[pdb-discuss] Creative Commons + Open Library + PublicDomainWorks

Fri Sep 28 11:09:48 UTC 2007

Jon Phillips wrote:
> Heya, so I wanted to alert you all that the parts that I talked about
> with you all in the summer, tentatively called WikiBiblio, are now being
> integrated into the Open Library (http://demo.openlibrary.org). Part of
> our project and grant is to create a Canadian front-end to this efforts
> with CC Canada, and Access Copyright, who is providing 170K records
> about Canadian public domain works.
> 
> Anyway, I want to encourage you all, anyway I can, to get involved with
> Open Library. I'm working directly with Open Library now through CC and
> have pulled in Wikimedia Foundation into this effort as well...
> 
> This means that the copyright and public domain status we were building
> into Wikibiblio as its own standalone service, is being integrated into
> Open Library and the Canadian front-end will use the Atom Syndication
> and Publishing Protocol to get read and write support to Open Library.
> Then, the per-jurisdiction algorithms to determine copyright, public
> domain status, and what licenses (CC, etc) are applied to a work, will
> be a part of the Open Library...

That's great to hear -- and I thought something like this might have 
been in planning. This sounds like a really good idea. I think we'd be 
very happy to become another partner along with yourselves, WMF, IA and 
the OCA. Who should we talk to to make get 'officially' involved in this 
way?

> So, a path I see that could happen, is that the brilliant work you all
> are doing on UK/EU pd/copyright calculation, could be integrated into
> this work we are doing, and then we can work to get
> publicdomainworks.net to be a similar front-end to this Open Library
> site.

That's sounds a very good way to go.

> I think this is a super super wise step for us all to take, as Open
> Library has funding, several full time developers, and the Internet
> Archive's support and infrastructure to roll this out...
> 
> Anyhow, lets talk about this more, and figure out how to work together
> on this...I'm super happy the project is heading this way, and
> discussing this project with you all in July really helped to sort out
> the direction of the project...what do you think? How can I help?
> Concerns?

I think this is a great way to go -- though other list members might 
have additional comments ... In terms assistance, the first thing would 
be helping us get officially on board as partner, pointers to details of 
the read/write APIs plus how we could start uploading data to them. The 
other thing, obviously is that OL is currently fairly 'book-centric' 
while we are fairly 'music-centric' but I'm sure that can be addressed 
pretty easily.

> If you guys are into, then it would be great to get the relevant people
> (tech, etc) onto the Open Library discuss and development lists to push
> on this effort...things are coming together!

Absolutely I think this is a great way to go.

~rufus