Xref: lugnet.com lugnet.robotics:6678 Newsgroups: lugnet.robotics Path: lugnet.com!lugnet From: lego-robotics@crynwr.com (Jonathan Knudsen) Subject: O'Reilly book news Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Reply-To: Jonathan Knudsen <jonathan@oreilly.com> Sender: jknudsen@m9.sprynet.com Organization: None X-Nntp-Gateway: lego-robotics@crynwr.com Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19990903163215.0097e4a0@m9.sprynet.com> X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.5 (32) Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Nntp-Posting-Host: lugnet.com Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 20:32:15 GMT Original-From: Jonathan Knudsen <jonathan@oreilly.com> X-Real-Life-Name: Jonathan Knudsen Lines: 20 The MIT Press bookstore will have a booth at MindFest; they will be selling my book. The release date for the book is October 15, in plenty of time for Christmas. Finally, the title will probably change, to avoid legal trouble with you-know-who. O'Reilly's catalog page: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lmstorms/ Amazon's page (still lists the wrong release date): http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1565926927/ Thanks, Jonathan -- Did you check the web site first?: http://www.crynwr.com/lego-robotics
Xref: lugnet.com lugnet.robotics:6679 Newsgroups: lugnet.robotics Path: lugnet.com!mattdm From: mattdm@mattdm.org (Matthew Miller) X-Real-Life-Name: Matthew Miller Subject: Re: O'Reilly book news X-Newsreader: slrn (0.9.4.3 UNIX) Reply-To: mattdm@mattdm.org Organization: None Message-ID: <slrn7t0dlr.uok.mattdm@jadzia.bu.edu> References: <3.0.5.32.19990903163215.0097e4a0@m9.sprynet.com> X-Nntp-Posting-Host: jadzia.bu.edu Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 20:59:37 GMT Lines: 10 Jonathan Knudsen <lego-robotics@crynwr.com> wrote: >Finally, the title will probably change, to avoid >legal trouble with you-know-who. Really? Lawyers are silly. What possible problem could there be? -- Matthew Miller ---> mattdm@mattdm.org Quotes 'R' Us ---> http://quotes-r-us.org/
Xref: lugnet.com lugnet.robotics:6680 Newsgroups: lugnet.robotics Path: lugnet.com!lugnet From: lego-robotics@crynwr.com (Jonathan Knudsen) Subject: Re: O'Reilly book news Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Reply-To: Jonathan Knudsen <jonathan@oreilly.com> Sender: jknudsen@m9.sprynet.com Organization: None X-Nntp-Gateway: lego-robotics@crynwr.com Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19990903172246.0096b630@m9.sprynet.com> X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.5 (32) References: <3.0.5.32.19990903163215.0097e4a0@m9.sprynet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Nntp-Posting-Host: lugnet.com Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 21:22:46 GMT Original-From: Jonathan Knudsen <jonathan@oreilly.com> X-Real-Life-Name: Jonathan Knudsen Lines: 28 At 08:59 PM 9/3/99 GMT, you wrote: >Jonathan Knudsen <lego-robotics@crynwr.com> wrote: >>Finally, the title will probably change, to avoid >>legal trouble with you-know-who. > >Really? Lawyers are silly. What possible problem could there be? The whole thing is kind of silly. LEGO felt that we shouldn't be allowed to publish a book without paying them a license fee. We didn't think we needed to pay a license fee to write about their product; after all, we don't do that for anyone else, like Sun, or Microsoft. Basically we need to change the title in order to avoid marketplace confusion--it needs to be very clear that our product is not produced or supported by LEGO. We'll also have a prominent disclaimer inside somewhere. We're following our lawyers' suggestions to minimize our legal risk. We'll see what happens. Jonathan -- Did you check the web site first?: http://www.crynwr.com/lego-robotics
