Wikia-Books LLC poll

As you know, there has been a fiasco with Books LLC over them publishing our content. I have recently had a discussion over email. I'll post them soon enough.

Indeed. But we all want to go out with a.....*puts on sunglasses* bang.

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!

Email history:

(Most recent at top, least recent at bottom).

Dear Thomas,

Thanks for the follow-up. I've gotten the BZPower writers to contact you if you wish. Also, we at the BZPower Battles wikia shall make any edits possible. Thanks for your help and kindness!

Regards,

....

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Sent: Wednesday, November 9, 2011 7:16 PM
Subject: RE: booksllc.net en enquiry

Hi ......

Thanks for writing. Regarding your points:

I researched the books you mention below.

6067443 contain articles only from bzpower.wikia.com
6084577 contain articles only from bzpcomics.wikia.com
6087181 contain articles only from bzpowerbattles.wikia.com
6074820 contain articles only from bzpowerbattles.wikia.com

We credited authorship at the end of each article with the source URL. Could you please be so kind as to let me know if that addresses your concern: “group that is not being credited: authors of BZPower epics”?

Thanks for your suggested improvements! The articles in the BZPower Battles books are from the following two categories: Life,_the_Universe,_and_Everything and Unknown_species. Since you are the expert perhaps you wouldn’t mind making the changes you recommend to the wiki (e.g. add the Yoniverse. A better edit would be changing Caiaphus's name to Yon, and saying he leads all the characters in the Yoniverse and their adventures in high school.). If so, I will request that our typesetting department re-typeset and design an updated book.

Regarding: “None of the authors recall your corporation or any party affiliated to it ever contacting them”
I do understand authors who put a lot of time and effort into writing an article would like to know that their article is being published. Unfortunately, we have no way to individually contact the hundreds of thousands of Wikia authors. Furthermore, once you publish an article under a Creative Commons license, it is not customary to contact the author before reprinting it.

Regarding: “the BZPower Battles Wikia, have content that belongs to other companies”
If you notice that a Wikia author is violating a company’s copyright, then I agree with you that this is a concern and one of your editors should remove the copyrighted content from the article. Once that’s done, simply let me know and I will ask our typesetting department to re-typeset and design the book.

Regards,

Thomas
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Subject: Re: booksllc.net en enquiry

Dear Thomas,

Thanks for your response. Sorry if my previous email sounded rather irate.

Thank you for adding the URL, it really assures us Wikia authors that we are being represented in some way. However, I also am speaking for another group that is not being credited: authors of BZPower epics. Books LLC is selling several publications that appear to be copied from epics/comics/other media posted on the site known as BZPower.

None of the authors recall your corporation or any party affiliated to it ever contacting them. Many of them are very angry about this. Also, considering the fact that many of these publications, including those in the BZPower Battles Wikia, have content that belongs to other companies and properties, I am concerned over legal matters involving these books.

And now that you mention the constructive comments, in the BZPower Battles book, you must remember to add the Yoniverse. A better edit would be changing Caiaphus's name to Yon, and saying he leads all the characters in the Yoniverse and their adventures in high school.

Books referenced:
http://booksllc.net/book.cfm?id=6067443
http://booksllc.net/book.cfm?id=6084577
http://booksllc.net/book.cfm?id=6074820
http://booksllc.net/book.cfm?id=6087181


Regards!


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Sent: Tuesday, November 8, 2011 4:45 PM
Subject: RE: booksllc.net en enquiry

Hi – I understand you and some other Wikia editors are angry that we published licensed content from Wikia.

You definitely deserve to be recognized! That is why we included a credit at the end of each article with the source URL.

We didn’t “notify” Wikia’s hundreds of thousands of editors because we don’t have their email addresses.

We would be happy to receive constructive criticisms from you and the editors you represent.

Regards,

Thomas

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Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2011 1:51 PM
To: support@general-books.net
Subject: booksllc.net en enquiry

Uh, what? How come none of the editors were notified of you using their wiki content? I represent 20 or more people who are angered at the actions of your firm. We are the editors of the Wikia, and we deserve to be recognized.

I posted this in the wiki topic, but I'll post this here too.....

IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer), but I believe that, under the terms of the CC-BY-SA licence all Wikia content is licenced under, they can copy our content all they want, as long as they give proper credit. It's kind of stupid that they can do that without even asking the original authors, but there you are. Blame the stupid "OMG FREE KULTURE" people for that.

If we want to prevent further s##t like this happening again, we could move to a lower-profile wiki farm. That would require finding one (I've already got two candidates if anyone's interested), and then having a big discussion about whether to move.

Pros of moving:

• Not having to deal with Wikia's stupidity
  
• New host will not be as high-profile as Wikia, and therefore unlikely to be targeted by idiots like these
  
• We will have access to technical features Wikia refuses to include
  

Cons of moving:

• We are relatively well-known under the Wikia URLs
  
• Bans will not carry over, which means all our banned users will be free to come back and cause havoc until they get banned on the new site
  

If there's any other pros or cons people can think of, please go ahead and post them.

Also, KoN, before you remind me, ShoutWiki is not an option. Why? Because they have been down for months.

Yeah, I know that CC-BY-SA thing.

Blame the stupid "OMG FREE KULTURE" people for that.

Who?

Well, we can move our wikis. But who says we can't have a little fun with LLC first? Maybe encourage them to write their own crap.

It sounds like the guy you are emailing thinks you are trying to HELP them.

LOL, though getting them to write their own stuff and avoid any legal fallouts is kind of helping them, in a way.

True, hopefully they learn from this