[open-bibliography] comprehensive bibliographic database of "open" resources?

Wed Aug 18 15:24:20 UTC 2010

Quoting Adrian Pohl <pohl at hbz-nrw.de>:

> "OCLC claims copyright rights in WorldCat as a compilation, it does   
> not claim copyright ownership of individual records".

Adrian, OCLC claims the rights, but that does not mean that OCLC *has*  
the rights. Anyone can claim rights in anything, but until it is  
settled via a legal procedure it is just a claim. So do not assume  
that this claim = legal rights. That is why the lawsuit between  
SkyRiver and OCLC is so interesting to some of us: it may be the first  
time that some of our assumptions are actually scrutinized in a court  
of law. I don't know if this particular issue will be part of that  
discussion, but many of us think that WorldCat's bibliographic data  
does not meet the minimum US legal requirements for copyright  
protection. (The key point of which is "creativity." A mere  
compilation of facts does not meet the creativity requirement.)  
WorldCat as a whole (database, UI, services) should be copyrightable,  
but the data itself, even the entire set of data, probably is not.

kc

-- 
Karen Coyle
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