Re: Irisregister and the Wiki

John,
Sometimes it makes sense to encourage the dissemination of copyrighted information. Issuing a cease & desist letter is no way to make friends. It's also expensive, unless Bob Plank is willing to do it pro bono. Then you have to consider what step the board should take if the other party decides to ignore the letter. Government frequently runs into this little problem. You can legislate all you like, but if you don't fund the enforcement and administration, the law is toothless.
It would make a lot more sense to develop a policy that the material can be used if the source is cited.
Let me give you a very real example. I happen to own a little upscale restaurant. Last year the restaurant received an award from What's Up Eastern Shore Magazine for best use of local product. My restaurant is located at the far end of the magazine's distribution area. What's Up is the most successful of more than a half-dozen "lifestyle" magazines covering this area. They carefully protect their image, however when the award is presented, the restaurant is allowed to use their logo in any of their advertising. I put the logo in the corner of a billboard on the highway for the sole (and totally selfish) purpose of increasing my business. Fast forward 7 months--and editors of the magazine approach me about doing a 5-page spread in their magazine about my restaurant. When I discussed it with the Food Editor, he told me the restaurant was being featured in part because of the positive feedback the publisher had gotten from the billboard. Many restaurants never get that kind of coverage and when they do, it is usually because they have spent big bucks advertising in the publication. So what if a commercial entity makes a little money off the AIS? At least they are making money instead of losing it. Maybe, just maybe, AIS should think like a publisher who wants to increase their readership.
As for revenue from the WIKI, the least effective and most myopic business model is the subscription. Is our goal to make money or just to cover expenses? Is our goal to increase membership in the AIS? How about asking for a donation when somebody use the system? Perhaps a friendly little pop-up ad encouraging the user to join the AIS? Better yet, how about an ad telling you where you can buy the cultivar you just looked at? 

Keep up the good work.

Dennis
----- Original Message ----- From: "John I Jones" <jijones@usjoneses.com> 
To: <aisdiscuss@aisboard.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2010 9:39 PM
Subject: Re: [AISdiscuss] Irisregister and the Wiki



My comments below.


On Jan 16, 2010, at 3:01 PM, R. Dennis Hager wrote:


John,
I am not a copyright attorney, but you raise an interesting point. Your question may be about "fair use", but the real zinger is that the AIS Board may be representing both sides on this issue. Sounds like a personality disorder to me. 

I would first ask a few hypothetical questions:
1. If someone posted registration information to an unrelated WIKI or published it in any other way, what course of action, what action should or would the Board take?
If the use of the information were for commercial purposes, then the Board should send a cease and desist letter. If the use persisted legal action for copyright violation could be initiated. (We may in fact have such a case with another entity)
2. Do we know for a fact that the information is being entered from the electronic checklist as a copy & paste, or is it being keyed in from a hard copy?
Only by inference. Some of the docents were already subscribed to irisregister, others have been subscribed specifically because they wanted to be docents. I am not sure it matters, if it is copied either way it is a use of the information. It could have the same effect on the sales of the hard copy versions as well. I suppose there could be some quirks in the information that could tell us but that would take a great deal of effort.
3. With the development of the WIKI, by what amount should we expect electronic checklist revenues to decrease?
I don't have an analytical way to judge that but I think that most of the 1 year and 3 year subscriptions would dwindle. As of my last report to the Board that would comprise of 219 out of 280 subscribers or 78%. Certainly not all would abandon their subscriptions. 



4.  Has anyone addressed ways that the WIKI could generate revenue?
Bob has always maintained (properly in my opinion) that the Wiki should be free and accessible to all/
5. Has anyone polled electronic checklist subscribers to see how they feel about it? If so, how did they phrase the question? 

No
BTW, my subscription to the electronic checklist expires in 2015. Love the electronic checklist. Love the WIKI. Want both to include as much accurate information as possible. 

Thanks.

Dennis Hager
----- Original Message ----- From: "John I Jones" <jijones@usjoneses.com> 
To: <aisdiscuss@aisboard.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2010 1:25 AM
Subject: [AISdiscuss] Irisregister and the Wiki
I have been pondering an issue for some time and feel that it is time to bring it before the board to make sure that what is happening is what the board wants,
The issue is what irisregister information should be allowed in the Wiki.
The Wiki is moving forward and entries are being made as you read this. I has become apparent that people entering the irises into the Wiki in addition to what ever description and pictures they personally add, are also copying the full text entry for that iris from the irisregister into the Wiki entry.
If this is what the Board wants then so be it, but I think that we should consider the impact of such action.
The irisregister has been a significant source of revenue for AIS since its inception garnering over $16000.00 since 2003— almost $2300.00 per year. The effect of putting the irisregister information in the Wiki is to give the information away for free to anyone (since the Wiki will be open to anyone at no cost).
There are also lots of people that have paid for 3, 5, and 10 year subscriptions to irisregister who will now see that we are giving that information away for free.
It is true that irisregister will still have some advantages over the wiki. 
- the search engine has greater flexibility and control than the Wiki
- Irisregister gets updated with new and corrected information particularly on older irises 
- Irisregister has the reserved names included in its database

People use irisregister primarily for:
- Getting descriptions of irises for sales or their own database (s) - Wiki will provide the same 

Other (but far less) uses for irisregister:
- doing research on parentage - Wiki probably won't be able to do this as well - doing name searches for new introductions - Wiki won't do this as well because it will lack the reserved names
The irisregister information can be kept out of the Wiki because every entry to the Wiki must be reviewed by the "docents" for propriety and they can easily recognize an irisregister entry. The Wiki has some 4000 entries already, but that should not be a major effort to correct. I am sure that not all of the entries have irisregister excerpts in them.
The Wiki's real claim to fame is that it has pictures (up to 20 per iris) and I applaud its value in that regard. I am, in fact, against having pictures as part of the official AIS registration primarily because of the inconsistency of photographic and display technologies and vagaries, and in that regard Wiki provides a valuable resource. The full registration descriptions are of limited additional value in the Wiki unless people want to copy them out for their own purposes.
The Wiki will also have some advantages because the newest introductions can be placed in the Wiki whereas there is a delay in placing the newest R&I information in irisregister.
I think the Board needs to proactively decide what, if any, irisregister information should be allowed in the Wiki. I think we need to consider the monetary impact on the AIS through loss of use of the irisregister. No I don't know the magnitude of that impact, but I can tell you that the majority of irisregister use is to get descriptions. 

John

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