Xref: lugnet.com lugnet.robotics:6681 Newsgroups: lugnet.robotics Path: lugnet.com!lugnet From: lehman@javanet.com (Todd Lehman) X-Real-Life-Name: Todd Lehman Subject: Re: O'Reilly book news X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.11/32.235 Organization: Fibblesnork Software, Boston, MA, USA Message-ID: <37d03f49.8802410@lugnet.com> References: <3.0.5.32.19990903163215.0097e4a0@m9.sprynet.com> <3.0.5.32.19990903172246.0096b630@m9.sprynet.com> X-Nntp-Posting-Host: bos-us545.javanet.com Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 21:55:52 GMT Lines: 22 Jonathan Knudsen: > Basically we need to change the title in order to avoid marketplace > confusion--it needs to be very clear that our product is not produced > or supported by LEGO. We'll also have a prominent disclaimer inside > somewhere. We're following our lawyers' suggestions to minimize our > legal risk. > > We'll see what happens. How about a "name the book" contest? - Learning NQC, pbFORTH, and legOS - Mastering Plastic Binding Brick Robots with Lots of Neat Moving Parts - RCX Programming in a Nutshell - RCX Hacking: The Definitive Guide - Essential Guide to LEGOŽ MINDSTORMS™ Hacking with Third-Party Software - Programming LEGOŽ MINDSTORMS™ Robots using Unofficial Software - LEGOŽ MINDSTORMS™ Annoyances :*) --Todd
Xref: lugnet.com lugnet.robotics:6686 Newsgroups: lugnet.robotics Path: lugnet.com!mattdm From: mattdm@mattdm.org (Matthew Miller) X-Real-Life-Name: Matthew Miller Subject: Re: O'Reilly book news X-Newsreader: slrn (0.9.4.3 UNIX) Reply-To: mattdm@mattdm.org Organization: None Message-ID: <slrn7t13v5.7it.mattdm@jadzia.bu.edu> References: <3.0.5.32.19990903163215.0097e4a0@m9.sprynet.com> <3.0.5.32.19990903172246.0096b630@m9.sprynet.com> X-Nntp-Posting-Host: jadzia.bu.edu Date: Sat, 4 Sep 1999 03:20:02 GMT Lines: 24 Jonathan Knudsen <lego-robotics@crynwr.com> wrote: >The whole thing is kind of silly. LEGO felt that we shouldn't be allowed to >publish a book without paying them a license fee. We didn't think we needed >to pay a license fee to write about their product; after all, we don't do >that for anyone else, like Sun, or Microsoft. The silly part is that this book is basically free advertising and free excitement about their product. It's easily going to making them more money _without_ a license fee. >Basically we need to change the title in order to avoid marketplace >confusion--it needs to be very clear that our product is not produced or >supported by LEGO. We'll also have a prominent disclaimer inside somewhere. >We're following our lawyers' suggestions to minimize our legal risk. How about "Undocumented LEGO Mindstorms" or somesuch? -- Matthew Miller ---> mattdm@mattdm.org Quotes 'R' Us ---> http://quotes-r-us.org/
Xref: lugnet.com lugnet.robotics:6689 Newsgroups: lugnet.robotics Path: lugnet.com!lugnet From: lego-robotics@crynwr.com (Jonathan Knudsen) Subject: Re: O'Reilly book news Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Reply-To: Jonathan Knudsen <jonathan@oreilly.com> Sender: jknudsen@m9.sprynet.com Organization: None X-Nntp-Gateway: lego-robotics@crynwr.com Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19990904091410.00965960@m9.sprynet.com> X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.5 (32) References: <3.0.5.32.19990903163215.0097e4a0@m9.sprynet.com> <3.0.5.32.19990903172246.0096b630@m9.sprynet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Nntp-Posting-Host: lugnet.com Date: Sat, 4 Sep 1999 13:14:10 GMT Original-From: Jonathan Knudsen <jonathan@oreilly.com> X-Real-Life-Name: Jonathan Knudsen Lines: 22 At 03:20 AM 9/4/99 GMT, Matthew Miller wrote: >[...] >How about "Undocumented LEGO Mindstorms" or somesuch? We considered this--Unauthorized, or Unofficial. It conveyed the meaning pretty well, but at the same time we felt that "Unauthorized" had a connotation that the information might not be particularly accurate, which it is. It's really out of my hands, anyhow. The eventual title is almost as much of a mystery to me as it is to you! It doesn't much matter, I'm just thrilled the book is finally done and will be out soon. On a side note, I'm also thrilled that it looks like the book won't be obseleted right away by RIS 1.5. Jonathan -- Did you check the web site first?: http://www.crynwr.com/lego-robotics
