[Xmca-l] Re: Just Published: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Vol. 1

Sun Jan 5 06:36:33 PST 2020

Andy,
Thank you very much for all this. Your experience, expertise and wiseness are very useful for all of us who are trying to make publications accessible. And thanks also for all your work.
Thanks again,
Anne-Nelly

De : <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> on behalf of Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org<mailto:andyb@marxists.org>>
Répondre à : "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Date : dimanche, 5 janvier 2020 à 14:38
À : "xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Objet : [Xmca-l] Re: Just Published: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Vol. 1

Anne-Nelly,

At marxists.org we publish a vast collection of works by several hundred writers across 60 languages, though our Charter restricts us from publishing works by living authors (with some exceptions). We avoid breaching copyright because to do so risks court action which we, as a volunteer organisation could not withstand. In general though we can push the boundaries a little because most of our material is not of great commercial value, and we are safe from prosecution so long as we withdraw material the moment a copyright holder requests us to. We are only vulnerable should we refuse to take material down. You can't 'withdraw' material once you have put it in hard copy, of course. Further, while it existed, the USSR published much of the material in a wide variety of languages, and being a state, their product is by definition in the public domain.

However, there are a few cases where we have had trouble.

  *   Lawrence & Wishart threatened court action when demanding we remove all translations copied from MECW. We had to comply, despite the fact that pirate copies of the entire MECW are available on the internet.
  *   Pathfinder Press demanded we remove all the translations of Trotsky et al made by their party comrades, so we have had to use other translations
  *   Lawrence & Wishart also forced us to take down almost all of our Gramsci despite us having permission of the translator. We have translated a small number of pieces ourselves.

We have not had trouble publishing Vygotsky, but this is partly because we take care to only publish selectively, enough to stimulate interest but not enough to satisfy demand. The publishers of Vygotsky are our friends.

We have been able to publish all the important works of Hegel by avoiding recent translations still on the shelves of booksellers, and by using older translations, which, fortunately, are published by a large number of different publishers, for none of whom are our publications a serious threat.

We respect copyright laws mainly so as to continue to be able to provide our core texts free to the world, but having a mind too that the people whose economic interests we may impinge on are largely our friends. Those who are not, let us know.

Andy

________________________________
Andy Blunden
Hegel for Social Movements<https://brill.com/view/title/54574>
Home Page<https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm>
On 5/01/2020 2:58 am, PERRET-CLERMONT Anne-Nelly wrote:
Dear David, Dear Andy,
Andy's publications in open access are so useful. Without disclosing private details nor entering into the specifics of precise cases, could you help by making us aware of the unforeseen risks of making stuff free on the internet ? ( I ask the question because I read below: "Somebody is going to sue you eventually (apply to Andy for details on this)").
Thanks
Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont
University of Neuchâtel

Le 3 janv. 2020 à 23:12, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com><mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com> a écrit :

Wagner--

Nikolai and I did make all the material which we ourselves wrote available for free. All you have to do is click the free previews and the front and endmatter,and you'll get a free pdf. The free previews will tell you, in summary form, what the actual lecture says, and you can decide whether it's worth the money to be able to cite chapter and verse.

But I can think of a lot of good reasons for publishing with Springer.

a) Springer have been around a while--they were founded when Marx was just getting started in journalism and Vygotsky cites a lot of their Gestalist books--hopefully they will last longer than, say, the Soviet publishing house Vygotsky used did. (The Russian university press that published the first version of the lectures back in 2001 is now bankrupt and has disappeared without a trace!)
b) Springer are very much part of the academic market here in East Asia (they aren't in Singapore for the cheap labour!)
c) Springer have an aggressive line in e-books, which are the main mode for literacy on my commute to work these days. (Even in illiterate England, Paul McCartney says he can ride the London tube now because everybody is too busy looking up his picture on Google images to notice the original sitting next to them).
d) Yelena Kravtsova is on the editorial board of the cultural-historical research series, (She has some claim to the rights to Vygotsky's work, according to the lawyers.)
e) Springer stocks libraries.

I can also think of three good reasons for not making stuff free on the internet.

a) Somebody is going to sue you eventually (apply to Andy for details on this).
b) It's too confusing for readers to sort out the chaff from the grain these days.
c) It's gonna happen anyway.

Actually, the main reason we chose Springer was the same reason that one chooses a wife, husband, or more temporary partner even though they too might just be hungry.

Everybody out there was taking no risks and saying no. Springer was willing to take a chance and say yes.

David Kellogg
Sangmyung University

New article with Fang Li:
"How do novels hang together? Characterization as registerial meta-stability"
Text & Talk

https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/text.ahead-of-print/text-2019-2051/text-2019-2051.xml

On Fri, Jan 3, 2020 at 9:04 PM Wagner Luiz Schmit <wagner.schmit@gmail.com<mailto:wagner.schmit@gmail.com>> wrote:
We have this in Portuguese, and cheap. Very very interesting material presenting another unit of analysis.

Seriously, why we as Marxists insists on publishing with money hunger corporations, for-profit publishers and so on?

Wagner

On Fri, Jan 3, 2020 at 8:11 AM David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com<mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com>> wrote:

This is a pretty slim volume, and it's expensive. But if you click on the free preview and the chapter summaries, you can get a pretty good idea of what you (or your library) will be paying for.

https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270

I'm afraid that even the ebook is expensive:

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-981-15-0528-7

But this is free!

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bfm%3A978-981-15-0528-7%2F1.pdf

and so is this:

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bbm%3A978-981-15-0528-7%2F1.pdf

David Kellogg
Sangmyung University

New article with Fang Li:
"How do novels hang together? Characterization as registerial meta-stability"
Text & Talk

https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/text.ahead-of-print/text-2019-2051/text-2019-2051.xml

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