Breen Encyclopedia Removed

[DC Dawg]

The online version of the Breen Encyclopedia has been taken down. According to Susan Headley, the copyright owner asserted their rights and asked that the book be taken down.

 

In short, the site owner, Tom Pilitowski, claimed to have permission to publish the book online. Steve Deeds, president of Bowers and Merena who owns the copyright, said that permission was granted. However, Escala, the owner of Bowers and Merena, asserted its rights and the site was taken down on Sunday. Headley reports that Deeds backed away from his earlier statements saying that he thought Pilitowski was only going to use excerpts.

 

As an author, I agree with Escala. If I owned the copyright to what is considered a seminal work in numismatics, then I would want to protect my property.

 

As a numismatist, it would be nice to have the book online as a reference. However, while comprehensive, there has been subsequent research that has proven quite a few things Breen wrote to be false.

 

As a techie, I know that within 6 months the site will appear in the Internet Archive unless Escala contacts them to remove the items. I am not suggesting doing anything illegal, but as an information security professional, I know that once it appears in the Internet Archive, there is a risk someone can download them for their own use.

 

Scott

[Coindude]

Yea, I just checked the other day and it was gone. Did anyone rip the site before it left? It would be great to have a PDF of the book for searching purposes. I own a copy of the book that I purchased probably 20 years ago, but I'd love to have a PDF of the book.

[astrostu]

I know it's a great book an' all, but it REALLY needs to be updated. I would love a comprehensive encyclopedia - like Breen's - but updated through at least 2000. I think a modern work could cover 1700s-1800s (likely starting with 1792 unless they include colonials), then 1900s, and then possibly coming out with decadal updates, like in 2011 or 2012 for 2001-2010.

 

I realize it's a monumental task, and Breen's book is pretty much the only of its kind, but it just is so out of date now.

 

On the other hand, I'm a big fan of the Red Book series now on various series. I'm very slowly picking them up for some of the older coins (just bought the gold dollar one about 2 months ago) and I find them pretty complete and well-written, and I really like the historic information about each series and each date that you can't really find in a massive all-encompassing encyclopedia.

[PerryHall]

If this book were ever updated, it would talk the various specialists to review and update those chapters where they have the most expertise.

[WoodenJefferson]

This reminds of the TV show called “News Radio” (1995) where the owner Jimmy James played by Stephen Root, a self proclaimed millionaire gave all but one on the show brand new cars as a Christmas present. He gave one seemingly unlucky employee a bunch of tapes from the old Fibber McGee and Molly radio show. Seems this particular employee enjoyed listening to these old comedy skits and his boss thought that this would be the perfect gift for him.

 

All the other employees who got brand new cars were consoling this employee who appeared to only get a bunch of tapes from an old 40’s radio show, when the boss stepped in and told everybody, I not only gave him the tapes to Fibber McGee and Molly, I bought him the rights to all the shows! So now when anyone in the world wants to play any portion of this show, they have to come to him first, because he now owns the copy rights!

 

 

 

 

 

[RWB]

Reality is that a comprehensive update and revision to Breen's encyclopedia would require assistance from multiple numismatic experts, and considerable independent funding.

[physics-fan3.14]

Reality is that a comprehensive update and revision to Breen's encyclopedia would require assistance from multiple numismatic experts, and considerable independent funding.

 

Something of the sort would be very laborious, no doubt. It would have to be collaborative, of course. But I think it should be done - it seems like at least once a week you are correcting some piece of misinformation gleaned from the great Breen.

[astrostu]

Reality is that a comprehensive update and revision to Breen's encyclopedia would require assistance from multiple numismatic experts, and considerable independent funding.

 

Something of the sort would be very laborious, no doubt. It would have to be collaborative, of course. But I think it should be done - it seems like at least once a week you are correcting some piece of misinformation gleaned from the great Breen.

 

Hence why I'm such a fan of the Red Book guides now. Written by assumed experts in the field, though I think they should branch out a bit more from just using (mostly) Bowers to write them so far, like RWB's Peace Dollar Book as an example of the branching out to other experts.