Xref: lugnet.com lugnet.robotics:6694 Newsgroups: lugnet.robotics Path: lugnet.com!lugnet From: "Suzanne D. Rich" <suz@media.mit.edu> X-Real-Life-Name: Suzanne D. Rich Subject: Re: O'Reilly book news Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Nntp-Gateway: http://www.lugnet.com/news/post/ Organization: none Message-ID: <FHJqAs.H3M@lugnet.com> X-Mailer: Mozilla/4.51 (Macintosh; I; PPC) References: <3.0.5.32.19990903163215.0097e4a0@m9.sprynet.com> <3.0.5.32.19990903172246.0096b630@m9.sprynet.com> <37d03f49.8802410@lugnet.com> X-Nntp-Posting-Host: lugnet.com Date: Sat, 4 Sep 1999 17:37:40 GMT Lines: 43 In lugnet.robotics, Todd Lehman writes: >Jonathan Knudsen: >> Basically we need to change the title in order to avoid marketplace >> confusion--it needs to be very clear that our product is not produced >> or supported by LEGO. We'll also have a prominent disclaimer inside >> somewhere. We're following our lawyers' suggestions to minimize our >> legal risk. >> >> We'll see what happens. > >How about a "name the book" contest? > > - Learning NQC, pbFORTH, and legOS > - Mastering Plastic Binding Brick Robots with Lots of Neat Moving Parts > - RCX Programming in a Nutshell > - RCX Hacking: The Definitive Guide > - Essential Guide to LEGOŽ MINDSTORMS™ Hacking with Third-Party Software > - Programming LEGOŽ MINDSTORMS™ Robots using Unofficial Software > - LEGOŽ MINDSTORMS™ Annoyances > >:*) > >--Todd Ooo, I can't resist this.. love your last one, Todd. It would have the Energizer Bunny on the cover, right?.. oh no, then there'd be trouble with another company. ok, how 'bout - "These ARE the 'droids You're Looking For." - Programming the Poor-man's HAL 9000 for Dummies - Automate Your Life for Under $200 - Learn to Build a Time Machine in 24 Hours - Beyond NEXUS 6 - I Think, Therefore iToy: the Grownups' Guide to Making Friends - Toy Programming for the Rest of Us (20, 30, 40, and 50 - somethings) - PLAY: a 12 step program Uhp, looks like there could be trouble again with book publishers, or Apple, or some movie makers.. just can't win. -Suz.
Xref: lugnet.com lugnet.dear-lego:2066 lugnet.robotics:11250 Newsgroups: lugnet.robotics,lugnet.dear-lego Path: lugnet.com!lugnet From: "Suzanne D. Rich" <suz@baseplate.com> X-Real-Life-Name: Suzanne D. Rich Subject: Re: O'Reilly book news Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Nntp-Gateway: http://www.lugnet.com/news/post/ Organization: none Message-ID: <Fsnzz7.Mrp@lugnet.com> X-Mailer: Mozilla/4.61 (Macintosh; I; PPC) References: <3.0.5.32.19990903163215.0097e4a0@m9.sprynet.com> <3.0.5.32.19990903172246.0096b630@m9.sprynet.com> X-Nntp-Posting-Host: lugnet.com Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 21:06:43 GMT Lines: 48 In lugnet.robotics, Jonathan Knudsen writes: >At 08:59 PM 9/3/99 GMT, you wrote: >>Jonathan Knudsen <lego-robotics@crynwr.com> wrote: >>>Finally, the title will probably change, to avoid >>>legal trouble with you-know-who. >> >>Really? Lawyers are silly. What possible problem could there be? > >The whole thing is kind of silly. LEGO felt that >we shouldn't be allowed to publish a book without >paying them a license fee. We didn't think we >needed to pay a license fee to write about their >product; after all, we don't do that for anyone >else, like Sun, or Microsoft. > >Basically we need to change the title in >order to avoid marketplace confusion--it needs >to be very clear that our product is not produced >or supported by LEGO. We'll also have >a prominent disclaimer inside somewhere. We're >following our lawyers' suggestions to minimize >our legal risk. > >We'll see what happens. > >Jonathan What happened (apparently) is that LEGO now has their cake and eats it too. This makes me sick. I just discovered their page devoted to (quote) "some 'introductory' Books about LEGO MINDSTORMS." There I see two books, Jonathan's O'Reilly and Dave's NQC book with obvious links to Amazon.com for online purchasing. LEGO has shamelessly added an Amazon.com _associate_code_ to the URLs! Not only does this look "cheap" but I see no mention of where those dollars go. ...that's 15% taken from every direct sale. Is this "global company" _so_ in need of cash? If TLC is seriously sponging money through the needs of the adult robotics community (due to lacking in their own provisions and foresight), then I have only one word for it. Sleazy! See for yourselves. The link is straight off the legomindstorms.com main page. Anyone know how long it has been there? -Suz. Boy, it's a good thing LUGNET rules make me watch my language because right now my ire is steaming full blast.
