[NatCh]

Silkpag.

Personally, I very much appreciate the work you have done for e-books in general: you've put in a yeoman's effort and I can't help but be a bit awed by it.

However.

The sort of things you've just posted cross several lines here at MobileRead.

We do not tolerate name calling, and actual physical threats are way beyond the pale. It's surprising to me that someone with your legal background doesn't recognize the hazard of doing such a thing, particularly in a documented, public fashion.

That being said, you are quite welcome to disagree, and express that disagreement, so long as you do so in a respectful manner. This community is founded on respectful discussion, and we put a great deal of effort into preserving it.



There are some rather obvious questions that your comments have raised, that I would invite you to explain to us, as I'm sure I'm not the only one who's wondering about them, and I believe the explanations might help us understand each other better.


Are you not making these texts, and your work in creating them, available -- without charge -- under a Creative Commons License which expressly permits non-commercial uses of them?

If so, the claim that someone is out to "take food off [your] table and starve [you] and [your] family" by doing precisely what you've given them permission to do in the CCL -- by doing, in fact, what you yourself are doing -- seems ... difficult to credit.

If you intend your giveaways of the electronic texts to be "free samples" for the purpose of promoting paper copy sales, how does having more exposure hurt that effort in any way?

If you don't want others to share your e-texts, I respectfully suggest that you do have the option to publish them in a way that doesn't give express permission to do precisely that.

If you have some particular guidelines in mind for what you would like in the way of link-backs to your source, I respectfully request that you outline those requirements, in a manner that does not include insults and threats, but which is clear and explicit, so that they can be understood by someone who doesn't already know what you have in mind. You also might want to consider including those specific guidelines in the Creative Commons license notice attached to the texts so that anyone who comes along will understand what those specific guidelines you have in mind are. I believe that would also give more weight to your position.

As it is, what the CCL notice says on the matter is "a link to the book's source page is required, both on the actual book so distributed, and on any page linking directly to the book." When you pointed out to Dr. Drib that he was missing part of that, he complied with that notice -- in spite of its tone -- because he wanted to do things the right way. You may not care to accept that, but the relevant point is that, regardless of the motive you choose to impute to him, he complied with the stated requirements, and corrected his error in that compliance when it was pointed out to him.

If the stated requirements are not what you really have in mind, then you probably want to change them. I imagine that Dr. Drib may be willing to comply with whatever those requirements might actually be, though in my view, he's complied with what was required at the time, and isn't really legally or morally obligated to comply with "requirements" put in place after the fact.

Please note that no one is making any money off the books here at all: they're being given away, free of charge, just as they are on your own site. You had a valid point about the back-links, but that's been addressed. If there are other titles here that are missing them, please let us know which ones and we'll take care of them as well.


Beyond that, you are welcome to bring grievances, and express differences of opinion here as you like, so long as you do so in a respectful manner. Name calling, insults (veiled or otherwise) and threats will not be tolerated.