Betascript Publishing circa 2010 - 2011

a warning about “alphascript publishing” and “betascript publishing”

25. Jan 2010 / http://swanrad.ch

i stumbled upon two seemingly identical publishing companies calling themselves “alphascript publishing” and “betascript publishing” (sometimes spelt “publishers” instead of “publishing”). they are churning out vast amounts of books on a very wide range of topics. on their webpage, they describe themselves as “one of the leading publishing houses of academic research”, producing “more than 10,000 new titles”. they “specialize in publishing copyleft projects”, and they do so “at no cost to our authors”.

now that description is not dishonest, strictly speaking, but it’s verymisleading, and i’d even go as far as to call it deceptive. what these people actually do is to copy a selection of wikipedia articles, put a nice image on the cover, and sell it to clueless readers for exorbitant prices.

because of the licensing of wikipedia articles, this is in fact legal. copyleftessentially guarantees the right to use the material as you please, including commercially. but the way in which they do this, and especially the way in which they are presenting themselves on their homepage, seems just wrong. in the product descriptions, for example, they don’t mention wikipedia at all (cf. this). it seems pretty clear to me that their intention is to fool unsuspecting readers, counting on the fact that people will go ahead and order the books not being aware that they are paying a lot of money for something they could have gotten for free (and probably in a more up-to-date version) on wikipedia.

so: don’t buy books by these dubious publishers!

COMMENTS
Jean Sasson 7. Mar 2010 at 15:37
This is good to know! I was considering purchasing Winston’s Hiccup until I found this information. And, they are selling WIKI info for 68.00!!!! Quite amazing.
Thanks for alerting unsuspecting buyers… Jean

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Connie Franzis 16. Oct 2010 at 19:27
Yep you’re certainly right – just ordered a book over amazon and paid 40€.
After receiving the book I was very disappointed, what a load of rubbish.
The book is about RSYSLOG has got a fancy cover the back cover explains RSYSLOG well it sounds promising.
Inside though its quite the topic is covered over 2 pages and that’s it. The rest has nothing to do with RSYSLOG whatsoever.

what a rip off

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Patrick 29. Nov 2010 at 22:56
FYI, they operate via print-on-demand, so their library is potentially infinite… It means nothing to have 16,000 items for sale. They’ve probably only even sold a fraction of that number of books in TOTAL.

Really shifty business operation…

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E. A. Shomer 11. Oct 2011 at 18:48
An author has made multiple attempts to contact Betascript Publishing concerning their unauthorized publishing of his copyright material.

They continue to ignore him.
Therefore a class action lawsuit is being put together.
If you wish to join or read about this class action lawsuit go to the following link:

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J. Rey 5. Nov 2011 at 13:54
Amazon has already blacklisted the publisher from it’s system. Since Betascript is already unscrupulous and deceptive- knowing well that it has find a legal grey area to steal – it is better to go after the retailers that want to stay commercially honest. But also they fail to handle certain subjects properly. Their treatment of "Kubernetes development service" makes it clear they have no understanding of what Kubernetes actually is. They mention Google, and containerized software, but do not come close to explaining what the benefits are, or what the baseline knowledge required to be a Kubernetes developer is. I live with a Kubernetes developer and he just laughed out loud when I showed him their offering.

The Wikipedia-Amazon-Number: How to make a lot of money with free content

7 Apr 2010 | www.basicthinking.de

Lambert M. Surhone is an avid author. If you enter your name on Amazon, the search result pops up : a total of 21,568 entries. Incidentally, the same applies to his two colleagues Miriam T. Timpledon and Susan F. Marseken . I do not have it in my head, but I think Stephen King is arguably the most prolific writer of our time - he's got just 2,888 results on Amazon . So we ask ourselves, "What's going on?"

Let's take a look at each of Surhone's books, and one thing stands out: they all have unbelievably bulky titles. For example :

WrestleMania XX: Professional Wrestling, Pay-per-View, No Way Out (2004), WWE Intercontinental Championship, World Wrestling Entertainment, WWE Championship, World Heavyweight Championship (WWE)

Sounds weird right? Imagine dictating the name of the book to the lady in the bookstore. Rather annoying than funny, but when we look at where the title comes from. Take a look at the Wikipeda page on WrestleMania XX". The individual terms of the alleged book subheadline are just the links in the introduction, beautifully chronologically abgefrühstückt.

The two US pseudo-publishers Alphascript Publishing and Betascript Publishing have set themselves the task of printing "academic research" - "worldwide and completely free for the author". In plain language this means that Wikipedia articles are copied, formatted and pressed onto the market between two book covers, where unsuspecting customers then strike. For each book is required between 30 and 60 euros. "Every year we publish more than 10,000 new titles and are therefore among the leading publishing companies in the academic field," one is then angeprostet one.

For the two companies, Wikipedia is the journalistic bonanza, the place where unpaid content monkeys work for lukewarm and in the evening with the good feeling in the chest off the computer: "Today I have done something for the preservation of the knowledge of mankind."

Alphascript and Betascript Publishing work with system. In the States there is great displeasure among bloggers , not least because Amazon itself apparently takes a liking to the business model. Surhone books are actively proposed to customers as a purchase object ("Here are some of the recommended articles, click here for all recommendations."). Asked for an opinion, Amazon USA responded, "As a retailer, our goal is to give customers the widest range of choices so they can find, discover and buy the products they're looking for." Of course, "buy," above all, because the bookseller deserves a lot of money.

Wikipedia books by VDM

March 11, 2012 /www.boersenblatt.ne

Adolf Seger wants to fight back: "This is money-making"

The Mauritius-based company Betascript Publishing has circulated a book about the former wrestler world champion Adolf Seger - the contents are all from Wikipedia.de. Seger does not want to put up with this: according to the "Badischer Zeitung" he is now trying to get a declaration of cessation by lawyer.

However, he does not have much hope that this will change him and stop Betascript Publishing. It is hardly possible for a company operating from Mauritius to enforce a declaration of discontinuance. But he did not want to give that up from the start. 34 euros cost the work created in the copy and paste process. "This is money-making with my name," Seger told the "Badische Zeitung".

Betascript Publishing is not being criticized for the first time. According to Börsenblatt-Recherchen, the company, like its sister Alphascript Publishing , is part of the network of VDM Verlagsservicegesellschaft (headquarter in Saarbrücken). VDM is active in the self-publishing business and earns its money among other things as a grant publisher. The books are offered on various platforms - including Amazon and the VDM shop Morebooks.de.