Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I'd be damned annoyed if anyone were to commercially "publish" any of the books that I've uploaded here, and especially the ones I've spent hundreds of hour proof-reading. I did that for people to enjoy for free, not for someone else to make money from.
I make not be able to stop them from doing so, but I'd be extremely angry if anyone were to do it.
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You probably could stop them, Harry. You could threaten litigation.
If that didn't work, you could actually go so far as to retain a lawyer and have them send out a letter to the individual/company. As I noted, the law around these sort of things is murky enough that all but extremely large companies would be better off avoiding trouble than trying to win (or lose) precedent-setting lawsuits.
Having said that, Harry, I've faced similar anger before from people that feel I've done similar injustice to Project Gutenberg by my edition of The Art of War. A book that is abundantly available in a myriad very poor print editions, some poor enough to skirt consumer-fraud in my mind, precisely because somebody decided to just "publish" it, instead of actually putting in at least the bare-minimum effort necessary to publish it in good faith and in acceptable quality.
Part of me wonders if this is because of our general societal attitude that taking something free and using it to make money is somehow questionable (whether it is done by a multi-million dollar international media conglomerate or a father of two whose one-day-to-come profits will primarily support his family)... leaving only people with deficient scruples doing it, instead of those, who would find their conscience pressing them to ensure the end-product is worth their purchase-price.
- Ahi
Ps.: In case your post, Harry, was meant to be a hint-hint for me... I'll point out that I already wrote in my preceding post: "Definitely
will consult with the uploader,
if ever I find something I'd like to take and work with."