Xref: lugnet.com lugnet.dear-lego:2067 lugnet.robotics:11253 Newsgroups: lugnet.robotics,lugnet.dear-lego Path: lugnet.com!lugnet From: Todd Lehman <lehman@javanet.com> X-Real-Life-Name: Todd Lehman Subject: Re: O'Reilly book news Organization: None Message-ID: <Fso47E.9yC@lugnet.com> References: <3.0.5.32.19990903163215.0097e4a0@m9.sprynet.com> <3.0.5.32.19990903172246.0096b630@m9.sprynet.com> <Fsnzz7.Mrp@lugnet.com> X-Nntp-Posting-Host: 207-172-245-9.s263.tnt1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 22:38:02 GMT Lines: 19 In lugnet.robotics, Suzanne D. Rich writes: > [...] > See for yourselves. The link is straight off the legomindstorms.com main > page. If your browser doesn't support JavaScript (Lynx, W3M, etc.) or if you're running a browser that does, but you have it disabled, you won't be able to load the page. But if you still want to view the page, here's the page's actual URL (double-checked with Lynx and with NN minus JS): http://www.legomindstorms.com/home/books/index.asp But for the full "WTF?" effect, simply click there from the homepage. LUGNET and other in-the-AFOL-community webpages have Amazon.com associates links for the same two books, but it's shocking to see TLC itself do this, especially after it made the stink with O'Reilly last summer. This has got to be the most bizarrely unexpected thing I've seen on an official LEGO site yet! :) --Todd
Xref: lugnet.com lugnet.dear-lego:2069 lugnet.robotics:11255 Newsgroups: lugnet.robotics,lugnet.dear-lego Path: lugnet.com!dbaum From: Dave Baum <dbaum@spambgoneenteract.com> X-Real-Life-Name: Dave Baum Subject: Re: O'Reilly book news User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.0 (PPC) Organization: None Message-ID: <dbaum-FAB69A.18020807042000@lugnet.com> References: <3.0.5.32.19990903163215.0097e4a0@m9.sprynet.com> <3.0.5.32.19990903172246.0096b630@m9.sprynet.com> <Fsnzz7.Mrp@lugnet.com> X-Nntp-Posting-Host: 207-229-151-4.d.enteract.com Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 23:02:08 GMT Lines: 72 In article <Fsnzz7.Mrp@lugnet.com>, "Suzanne D. Rich" <suz@baseplate.com> wrote: > What happened (apparently) is that LEGO now has their cake and eats it > too. This > makes me sick. I assume Jonathan (and ORA) went through the same discussions my publisher did with TLG regarding using "Mindstorms" in a book title. Lego had no problem at all with people writing books...in fact I've gotten a lot of encouraging feedback from people within TLG that wholeheartedly endorse these efforts. However, they are wary of people using (and possibly abusing) the Lego brand. This is understandable...the brand has a lot of value and they wouldn't want poor-quality products by third parties to in any way compromise that brand. Furthermore, since the brand has such high value, it is perfectly reasonable for them to expect payment for use of their brand (i.e. licensing fees). My impression was TLG was very happy with the fact that there were books dealing with Lego sets and that obviously it should be clear from the book's title *which* lego set it being discussed. Per their recommendation, my book carries a label stating that it applies to the Robotics Invention System 1.0 and 1.5 (so as to eliminate confusion about the other Mindstorms sets). At this point, both books are out, and TLG feels that the books may add to the "Mindstorms" experience, thus they point to the books from their web site. As an author, I find this helpful...it means more people may read my book and enjoy it. I guess what I'm saying is that I find it perfectly reasonable that they are willing to point interested users to the books, but at the same time don't want their name on them. > > I just discovered their page devoted to (quote) "some 'introductory' > Books about > LEGO MINDSTORMS." There I see two books, Jonathan's O'Reilly and Dave's > NQC book > with obvious links to Amazon.com for online purchasing. LEGO has > shamelessly > added an Amazon.com _associate_code_ to the URLs! Not only does this look > "cheap" but I see no mention of where those dollars go. ...that's 15% > taken from > every direct sale. Is this "global company" _so_ in need of cash? > > If TLC is seriously sponging money through the needs of the adult > robotics > community (due to lacking in their own provisions and foresight), then I > have > only one word for it. Sleazy! > Personally, I'd much rather have them link from their site to the publishers' sites for the books - in general these provide much better information about the books and allow potential readers to make a more informed decision. However, linking to amazon.com and getting the associated revenue is pretty common practice. I don't believe it takes any money from buyers...the money comes from amazon.com's margins. I didn't realize it was 15%...at that rate, TLG makes more off each sale than I do! Perhaps I need to speak with them about a referral fee for anyone who bought a Mindstorms set because of NQC :) Dave Baum -- reply to: dbaum at enteract dot com
Xref: lugnet.com lugnet.dear-lego:2070 lugnet.robotics:11256 Newsgroups: lugnet.robotics,lugnet.dear-lego Path: lugnet.com!lugnet From: "David Schilling" <davidNO@SPAMsunteleia.com> X-Real-Life-Name: David Schilling Subject: Re: O'Reilly book news Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Nntp-Gateway: http://www.lugnet.com/news/post/ Organization: none Message-ID: <Fso5FC.EE2@lugnet.com> X-Mailer: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows 98) References: <3.0.5.32.19990903163215.0097e4a0@m9.sprynet.com> <3.0.5.32.19990903172246.0096b630@m9.sprynet.com> <Fsnzz7.Mrp@lugnet.com> <Fso47E.9yC@lugnet.com> X-Nntp-Posting-Host: lugnet.com Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 23:04:24 GMT Lines: 37 In lugnet.robotics, Todd Lehman writes: >In lugnet.robotics, Suzanne D. Rich writes: >> [...] >> See for yourselves. The link is straight off the legomindstorms.com main >> page. > >..., here's the page's >actual URL (double-checked with Lynx and with NN minus JS): > > http://www.legomindstorms.com/home/books/index.asp > >But for the full "WTF?" effect, simply click there from the homepage. LUGNET >and other in-the-AFOL-community webpages have Amazon.com associates links for >the same two books, but it's shocking to see TLC itself do this, especially >after it made the stink with O'Reilly last summer. This has got to be the >most bizarrely unexpected thing I've seen on an official LEGO site yet! :) > >--Todd I don't really understand how the associates stuff works: if no one collects the referal fee, doesn't Amazon just keep it as extra profit for themselves? Certainly the authors don't collect a smaller royalty if a referal fee is given? So I guess I don't see the big deal about that. I'd appreciate it if someone could explain why this is a Bad Thing. What I thought was REALLY funny though was the Legal Notice at the bottom of the page. Especially the line: "Your linking to any other off-site pages or other sites is at your own risk." It makes it sound like the only place on the web that you are safe is on LEGO's own web pages! Could you imagine if everyone started putting legal disclaimers on every link off their site? (Hey, Todd, maybe you should add a legal disclaimer to the various links from LUGNET to certain 'other' websites! :-) Finally, what does "WTF?" mean? What's a "WTF" effect? -- David Schilling
