3 ms·
Ask HN copyright implications of publishing book summaries
http://www.philosophersnotes.com
The site sells "condensed ideas" from self help books - in the form of PDF and MP3. It is a neat idea, I'm sure busy people would appreciate it.
Legal (copyright) implications of this? Only a couple of the titles are in public domain. Does this mean, he has obtained permission from the publishers/authors? Or is it allowed to "derive" works from copyrighted work, for commercial purposes?
- davidw 17y agoIf you liked that, you might also enjoy Squeezed Books, here: http://www.squeezedbooks.com http://www.squeezedbooks.com - which is similar except for the fact that it's open and free. Also, there are a number of other pay summary sites like getAbstract.
- vijayr 17y agoThanks for the link davidw. The summaries at squeezedbooks look more generic, more like reviews than summary. Also, I'm not sure wiki style is a good idea for book summaries.
- davidw 17y agoThey are definitely not reviews - they tell you what the book tells you in a condensed way. I'm not sure that the wiki thing works either, to tell the truth:-) I haven't been able to attract many people to contribute so far. Actually, I do think it's a good idea and could work (wikipedia does, after all), but maybe I'm missing something to give it some critical mass.
- vijayr 17y agoI think wiki style won't work for summaries (books, movies etc). The key difference is wikipedia is full of factual information (most of it anyway). so it is easy for anyone to edit, fact is a fact, after all. How do you summarize a book, like say, outliers? It is more subjective, and when the material is subjective, it is better that one person writes it, than many. That is probably why it isn't getting critical mass.
- davidw 17y agoMost business books are more or less easy to summarize - they have a straightforward thesis that can be condensed into a few pages. That's why there are so many of these sites. Granted, some things might be better written with one voice, but I don't think that's why people aren't going there.
- arihelgason 17y agoThere seem to be plenty of wikis around, though their content is of variable quality. Wikisummaries has some - http://wikisummaries.org http://wikisummaries.org Pb book outlines http://bookoutlines.pbworks.com/ http://bookoutlines.pbworks.com/ is another good wiki.. there's a particularly good summary of Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational there.
- vijayr 17y agoDo you know of any other sites that do book summaries? How successful are they?
- arihelgason 17y agoThe most successful companies in the space seem to be the ones doing executive book summaries, mostly focused on business books. cf. http://www.summary.com http://www.summary.com & similar sites.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- yp2009 17y agogetabstract ( www.getabstract.com) has the most amount of summaries...over 5,000. They come out with about 50+ a month...so you get the latest books....the most bang for your buck. They also obtain right for ALL the books.
- vijayr 17y agoDoes this mean, that anybody who publishes summaries commercially, should obtain permission/rights from the publishers/authors?
- anamax 17y ago> Legal (copyright) implications of this? It depends on how the "condensed ideas" are expressed. If they're expressed using too much of the expression of the original work, they're a derived work and it can be a copyright problem. (Some amount of quoting is allowed - the relevant concept is called "fair use".) If, however, these summaries are just the ideas, expressed in a different way, there's no copyright problem at all. Remember, copyright covers expression, not ideas or facts. Expression includes translation and minor edits.
- vijayr 17y agowhat he is doing, is summarizing the books in his own words. I guess it shouldn't be a problem then.