Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 14, No. 28.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
Date: Sat, 20 May 2000 05:48:12 +0100
From: Paul Brians <brians@mail.wsu.edu>
Subject: Data mining by textbook publishers
Because I've done published some of my translations on the Web, from time
to time I'm contacted by textbook publishers wanting to reprint them in
readers.
So far, in every case, they've offered no money, though they quickly
acceded when I asked a modest fee. And in every case the contract they sent
me had no mention of the fee on it. A follow-up call usually results in my
being told to just write the fee in.
Now why would one design a contract omitting any mention of payment unless
one were hoping to trick the unwary into signing automatically and
forfeiting payment? Has anyone else encountered this sort of attempt at
piratical data mining on the Web?
Then there are the companies that want to sell you public-domain texts at
low, low prices when they're readily available free on the Web.
Professors are viewed by some of these publishers as unintelligent cash
cows, ready for milking.
-- Paul Brians, Department of English Washington State University Pullman, WA 99164-5020 brians@wsu.edu http://www.wsu.edu/~brians
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