“Menstrual Cup” by Frederic P. Miller, Agnes F. Vandome, John McBrewster (Ed.)

It arrived today.  To say I’m appalled would be an understatement.  To start off with though, we can all rest assured there is none of our copyrighted material in there.

When the book  (using the term “book” lightly) says “the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from wikipedia and other free sources online“ – they actually mean just wikipedia.  As in, essentially they have pressed the print screen button on their browser, printed off some pages from wikipedia and then bound it to make a “book”.

I almost wish they had ripped off websites like mine, at lest then the poor people who paid for this piece of excrement would have had something actually usable and informative. (please note, that’s not an invitation to copy my stuff :Þ)

Now, given that wikipedia articles are subject to a creative commons license (they can be freely redistributed, even commercially) and that anything that uses them must also be likewise free for people to redistribute – and this is stated in the license at the front and back of this book.  I could scan the entire book and make it available freely for anyone who wants to download it, but frankly there is no point as it’s all just on wikipedia, and 90% of it is utter rubbish you’d not be interested in anyway.   Which is a shame, I can’t even make this book useful (or get my money’s worth) by being able to freely distribute it among others…. it’s not even worth the time to scan it!  URGH!  So what I’ll do is just link to the wikipedia articles they used.  Infact that’s more useful than this “book” because wikipedia is updated frequently.

So…..  The in depth look.

It’s very thin…. I’m sure I’ve seen Woman’s Weekly magazines that are thicker.  Though they made the font miniscule to save on pages, so I suppose there’s something good to be said about not wasting as many trees to bring this bound pile of uselessness to the unsuspecting customers.

The chapters (aka “wikipedia pages they copy&pasted into their book making program”) are as follows (an apologies from here on in, my camera isn’t high enough resolution to really show enough detail, but trust me, you’re not missing much):

• Menstrual Cup
• Vagina
• Menstruation
• Tampon
• Sanitary napkin
• Thermoplastic Elastomer
• Diaphragm (contraceptive)
• Latex
• Silicone
• Endometriosis
• Adenomyosis
• Food and Drug Administration
• Toxic Shock Syndrome

Then we have “references”

• Article sources and contributors
• Image sources, Licenses and contributors

Then the Licensing information (which is just saying it’s free to distribute under the creative commons license and a whole page of copy and paste of what that actually means).

The inside cover is a bit interesting… (easily the most interesting thing in here really….)

As it shows not only are the people whose names are on the front of the book not “authors” (no, really?), and it’s the only part of the book someone actually took the time to type onto a keyboard instead of using cltr+c…. but it shows how crap the actual publisher is.  You can click that image for a larger one you can read, but here’s some highlights (bolding is my own):

“all parts of this book are extracted from wikipedia”

(so what about the other “free sources online” they claimed?)

“you can get detailed informations about the authors of this collection of articles at the end of this book.  The editors (Ed.) of this book are no authors.  They have not modified or extended the original texts”

(in actual fact there is no information about the editors in the book at all)

It says the information was gathered by volunteers and that “nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by people with the expertise required to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information.  Some information in this book may be misleading or wrong.”

It also says it’s printed in USA, UK and Germany, and specifically says not in Mauritius (which is where the VDM publishing house that’s responsible for publishing this load of steaming horse poo is from)…. wonder why they felt the need to say that?….

So… anyway… what follows is just page after page of printed out wikipedia articles.  Some of which are vaguely related to menstrual cups (like the page on pads and tampons)… some really not relevant at all.  Not even grouped into logical sections… not even alphabetically….  quite the hodge podge!

What makes me laugh (in that “Ohh, you people didn’t even bother to double check what you copied and pasted did you” way…. is that on a couple of the pages, they still kept in the “see also” links from wikipedia.  Of course since it’s a book, and you can’t have a hyperlink in a printed book, and those articles don’t appear in this “book”, so it’s completely irrelevant.

(Graphic pic of a vulva there, just FYI)

Nice one, genius!   Or should I say geniuses, since it apparently took 3 people to collect all this highly useful information!… Which says a lot about their editorial skills really, as I’m sure I could train a monkey to press ctrl+P on a wikipedia page, and apparently it took 3 of them to do much the same…

… moving on…

Now I guess including the articles on Thermoplastic Elastomer, Latex and Silicone are being “thorough”, but really…. without actually introducing people to why you’re including those pages in this book, it just looks like half a science text book got mistakenly bound in with a feminine hygiene book.