Xref: lugnet.com lugnet.dear-lego:2071 lugnet.robotics:11257 Newsgroups: lugnet.robotics,lugnet.dear-lego Path: lugnet.com!lugnet From: Todd Lehman <lehman@javanet.com> X-Real-Life-Name: Todd Lehman Subject: Re: O'Reilly book news Followup-To: lugnet.robotics Organization: None Message-ID: <Fso7Gt.ILF@lugnet.com> References: <3.0.5.32.19990903163215.0097e4a0@m9.sprynet.com> <3.0.5.32.19990903172246.0096b630@m9.sprynet.com> <Fsnzz7.Mrp@lugnet.com> <Fso47E.9yC@lugnet.com> <Fso5FC.EE2@lugnet.com> X-Nntp-Posting-Host: 207-172-245-9.s263.tnt1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 23:48:29 GMT Lines: 27 In lugnet.robotics, David Schilling writes: > I don't really understand how the associates stuff works: if no one collects > the referal fee, doesn't Amazon just keep it as extra profit for themselves? > Certainly the authors don't collect a smaller royalty if a referal fee is > given? So I guess I don't see the big deal about that. I'd appreciate it > if someone could explain why this is a Bad Thing. I just think it's incredibly ironic, if not a bizarre turn of events. It's surprising to see TLC jumping on the opportunity to take advantage of books written by people in the AFOL community that support it. Maybe they'll give a portion of the fees back to the authors, that would be nice. What's particularly ironic about it, IMHO, is that the books fill holes left open by TLC. Now they come in and profit from the holes they forgot to fill themselves. :) See the irony? I'm not sure whether to chuckle in admiration from a capitalist market standpoint or whether to have a sore stomach from what it might mean about how TLC views AFOLs. > [...] > Finally, what does "WTF?" mean? What's a "WTF" effect? It's an old USENET/netnews word to avoid profanity...imagine incredible surprise or confusion, and that's what it is. --Todd
Xref: lugnet.com lugnet.dear-lego:2072 lugnet.robotics:11259 Newsgroups: lugnet.robotics,lugnet.dear-lego Path: lugnet.com!mattdm From: mattdm@mattdm.org (Matthew Miller) X-Real-Life-Name: Matthew Miller Subject: Re: O'Reilly book news User-Agent: slrn/0.9.6.2 (Linux) Reply-To: mattdm@mattdm.org Organization: None Message-ID: <slrn8esvg9.qk9.mattdm@jadzia.bu.edu> References: <3.0.5.32.19990903163215.0097e4a0@m9.sprynet.com> <3.0.5.32.19990903172246.0096b630@m9.sprynet.com> <Fsnzz7.Mrp@lugnet.com> <dbaum-FAB69A.18020807042000@lugnet.com> X-Nntp-Posting-Host: jadzia.bu.edu Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2000 00:32:11 GMT Lines: 30 Dave Baum <dbaum@spambgoneenteract.com> wrote: >However, they are wary of people using (and possibly abusing) the Lego >brand. This is understandable...the brand has a lot of value and they >wouldn't want poor-quality products by third parties to in any way >compromise that brand. Furthermore, since the brand has such high value, >it is perfectly reasonable for them to expect payment for use of their >brand (i.e. licensing fees). However, it seems extremely unreasonable in the case of books about a product. In fact, although I'm not a lawyer, this use of trademarks seems 100% within the precedent set for fair use: it's impossible to describe _without_ using the trademark. The classic example is: if writing about the Boston Marathon (a trademark of the Boston Athletic Association), you don't have to call it "that 42.2k race they have in Boston every year" -- you can actually call it "the Boston Marathon". The same applies to a book specifically about Lego Mindstorms -- you don't have to call it a book about "the robotic construction set from the famous maker of interlocking plastic building blocks". I can understand why O'Reilly wouldn't want to go to court over this, but I'm pretty sure that if it came to that, TLC wouldn't have much to stand on. -- Matthew Miller ---> mattdm@mattdm.org Quotes 'R' Us ---> http://quotes-r-us.org/
