Landgrab For Ownership Of Library Catalog Data
from the not-good dept
There's been an interesting (and somewhat troubling) behind the scenes fight going on concerning library catalog data over the past few months. The Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) is a nonprofit, made up of member libraries that basically tries to help facilitate access to information among libraries. That seems like a good thing. One of its offerings is WorldCat -- basically a big online catalog of library collections, so that it's easy for anyone to find books that are available at other libraries. This, obviously, seems quite useful, and many libraries agree and are a part of WorldCat. However, a month ago, OCLC announced new policies for WorldCat that effectively allowed OCLC to claim ownership over the records that any library put in its system -- and, upon doing so, limiting what libraries could do with that data (such as, say, giving it to competing cataloging services).This has many in the library community quite reasonably worried, with specific questions about who should be allowed to "own" library records. As that last link shows, there are a number of different people and organizations involved in the creation of a basic library database record, and basically the only thing OCLC is doing is putting it online. It's difficult to see how they can then claim ownership of it.
While this may be new in the library space, this type of debate has raged for years in other arenas, and some of the findings from those earlier battles may be instructive. The issue has to do with the concept of "database rights." Normally, factual information is not subject to any sort of copyright or ownership rights for rather obvious reasons (how do you own a fact?). However, some believe that there should be separate "database rights" that allow ownership of the compilation of certain factual information. For the most part, the US has denied this right, while Europe has allowed it -- and the results have shown, quite clearly, that the US made the right decision. Ownership of database rights tends to damaging to business while allowing the data to remain free can help build booming industries.
In this case, the scenario is a little different, because OCLC isn't trying to claim a government backed "database right" over the content, but instead wants to achieve the same effective result via a unilateral change to its terms of service -- including a bit of viral licensing code that forces the "ownership" to travel with the data. OCLC doesn't really appear to have any legal authority here, but are trying to force it through by contract -- for which I'd say there's a decent chance it wouldn't hold up in court, though no one wants it to get that far. Between the unilateral change, the claiming of ownership of others' works (including public domain contributions from the Library of Congress) and the lack of database copyrights, you could probably make a good argument that the OCLC's policy change has no weight. Still, in the short term, a much better solution would be for OCLC to back off its silly ownership claim, recognize the power of open sharing of information, and focus on adding additional benefits and services for why libraries should want to work with OCLC over competitors, rather than trying to use slimy contract terms to block out competitors. And, of course, hopefully OCLC learns that pissing off your partners and customers by dumping draconian ownership claims on them is never a good business strategy.
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Filed Under: catalog info, copyright, database rights, libraries, openness, ownership, worldcat
Companies: oclc
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I'm amazed we humans got this far while carrying such incredible intellectual garbage around.
In my time, we have a resource based economy: almost everything we need is produced en masse via automation. The cost (in time and resources--not "money") of most necessities is so close to zero that nobody worries about it.
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Libraries entered the data
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Re: Libraries entered the data
Now, regarding the ownership of the data, sidestepping the whole ownership argument for a second. I would say that if OCLC cataloged the item and entered the data, then the rights to records for the item should depend on the contract between the "library" and OCLC in effect at the time, for that item. But if the "library" entered it themselves, then the determination of the rights should belong to them rather than OCLC. But I would also agree that were it not from the fact that OCLC and the libraries spends money to catalog the items, it would be better to have the data in the public with the idea that you profit not from the data itself but instead profit with providing the service. And, there are ways to work around even that last bit.
As for OCLC's unilateral change... yes, it probably will very much harm them in the short and long run. This is probably just the first echos heard here, and not the last echos heard anywhere to say the least.
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Greed - yet again
The libraries are the ones that created the databases and populated them, this group is really only maintaining it and keeping it accessible. Are things a company makes now "owned" by the janitor?
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Isn't this claiming ownership of facts?