(that last one is another “see also” page)

So this is how they did the article sources….  they basically took the wikipedia page, and then listed all the contributors to that page.  Fair enough I guess, since you have to credit the people who wrote it, even if what they wrote could have been deleted by someone else.  Looks a bit silly though….

Except….. Look Ma!  I’m famous!!!

(sorry, camera flash)

Images sources are likewise just the wikipedia url of the image and the name of the person who uploaded it if wiki had that information.  I checked, there was nothing I could see that wasn’t from wikipedia.  Not that the photos were anything spectacular anyway.

So… there you have it…. wow… that’s certainly worth $50 isn’t it!

You have to ask yourself, why would you pay upwards of $50 (I’ve seen it for sale on Australian sites for over $100) for a book whose contents were taken from wikipedia and other webpages?….  I look at the part of the cover, where it says “High quality content from wikipedia articles” and just laugh.  That’s some “high quality” authoring there… (and what’s with the feet photo and superfluous tag words on the front cover?)

The news of this book, and potential copyright theft has caused one cup resource, the “cup charts” Livejournal site to close down, stating that they don’t want their hard work to be stolen for someone else’s profit.  In case you’re not aware, website contents, like books, are considered copyrighted to the person who wrote them.  This is automatic copyright, not something the author needs to specifically apply.  Copying parts of a website, or someone’s images, without their permission, is a breech of copyright.  So we’re concerned that the “free sources online” may be our webpages and blogs, which are not actually free to take stuff from.

We don’t know yet if any of our intellectual property has been stolen,  and without looking at the book, there’s probably no way to tell. I’ve contacted the publisher, and I’ve purchased a copy of the book, which I’ll be able to review when it arrives (which will take a few weeks, as it’s coming from overseas). It will be interesting to see what fills the 96 pages of this book!  and if it’s worth paying such a huge price for information they gathered (stole?) from the internet.

(If you need me, I’ll be printing off 96 pages from wikipedia, binding them into a “high quality” book and selling them for the bargain price of $50 per edition.  Buy now for Christmas!)

The best way to view this is to download the spreadsheet file – as you can then add in any info that is missing (but please let me know if you know any, so I can update this one).  It’s got different pages for each view of the list (eg listing by order of increasing size) Where I didn’t have enough data to properly rank a brand, I’ve put them at the bottom of the list. You will need something like Microsoft Excel to view it.

Cupchart Spreadsheet

I’ve also taken screen shots of the spreadsheet pages below for those who just want to look at an image file and don’t want to download the excel file.

(Click the images for a full size, clearer view)

(Squishyness done on the cups I have)

http://www.mooncup.co.uk/about-us/news/all-news/coloured-menstrual-cups.html

“Call us boring(!), but we’re not willing to compromise our ethical status for a non-essential additive with a dubious health and ethical history.”

Which sparked some discussion on the topic here: http://menstrual-cups.livejournal.com/2742047.html, given that part of their reasoning included the use of non-vegan things as food colours (despite the fact cups aren’t consumed and some of their examples aren’t actually used as food colours anyway)

JuJu has the following in their FAQ:
http://www.juju.com.au/pages/FAQs.html#coloured-cup

But it is an interesting topic..  I have e-mailed the cup companies (Iriscup, CupLee, Ladycup Lunette, MeLuna, Miacup, and Shecup) to ask them about the colours  and see what they have to say on the matter, and I’ll update this post when I’ve heard back from any   In the meantime, feel free to discuss!

– edit —

I’ve heard back from a couple of the cup companies.

MeLuna

They of course said the colours are safe   but sent me several pdf files of their test results, which shows the testing of both the colours (first file) and the general cup material.  Interestingly, I believe it’s saying that the plastic the cups are made from was tested on animals (presumably as part of checking the plastic is safe for use with people), as is referenced in the last file.  I’d never thought about that being a component of testing, and I wonder if the other cups have been likewise tested.

Meluna_Masterbatches_Safety sheet – Info on the colours – they are food safe (though that doesn’t mean they are “food colours” like you’d use to make a cake blue)

THERMOLAST_M_englisch – Information on the plastic material the cups are made from (from the manufacturer I presume)

TM4MED_ISO10993-5 -Seems to be a certificate of a testing where the material was left in contact with the equivalent of human tissue and checked to see if it was reactive (it shows no reaction, whereas latex showed reactions).

