Making Books of Blogs

An Israeli company plans to take the best blog postings by customers and put them between covers, says Nir Ofir, the editor.

Comments

[Daniel Conover]

I don't see anything about paying the bloggers for their content. And saying that the publishers will "donate the proceeds back to the community" doesn't settle the matter, either. If I give the net proceeds away AFTER i've paid myself a large salary to serve as the project's editor, then what's the public spirit in that?

I think it's great when people come together for public purposes, and I think online intellectual property rights are a grey area. But when it comes to book publishing, there's a business model. These people should be paid.

[Niro]

These People will get the recognition and publicity that they cannot usually get. Publishing a book is very hard unless you are some kind of a celebrity or unless your writing fits the mind of a small group of publishers.

As I wrote in my original post, the profits will go back to the community and not for paying any salary. Even the writers that act as judges do not get paid.

[Alex Krupp]

This is definitely illegal if the laws are anything like those in the US. Jon Katz tried to publish a book with the reactions to the Columbine shooting taken from his hellmouth series (in my opinion the best thing ever published on slashdot) and it got shot down even though he was going to donate all profits to charity. This is because at the bottom of every Slashdot page it clearly says that all comments are owned by the submitter, and it would have been impossible to trace all these people down. Hopefully the law surrounding orphan works will change, but until then if you ever want to do something like this then you have to say that all user contributions are submitted under CC or PD. Obviously you can't say that you own them for yourself or else you have the legal liablity for them.

[Niro]

Illegal? I guess you didn't read my post. All of the stories will be published after the approval of the writers.

[Daniel Conover]

Please accept my apologies, Niro. I think I slimed you unfairly.

To clarify, no matter how ethically and honestly you handle this matter, I think that the standard should be that people are paid for their writing. The next person to come along this path might well be the one who donates the proceeds after taking a big cut, a common con.

Book publishing is a difficult business for a variety of reasons. So is general contracting. You wouldn't expect a brick mason to donate his work. Why would you expect it of a writer?

[Niro]

No need to apologies.
Do you get money for blogging? I guess not.
If some day you will make money indirectly [or directly] from your blog is it all right? My attitude to this project is the same. The book is a way for the writers to get exposure.

[Alex Krupp]

Niro: Nope, didn't read your original post. Sorry if I offended you for that.

[Hubert Guillaud]

A french Project name BlogPapiers has the same goal : http://blpwebzine.blogs.com/mon_weblog/pro/index.html

[Owen]

For another take / tack / direction on moving blogs to books, see www.pressforchange.com. The book is launching May 21 and 22

[Jean-Paul Borda]

Shoot, when I get back from Afghanistan I'm trying.