The whole concept of a database right is outrageous. Facts are facts; they aren't created. To create another, similar example, should a library or video rental store be able to have a "collection right," so that other libraries/stores could not have the same or very similar collection to theirs? Simply putting facts together in one place does not denote creation. The copyrightable parts of a database should be restricted solely to the table layout (iffy), interface, and reports, charts, and other presentations of the data.
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It's the CDDB all over again.
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bizarre
Leaving aside how you characterize the resources it invests in having staff whose expertise can assist libraries in properly cataloguing the works in their collection, I think there is some justification for it to expect some return on its investment. Some of that can, and probably should, come from the libraries, who are receiving a valuable service. But some ought to come from researchers (and more importantly in the case of most academic research, their institutions), who are utilizing the system to make their work more efficient and fruitful. Having still some dim recollection of my senior year in college, at a huge research university that even with its vast library did not hold the kinds of materials I needed to do my senior honors thesis, and the ridiculous amount of time I had to put in making phone calls, writing letters (no email back then), and ultimately having to travel to depositories I identified as likely prospects for the primary materials I needed, I would gladly have paid some small sum -- or better, seen it included in my tuition or my annual student fees (whatever they were for) -- rather than spend hundreds of hours just locating the materials I needed.
But nobody has to assert ownership in the raw data to accomplish this. If they've really built a better mousetrap, then I would think it a fantastic product to market to colleges, universities, private research institutions, corporations, pretty much anywhere real research is being done. And if I personally wanted to really track some stuff down for my own research, I would no doubt pay some reasonable fee for shorter-term access to the data, the same as my law firm does to access privately owned databases that do a heck of a better job indexing, cross indexing and providing other value-added aspects that make the task of doing legal research vastly more efficient and comprehensive (and ultimately, accurate) than the free databases out there, let alone the nightmare it used to be when we all still used difficult, dense and inevitably outdated digests to find the books we needed, and even more arcane sets of books to check whether the cases, statutes and regs we wanted to rely upon were still good law.
This seems to me to come down to the difference between bare compilation of facts and the manipulation and enhancement of those facts in ways that render the compilation transformative and useful.
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Re: bizarre
000: : am4a0c
001: : ocn122291427
008: : 070323s2007 nyua b 001 0 eng
010: : 2007012024
020: : 9780805080438
020: : 0805080430
035: : (OCoLC)122291427
040: : DLC|cDLC|dBAKER|dBTCTA|dC#P
049: : CSLG
050: 00 : HD30.2|b.W4516 2007
082: 00 : 303.48/33|222
100: 1 : Weinberger, David,|d1950-|?UNAUTHORIZED
245: 10 : Everything is miscellaneous :|bthe power of the new digital disorder /|cDavid Weinberger.
250: : 1st ed.
260: : New York :|bTimes Books,|c2007.
300: : 277 p. :|bill. ;|c25 cm.
504: : Includes bibliographical references (p. [235]-257) and index.
505: 0 : The new order of order -- Alphabetization and its discontents -- The geography of knowledge -- Lumps and splits -- The laws of the jungle -- Smart leaves -- Social knowing -- What nothing says -- Messiness as a virtue -- The work of knowledge.
650: 0 : Knowledge management.
650: 0 : Information technology|xManagement.
650: 0 : Information technology|xSocial aspects.
650: 0 : Personal information management.
650: 0 : Information resources management.
650: 0 : Order.
856: 41 : |3Table of contents only|uhttp://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0714/2007012024.html
945: : 322011|b31275044721398|d2007-05-30|fBUADY|hDOHSTK4WK|i149710|l25|n20.75|t1.71|vYANKEEH
949: : HD30.2.W4516 2007|wLC|c1|hDOHSTK4WK
994: : 92|bCSL
596: : 7
And this doesn't include everything, only the fields that the patrons see. Catalogers (of which I am not) know what each of these MARC numbers mean (i.e. 650 = subject headings). This record was first created by the Library of Congress, later touched by a vendor, then by my institution. OCLC never had a hand in it. So who owns the data? We all had a part in creating it.
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And who compiled the data?
This won't get far if it goes to court.
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