[open-bibliography] Antw: Re: BL data available under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Thu Oct 14 02:47:58 UTC 2010

Tim Spalding: [...]
> Another question is simple: Is OCLC "non-commercial" or not? I say
> "not on your life, they're a monstrous and extortionary data
> monopoly." But I'm sure they'd say they were. What is the CC answer?

In the absence of another answer (as far as I can see), here's a late
one: while some co-ops claim to be non-profit and I think OCLC does
that, cooperatives are necessarily commercial.

Member economic participation is the third principle agreed by the
International Co-operative Alliance. http://www.software.coop/info/coopdev.html
http://www.ica.coop/coop/principles.html#3

Previously, it was more obvious, with much more talk about trading
in the Rochdale system.  http://www.ica.coop/coop/principles-revisions.html

Personally, I feel that this combines with the cooperative value of
solidarity and the sixth principle of cooperation among cooperatives,
to mean that OCLC is not a very well-behaved co-op today!  It does
seem quite enclosing and OCLC "encourages and supports the widespread,
non-commercial use of WorldCat Records" despite NC clauses hindering 
development of other co-ops.

That's something their members should correct, but I'm not sure how
OCLC helps its members to understand co-op values and principles.
http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/catalog/principles/default.htm seems a
pale parody of http://www.ica.coop/coop/principles.html

Hope that helps,
-- 
MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op.
Webmaster, Debian Developer, Past Koha RM, statistician, former lecturer.
In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Available for hire for various work http://www.software.coop/products/