Xref: lugnet.com lugnet.dear-lego:2074 lugnet.robotics:11261 Newsgroups: lugnet.robotics,lugnet.dear-lego Path: lugnet.com!lugnet From: "Suzanne D. Rich" <suz@baseplate.com> X-Real-Life-Name: Suzanne D. Rich Subject: Re: O'Reilly book news Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Nntp-Gateway: http://www.lugnet.com/news/post/ Organization: none Message-ID: <FsoA8H.4tt@lugnet.com> X-Mailer: Mozilla/4.61 (Macintosh; I; PPC) References: <3.0.5.32.19990903163215.0097e4a0@m9.sprynet.com> <3.0.5.32.19990903172246.0096b630@m9.sprynet.com> <Fsnzz7.Mrp@lugnet.com> <Fso47E.9yC@lugnet.com> <Fso5FC.EE2@lugnet.com> X-Nntp-Posting-Host: lugnet.com Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2000 00:48:17 GMT Lines: 62 In lugnet.robotics, David Schilling writes: [...] >I don't really understand how the associates stuff works: if no one collects >the referal fee, doesn't Amazon just keep it as extra profit for themselves? From what I understand, Amazon makes no profit when a book is 30% off list and then grants a 15% referral fee.[1] The 15% is a maximum. A visitor to their site would need to buy directly through that link and the book must be on discount of 15-30%(?)I don't remember the numbers. often it's 5% or zero referal. >Certainly the authors don't collect a smaller royalty if a referral fee is >given? No, I don't think it affects the publisher or author.[2] I guess if LEGO is helping sell more copies of Dave's and Jonathan's books then that makes me happy. It is a Good Thing. And it's good for all the users that are helped. It wasn't seeing their books on the site that disturbed me. >So I guess I don't see the big deal about that. I'd appreciate it if >someone could explain why this is a Bad Thing. I did not say that LEGO was doing a Bad Thing. But I think in this case they are acting in an unprofessional manner. For such a large company, who is attempting to appear as strong and worldly, to scrape nickles off books written by others about their product (ironically in the gaps left by them) looks (to me) sad and cheap. Basically: TLC would have looked more respectful (to me) if they, being originator of the product, were to have linked to the authors' sites or their publishers' sites. Instead, the way TLC mentions the books seems cold and less helpful than it could be. I could see collecting profit from Amazon.com as reasonable if TLC were putting the funds toward something kind and related. like, I don't know.. donating more copies of the books to high schools or libraries or something.. but I can find no evidence of that being the case. I feel that TLC owes those two authors and their publishers a great thanks, and I just don't see it coming from TLC. I am personally disapointed. But I'm sorry that my post here seemed so curious to readers. :-/ LEGO's current "outsider book-on-official site" relationship is understandable from a certain view out LEGO's windows now, But I wish they had been on the sidewalk with everyone last fall. I believe there were things they could have done from the get-go. But that being history, I should be quiet, calm down, and let what happens happen. -Suz [1] Last I heard, Amazon.com had yet to make a profit as a whole company. Amazon benefits from associates by exposure and specialty sub-sites. [2] I don't know about exact effects, like those on distributors... I forget who even owns INGRAM now... certainly it hurts retail stores, local bookshops and the like. The print publishing industry as a whole is changing due to the internet's growing use -- I don't know how that will affect royalties in future. Usually publishing is so slow to change -- now they have to be quick on their toes. but that's another matter.
