The following article is posted on The Wikipedia Signpost, an online compendium within Wikipedia of news and commentary about the publication. I am surprised that Amazon.com has taken no action:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: ... _and_notesAlphascript Publishing sells free articles as expensive booksAn Amazon.com book search on 9 June 2009 gives 1009 (6 August, gives 1,859) "books" from Alphascript Publishing.[nan 1] 1003 of the books are described as "by John McBrewster, Frederic P. Miller, and Agnes F. Vandome". They are called editors in the book listings. It seems the only content of the many books is free Wikipedia articles with no sign that these three people have contributed to them.
The articles are often poorly printed with features such as missing characters from foreign languages, and numerous images of arrows where Wikipedia had links. It appears much better to read the original articles for free at the Wikipedia website than paying a lot of money for what has been described as a scam or hoax. Advertising for the books at Amazon and elsewhere does not reveal the free source of all the content. It is only revealed inside the books
which may satisfy the license requirements for republishing of Wikipedia articles. (Emphasis mine. I am surprised that Amazon.com is not restricting this activity.)
As an example of the "care" given to the books, the book "History of Georgia (country)" is about the European country Georgia but has a cover image of Atlanta in the American state Georgia.[nan 2] The Wikipedia article History of Georgia (country) does not make such a comical blunder.
PrimeHunter has compiled a list of the 1009 titles identified in June.
