.com/blog/index.php ... ublishing/
Please note the comment from "Wolfy August 4th, 2010 12:35 pm"

I recently sent a complaint to Amazon regarding getting recommended books by Alphascript Publishing. I’ve just received this today:

Greetings from Amazon.co.uk

Further to your e-mail on July 20, 2010 with regard to the recommendations of books by Alphascript publishing.

I would like to inform that, all Alphascript Wikipedia titles were retired and removed from Createspace.

This item is still available because Amazon has inventory for this particular ASIN. Please note that we are working with the concerned department to determine how much inventory we currently have on hand to determine the scope of the issue.

Rest assured that, we are aware of this issue and working to prevent it occurring.

Just make sure you keep away from this scam with your hard earned money.

Do be aware that a "Top-rated seller" seems to be trying to sell it on Ebay as well.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Go-game-NEW-Frederi ... 20b208b396

According to the Wikipedia "copyleft" policy Wikipedia content may be freely distributed as long as attribution and acknowledgement of authors is given. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: ... se_of_text The question is whether people can sell wikipedia material. Also, does "freely" mean that the distributors don't have to pay wikipedia or authors for use of their material or does it mean that the people to whom the material is distributed don't have to pay for it?

I'm pretty sure they can--there's a separate set of Creative Commons licenses that include "non-commercial" in the name, and they're not using it.

Under several open licenses, you can take the product (software, web page, book), copy it and then sell it, so long as you provide the original for free download. Here's an interesting case of that: http://diveintomark.org/archives/2009/10/19/the-point

Not just a matter of whether it is allowable or not. Just warning our go community that if they purchase or intend to purchase such a book, that they should know exactly what they are paying for. Such being something they could legally obtain freely elsewhere on the internet.

The other point being the use of a photo of the game of backgammon on the cover of a go book.

bwahahahahahaha

Maybe the book was produced by a "bot" that cruised Wikipedia copying material. I would imagine that collectors would want copies of this book because if Amazon bans it seems likely not many copies will be sold and it will be rather rare. I doesn't matter whether the book is any good or not (I think probably not). Colletors seem to search for scarce books like The World of Ki by John Goodell even if they are not good. Actually I think this wikipedia-book is likely not to be very good. If they just copy what's in WP and don't edit it carefully there will be a lot of ungrammatical writing, misspellings, bad-looking diagrams, etc. As we know, WP articles are constantly being edited, sometimes for the worse. Also, WP depends heavily on hypertext linking, just as SL does. That sort of thing doesn't work very well in print.

This has got to be the cheesiest thing I have seen in quite a while. On-demand printing Wiki articles for anyone who thinks they are getting anything besides compiled (and questionable) info that's very, very available for free? I've done self-publishing (and self-printing) and this just smacks of gross misrepresentation and very, very base money grubbing.

Bleah. Any more comments from me right now on this will start to violate TOS.

Bruce "4-color stained clothes" Young

gowan wrote:Maybe the book was produced by a "bot" that cruised Wikipedia copying material. I would imagine that collectors would want copies of this book because if Amazon bans it seems likely not many copies will be sold and it will be rather rare. I doesn't matter whether the book is any good or not (I think probably not). Colletors seem to search for scarce books like The World of Ki by John Goodell even if they are not good.

I certainly understand the point made above. The need (actually a uncontrolled "want") to have everything might in fact include the above.

But I think there are distinctions. Many of the old and not so good go books were important in a world where info was rare, written by key figures (Goodell was a very active go organizer). They are pieces of go history, a foundation that has been built upon.

If this is simply a print as you go compilation that makes a Slate and Shell cover look inspired, I would hope collectors could muster the discipline to pass.

hyperpape wrote:I'm pretty sure they can--there's a separate set of Creative Commons licenses that include "non-commercial" in the name, and they're not using it.

Yeah, I think selling wikipedia material isn't illegal. But you have to credit ALL contributors of the material you use. Wikipedia does that through edit history. In a book, could take many pages... (maybe just providing a link is alright?).

And the wikipedia license is "share alike", which means this book is also under a CC license and may be freely copied and used, like wikipedia content.

That said... publishing wikipedia articles is a strange idea. And the cover is... As a fanzine publisher, I'm shocked. The person who did that not only had no idea about go, but has seemingly never heard of typesetting neither (the word "computer" sitting there all alone on its line, although there's absolutely enough place to let the words "computer go" comfortably on the same line. It's not so easy to make a text so short look that ugly. You've got to try).

No content, no publishing know-how. What is the point?
Edit: OK, now I read all the links. Huh.

I mean, the existence of the book is kinda grotesque and the cover is really funny, I was just being a bit pedantic.

Have you looked at the price yet? They are asking for the equivalent of over USD50 for the book quoted by the cheapest seller at Amazon. You can buy a great thick book like "Invincible" for a similar price.

And what would you get if you bought the Alphascript Publishing book? 124 pages of a dated snapshot of freely available Wikipedia articles on:
"Go (game), Rules of Go, History of Go, Go equipment, Go ranks and ratings, List of professional Go tournaments, Go strategy and tactics, ... Go and mathematics, Computer Go, Go software"

If someone were to ask for a book on such content, I would definitely recommend buying "The Go Player's Almanac 2001" for USD30 from Kiseido as the almanac offers much higher quality and quantity of content for much less money. Although as an "almanac" you would expect more frequent updates than once per decade. Maybe Kiseido should start planning on an update in the near future.

Interesting cover? What is the game, anyone knows? I mean apparently that's not Go

kokomi wrote:Interesting cover? What is the game, anyone knows? I mean apparently that's not Go

Backgammon.

gowan wrote: I would imagine that collectors would want copies of this book because if Amazon bans it seems likely not many copies will be sold and it will be rather rare. I doesn't matter whether the book is any good or not (I think probably not). Colletors seem to search for scarce books like The World of Ki by John Goodell even if they are not good.

I think it is probably fair to say that no collector in any English-speaking country is as fanatic as I am about acquiring every book on go ever pubished. However, even I don't see a print-on-demand volume of material reprinted from public websites as having value. Perhaps if I could get it for a tiny fraction of the cost, then I would consider it for its curiousity value. Also, if Alphascript/VDM were to get busted and the case ended up as a legally significant moment in internet copyright law, then it might be worth something as an exemplar. Otherwise I'm not sure it represents a part of even a completist collection, Besides, would a completist collector have to by a new "edition" every time one of the wikipedia articles is updated?
chiwito

Same thing on Amazon.co.uk, this time "Books llc" http://www.amazon.co.uk/Go-Openings-Opening-Strategy-Avalanche/dp/1157844049/ref=sr_1_23?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283629112&sr=8-23

though they do admit its from wikipedia if you find their website http://booksllc.net/faqs.cfm

They also do some shogi 'books'