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General Discussion | |
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Author | Message |
Farley
Newbie ![]() Joined: 21 April 2006 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 2 |
![]() ![]() ![]() Posted: 28 March 2007 at 12:46pm |
Is it just me, or is this guy, on Ebay, trying to rip off this site?
The store looks suspect to me. http://stores.ebay.com/Everything-4-Less-Store_Language-Courses_W0QQcolZ4QQdirZ1QQfsubZ9433420QQftidZ2QQtZkm |
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Chung
Contributor ![]() Joined: 23 May 2006 Online Status: Offline Posts: 143 |
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This has been going on for a couple of months now. You're right to feel suspicious.
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sepulnation
Newbie ![]() Joined: 02 September 2006 Online Status: Offline Posts: 8 |
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well, at least if they buy through him they dont have to pay the extreme price people used to have to pay to have access to these courses. It is sad how hes profiting off of other peoples work though.
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DemiPuppet
Administrator ![]() Joined: 27 May 2006 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 163 |
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Since there isn't any formal formal license notice given on this site, anyone who wishes to resell the language probably should refer to the Project Gutenberg License for how to use public domain works:
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:The_Project_Gutenberg_License Essentially: 1. The language PDF and MP3 files on this site are in the public domain in the United States (see item 3 below concerning the Mandarin course). They may or may not be in the public domain in other countries. You need to check your country's copyright laws. Public domain means you may copy and
The site's non-public domain material is copyrighted, so you can't just clone the site. If you resell or modify the language material, you shouldn't mention this site without permission (since that might infer official approval). 3. Be sure to read the notice in the text of the Mandarin language books. These may be given away, but its not clear that these may be resold by themselves or included with any other sold material. Make sure your copyright lawyer reviews the material. This is only my take on the matter. GDF sets the official policy. |
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genome
Newbie ![]() Joined: 30 April 2007 Online Status: Offline Posts: 3 |
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To be fair, I still think that this person is offering a good bargain. Let's face it $14 is still a bargain when you consider:
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Chung
Contributor ![]() Joined: 23 May 2006 Online Status: Offline Posts: 143 |
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The only problem with this reseller is that except for the DLI Italian course that he is selling, virtually all of his "inventory" comes from this website. It is especially obvious when you look at the Swahili course that he is offering for it is as incomplete as this site's offering is.
Another thing to note is that the other FSI courses that he is selling are the same languages which are reasonably complete on this website (vol. 1, or vols. 1-2). For example, note how the reseller isn't selling the Finnish course (yet) since gdfellows doesn't have the textbook, but he is selling the full Hungarian Basic Course which is also complete on this website. At the least, I would feel wrong selling the stuff even at that low price because I know very well that people could get the stuff for free on this site. Why spend $14 when you can just download and burn the material to CD yourself since you've already put down the sunk cost for your computer, the internet fees and the hydro bill. |
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DemiPuppet
Administrator ![]() Joined: 27 May 2006 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 163 |
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I can see at least 3 situations where selling on Ebay could serve a niche market:
It seems that very few countries allow government work into the public domain or have implemented the "Rule of the Shorter Term" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain#Rule_of_the_shorter_term |
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daristani
Contributor ![]() Joined: 04 March 2006 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 104 |
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Yesterday I ran across another site that, I suspect, may be basing its offerings at least partly on what's been made available on this one. But it's offering the courses for free.
It's http://www.freelanguagecourses.com/ So it strikes me that, even if some rip off these courses to make a few bucks, the prices will almost inevitably come down, even for those who charge, and thus the materials will be more widely available to more people at much lower cost than has been the case to date. For this reason, all language learners owe a debt to gdfellows and the other contributors at this site. |
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bickern
Newbie ![]() Joined: 03 June 2007 Location: Turkey Online Status: Offline Posts: 9 |
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http://www.foreignserviceinstitute.com/
This has got to be OTT. |
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