TM4MED_USP661 – Information on a few tests that were run (I admit, I don’t really understand most of it heh)

TM4MED_USPVI – Test result certificate

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LadyCup

Said they would get back to me in a few days

———————————————————————————————

Lunette

Said they will issue a public statement on it, and that they would contact me again in a few days – which they did, saying they have forwarded my e-mail to their head office.  They say they realise it’s an important issue, so they are gathering information from their experts and will get back to me.

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Secret Cup company (who are bringing out the new cup)

Said that as far as they know, the colours they are polling people on (see this post) plus clear and grey are the only colours that are already tested and approved by FDA… and that other colours (like purples and whatnot) would need to go through the process of testing and approval.

http://www.si-line.eu/collection/13-hygiene-feminine.aspx

Country of origin: France?
Composition: Silicone
Sizes: 2 sizes
Dimensions: Small = 4.1cm diameter,  4.7cm long without stem (7.4cm long with stem).  Large = 4.6cm diameter, 5.2cm long without stem (7.4 cm with stem)
Capacity:  Unknown
Stem: Narrow rounded stem
Measuring Lines: No
Cost (RRP):  20,00 €
Guarantee:
Been around since: Late 2011?
Other Details:

(taking into consideration that your monitor may display these colours slightly differently to how they may appear in real life)

So, in order to keep all the results in the one place, I’ve set the polls up on my blog.  I’ve got 2 polls…. the first is voting for all the colours you like best (so you can pick them all if you like them all).  The second poll is asking if you could only pick 1 colour, what would that one be (so you get only one choice).  Feel free to offer any comments here or the blog post, as I’ll be providing the company the link to both.

So please put your votes in, to help this company bring out new coloured cups in the colours we pick.  (Before you ask, I don’t know if they plan to bring out a clear one in addition to the colours, but I will ask)

I’m not sure how true to life these colours are, as I only have the photo to go by, not an actual sample of the cups in these colours…. but the aqua to me looks gorgeous!  The blue looks lovely, the lilac looks more like a baby blue to me…. It will be interesting to see what colours are more popular, and I can’t wait to see them in real life!

View This Poll

View This Poll

http://menstrual-cups.livejournal.com/2744356.html

I’ll give options of just colour name, feel free to elaborate on the type of shade (dark, light, “grass green”, “aqua blue” for example) in the comments.

For clarification, by “clear” I mean completely clear – no colouring.  The other colours I’m assuming to be coloured but still transparent.  If you prefer an opaque (non-see thru) cup, please comment to specify that

– I thought this might help cup manufacturers get an idea of what colours are popular.

View This Poll

If you look at this photo below:

The Diva, Femmecup, Keeper, Miacup and Mooncup have what I consider a defined “ridge” – theirs pokes out more, and is more obvious.

Lunette and Yuuki have what I call a “less defined” or “smoother” ridge – theirs doesn’t poke out as much, and is flatter and less “bumpy”

Ladycup, MeLuna and Fleurcup have no ridge – those cups are smooth right up to where the rim goes thicker.

I find that the cups with more of a ridge are slightly less comfortable (though not “uncomfortable”) to remove and insert – due to that more “bumpy” ridge.  The smoother sides cups are by comparison more comfortable, as they don’t have that bumpy outside.

So that’s what I mean by “ridge” 

The pouch has a glittery finish to it as well, which is quite cute

So it’s a slightly more pinkish purple to the colour of their Lilac.  I have 2 of the Lilac cups. I think the darker one is the usual one (I got it when they first brought it out), and the lighter one was one of the batch of cups that was defective (they split).  I assume the lilac they still produce now is the darker shade.  Anyway – this plum is the one on the left.

I don’t know which I like better actually…

Normally I prefer a blue-purple to a pinky-purple, but they are both incredible cool and deep colours, I love them both!

And compared to other purple cups

(the lighting is terrible, – it’s inside, at night – so take that into consideration)

Miacup, Lunette Cynthia, Plum Ladycup, Lilac Ladycup#1, Lilac #2, Fleurcup

(the fleurcup looks un-coloured compared to the others!)