[pd-discuss] PRESS RELEASE : Gale releases all its public domain content freely on the open web

Wed Jan 9 18:34:51 UTC 2013

I agree that this looks suspicious - and now I feel pretty dumb.  I didn't even notice that the web site was part of the Gale domain.  The domain name is listed with a registrar in Germany.  The supposed press release is not found on any of the Gale sites that I can see.

So it looks very suspicious.  I have a call into our Gale representative to confirm.

But what an elaborate hoax - unless it is predicated on the belief that those who believe in the public domain are naïve.

John, thanks for urging caution.

Peter
peter.hirtle at cornell.edu

From: pd-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org [mailto:pd-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Jonathan Gray
Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2013 12:14 PM
To: Public Domain discuss list
Subject: Re: [pd-discuss] PRESS RELEASE : Gale releases all its public domain content freely on the open web

I find it very hard to believe that this isn't a hoax - but it would obviously be very wonderful if it wasn't! :-)

On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 5:48 PM, Peter B. Hirtle <pbh6 at cornell.edu<mailto:pbh6 at cornell.edu>> wrote:
John, I went to the Gale web site and it appears to be the case.  I just downloaded the software and installed it.  When you go to download a book, it gives you individidual  TIFF images for the pages in each title.

Note that I have figure out what constitutes the "book id" for titles in the Sabin Americana set, but I did get it to work with a title in the "Making of the Modern World" collection.

This is incredibly exciting news.  It is exactly what commercial publishers should be doing: releasing public domain content for free and making their money on value-added services.  And it may be a recognition that with the extensive digitization by Google that is underway in Europe right now, most of the titles in these collections will be able for free anyway.

Of course, I haven't yet to see what, if any, tracking Gale may be doing.  But since they are releasing the images under a PD0 license, I can't see any harm that could befall me.

Peter
peter.hirtle at cornell.edu<mailto:peter.hirtle at cornell.edu>

-----Original Message-----
From: pd-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org<mailto:pd-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org> [mailto:pd-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org<mailto:pd-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org>] On Behalf Of John Mark Ockerbloom
Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2013 9:39 AM
To: Public Domain discuss list
Subject: Re: [pd-discuss] PRESS RELEASE : Gale releases all its public domain content freely on the open web

Do we have verification on this?  I don't see a mention on the main Gale site, and for some reason the access mechanism they provide is a "downloader" program you have to install on your machine.  I'd love this to be true, but I want to make sure this isn't a hoax (with or without possible malware).

John

On 1/9/13 8:38 AM, info at galecengage-publicdomain.com<mailto:info at galecengage-publicdomain.com> wrote:
> Gale releases all its public domain content freely on the open web
>
> Andover, Hampshire UK, January 1st, 2013.
>
> Gale, part of Cengage Learning, is thrilled to announce that all its
> public domain content will be freely accessible on the open web. "On
> this Public Domain Day, we are proud to have taken such a
> ground-breaking decision. As a common good, the Public Domain content
> we have digitized has to be accessible to everyone" said Marmaduke
> Robida, Director for Public Domain Content, Gale.
> Hundreds of thousands of digitized books coming from some of the
> world's most prestigious libraries and belonging to top-rated products
> highly appreciated by the academic community such as "Nineteenth
> Century Collection Online", "Eighteenth Century Collection Online",
> "Sabin America", "Making of the Modern World" and two major digitized
> historical newspaper collections (The Times and the Illustrated London
> news) are now accessible from a dedicated website called
> http://galecengage-publicdomain.com . The other Gale digital
> collections will be progressively added to this web site throughout
> 2013 so all Public Domain content will be freely accessible by 2014.
> All the images are or will be available under the Public Domain Mark
> 1.0 license and can be reused for any purpose.
> Gale's global strategy is inspired by the recommandations issued by
> the European reflection group "Comite des sages" and the Public Domain
> manifesto. For Public Domain content, Gale decided to move to a
> freemium business model : all the content is freely accessible through
> basic tools (Public Domain Downloader, URL lists, ...), but additional
> services are charged for. "We are confident that there still is a
> market for our products. Our state-of-art research platforms offer
> high quality services and added value which universities or research
> libraries are ready to pay for" said Robida.
> A specific campaign targeted to national and academic libraries for
> promoting the usage of Public Domain Mark for digitized content will
> be launched in 2013. "We are ready to help the libraries that have a
> digitization programme fulfill their initial mission : make the
> knowledge accessible to everyone. We also hope that our competitors
> will follow the same way in the near future. Public Domain should not
> be enclosed by paywalls or dubious licensing terms" said Robida.
>
> Contact > Marmaduke Robida | Gale Cengage |
> marmaduke.robida at galecengage-publicdomain.com<mailto:marmaduke.robida at galecengage-publicdomain.com>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> pd-discuss mailing list
> pd-discuss at lists.okfn.org<mailto:pd-discuss at lists.okfn.org>
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/pd-discuss
> Unsubscribe: http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/options/pd-discuss

_______________________________________________
pd-discuss mailing list
pd-discuss at lists.okfn.org<mailto:pd-discuss at lists.okfn.org>
http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/pd-discuss
Unsubscribe: http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/options/pd-discuss

_______________________________________________
pd-discuss mailing list
pd-discuss at lists.okfn.org<mailto:pd-discuss at lists.okfn.org>
http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/pd-discuss
Unsubscribe: http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/options/pd-discuss

--
Jonathan Gray<http://jonathangray.org/> | @jwyg<http://twitter.com/jwyg>
The Open Knowledge Foundation<http://okfn.org/> | @okfn<http://twitter.com/okfn>
Support our work: okfn.org/support<http://okfn.org/support/>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/pd-discuss/attachments/20130109/273dfaf3/attachment.html>