Xref: lugnet.com lugnet.robotics:11262 Newsgroups: lugnet.robotics Path: lugnet.com!dbaum From: Dave Baum <dbaum@spambgoneenteract.com> X-Real-Life-Name: Dave Baum Subject: Re: O'Reilly book news User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.0 (PPC) Organization: None Message-ID: <dbaum-344EC6.19542307042000@lugnet.com> References: <3.0.5.32.19990903163215.0097e4a0@m9.sprynet.com> <3.0.5.32.19990903172246.0096b630@m9.sprynet.com> <Fsnzz7.Mrp@lugnet.com> <Fso47E.9yC@lugnet.com> <Fso5FC.EE2@lugnet.com> <Fso7Gt.ILF@lugnet.com> X-Nntp-Posting-Host: 207-229-151-156.d.enteract.com Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2000 00:54:23 GMT Lines: 48 In article <Fso7Gt.ILF@lugnet.com>, Todd Lehman <lehman@javanet.com> wrote: > I just think it's incredibly ironic, if not a bizarre turn of events. > > It's surprising to see TLC jumping on the opportunity to take advantage of > books written by people in the AFOL community that support it. Maybe they'll > give a portion of the fees back to the authors, that would be nice. > > What's particularly ironic about it, IMHO, is that the books fill holes left > open by TLC. Now they come in and profit from the holes they forgot to fill > themselves. :) See the irony? I'm not sure whether to chuckle in admiration > from a capitalist market standpoint or whether to have a sore stomach from > what it might mean about how TLC views AFOLs. > I hope people don't get too worked up about all of this. I assume TLC decided to put links on their site, then someone had the idea that if they used an associate link, they'd get a little extra income. From their perspective, why not take advantage of a little free money? TLC left some holes with Mindstorms, and for the last 18 months I've been filling a couple of them (NQC and a book). When the Mindstorms site started accepting NQC programs, people generally looked at this as a positive step from TLC. I think their acknowledgments of the books - including a link on their web site - is also a positive step. Is it just the fact that they are profitting from AFOL contributions that is upsetting? To be honest, I suspect NQC's existence created more net profit for TLC than the amazon.com link for my book will. I'm perfectly happy to let them derrive some profit from my efforts. After all, NQC and the book have brought me plenty of rewards, and neither of those efforts would've been possible without Mindstorms. Personally, I'm very content in this sort of half-acknowledged symbiotic relationship with TLC. I can't speak for Jonathan, but I hope nobody gets the impression that I (as an AFOL) am getting a bad deal here. Is there a concern that the lego links will reduce the hits through similar links on other AFOL sites? Although I can see where this would be disconcerting, its hardly a reason to get upset with Lego. Its just free market operating with respect to referrals. If other sites (LUGNET, etc) were depending on such money, then we will need to find other ways to support them. Dave Baum -- reply to: dbaum at enteract dot com
Xref: lugnet.com lugnet.dear-lego:2078 lugnet.robotics:11272 Newsgroups: lugnet.robotics,lugnet.dear-lego Path: lugnet.com!dbaum From: Dave Baum <dbaum@spambgoneenteract.com> X-Real-Life-Name: Dave Baum Subject: Re: O'Reilly book news User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.0 (PPC) Organization: None Message-ID: <dbaum-652B24.21230507042000@lugnet.com> References: <3.0.5.32.19990903163215.0097e4a0@m9.sprynet.com> <3.0.5.32.19990903172246.0096b630@m9.sprynet.com> <Fsnzz7.Mrp@lugnet.com> <dbaum-FAB69A.18020807042000@lugnet.com> <slrn8esvg9.qk9.mattdm@jadzia.bu.edu> X-Nntp-Posting-Host: 207-229-151-156.d.enteract.com Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2000 02:23:05 GMT Lines: 42 In article <slrn8esvg9.qk9.mattdm@jadzia.bu.edu>, mattdm@mattdm.org wrote: > Dave Baum <dbaum@spambgoneenteract.com> wrote: > >However, they are wary of people using (and possibly abusing) the Lego > >brand. This is understandable...the brand has a lot of value and they > >wouldn't want poor-quality products by third parties to in any way > >compromise that brand. Furthermore, since the brand has such high > >value, > >it is perfectly reasonable for them to expect payment for use of their > >brand (i.e. licensing fees). > > > However, it seems extremely unreasonable in the case of books about a > product. In fact, although I'm not a lawyer, this use of trademarks seems > 100% within the precedent set for fair use: it's impossible to describe > _without_ using the trademark. > There's tons of precedent on using trademarked names in titles of books. I don't believe my publisher was ever seriously concerned about losing a court case. But they didn't want to bother going to court, and there's a lot of value in a good faith effort such as respecting their wishes and putting an "unofficial" stamp on the book. Bear in mind that TLC is sort of an "old" company that's just coming into the "new" market. They're used to customers and competitors. Not collaborators and side industries. I'm not saying they shouldn't change...they should. However, big companies don't turn on a dime, so I have to keep tempering my expectations. We have seen a lot of progress (at least in Mindstorms)....consider the fact that they released pre-alpha firmware for RCX 2.0 along with complete documentation of the bytecodes. That must've been a hard sell to management. Dave -- reply to: dbaum at enteract dot com