From: <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 05:29:46 +0000

With respect to Eric's comments that OECD could have done a good
Kindle edition ourselves, we could have except that that would have
increased our costs (because we do not have Kindle editions in our
existing workflow) and we were already in a situation where the
available funding to offset publishing costs was inadequate. (Ensuring
adequate funding for Gold OA is the key challenge. Without that, it
frankly doesn't matter what the license is because the work won't
exist.) The point I was trying to make is that using a -BY licence
increases the reputational risk for the rights-holder should the work
be transformed, converted or re-used. Granted, the risk is small, but
it is there.

Toby Green
Head of Publishing
OECD


> On 2 Jun 2015, at 03:04, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: Eric Hellman <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2015 19:12:43 -0400
>
> Toby Green's comment draws a conclusion that may propagate an
> incorrect understanding of CC-BY.
>
> In fact, the same situation could have occurred for CC-BY-SA and
> CC-BY-ND, as all the CC licenses allow for format conversion, even bad
> format conversion. Without this provision, the book would be doomed to
> go dark when PDF or whatever becomes obsolete.
>
> Also, what OECD should have done is put the book into a good Kindle
> Edition themselves. To tell the authors that nothing could be done was
> a disservice.
>
> Eric
>
> Eric Hellman
> President, Gluejar.Inc.
> Founder, Unglue.it https://unglue.it/
> http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/
> twitter: @gluejar
>
>> On May 30, 2015, at 11:27 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> From: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 10:43:13 +0000
>>
>> Sandy's point reminded me of a CC-BY story. A couple of years ago we
>> published a book on behalf of UNESCO who had just adopted a policy of
>> using CC-BY on all their works. About six months after publication,
>> the authors called us because they had discovered a version of their
>> publication as an Amazon Kindle Edition, available for sale from
>> Amazon. They weren't troubled by the fact that Amazon was selling the
>> work, what upset them was the quality of the Kindle edition. It seems
>> that Amazon had downloaded the PDF from UNESCO's website and had
>> converted it somehow into a Kindle edition. In this process, the page
>> layout sort of fell apart and the overall qualitative presentation was
>> pretty poor. We wondered if Amazon had developed a CC-BY-seeking robot
>> out to sniff out works like this and had an automatic process that
>> converted them to Kindle because the poor quality suggested that no
>> human had checked it before it was offered for sale.
>>
>> The authors asked us to issue Amazon with a take-down notice because
>> they felt the poor quality of this version of their work might reflect
>> badly on them. We explained that Amazon had done nothing wrong under
>> the terms of a CC-BY licence and that we could do nothing. As Sandy
>> says, be careful what you wish for.
>>
>> Toby Green
>> Head of Publishing
>> OECD