Re: OCLC's proposed policy on record use - my two cents worth

I don't think they have made any such proposal, and probably haven't 
thought much about it internally.

But it's feasible, although not easy.  If a record matches exactly to 
the byte a record from WorldCat, odds are it came from WorldCat. If 
you've got hundreds of thousands of records that match, odds are you got 
most/all of them from WorldCat.

Map producers and directory producers sometimes put intentionally 
incorrect data in their works, so when someone copies it, they can tell 
they copied it, because it reproduces the intentional error. I doubt 
OCLC is thinking of doing that.  Directory producers do that less often 
post Feist v. Rural when the facts of the directory aren't really 
copyrightable anyway. I think map producers still do it, although the 
facts of geography also aren't copyrightable. (The _design_ of the map 
is, but presumably you'd be able to tell that was 'stolen' even without 
putting intentionally fake facts in it, so I'm not sure why map 
producers continue to do this, if in fact they do. Perhaps for non-US 
jurisdictions where there is more intellectual property protection for 
geographical facts.)

Jonathan

Deborah Fritz wrote:
> Does anyone know exactly *how* OCLC proposes to identify a record as
> 'belonging' to them, in order to keep control of the data and prevent
> 'unauthorized' use of it?
>
> Thanks,
> Deborah
>
> ------
> Deborah Fritz
> MARC Database Consultant
> The MARC of Quality
> www.marcofquality.com
> Voice/Fax: (321) 676-1904
>  
>
>   
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries 
>> [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of B.G. Sloan
>> Sent: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 2:33 PM
>> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
>> Subject: [NGC4LIB] OCLC's proposed policy on record use - my 
>> two cents worth
>>
>> Since I no longer work for an organization that processes 
>> OCLC records, the institutional contractual implications of 
>> the proposed policy don't concern me as much as they might 
>> have in the past. For example, back in the late 1980s I had 
>> several skirmishes with OCLC regarding record use in a 
>> consortial online union catalog.
>>
>> Personally, I see this proposed new policy as OCLC's attempt 
>> to keep a lid on innovation, to prevent innovative library 
>> and non-library Web 2.0 developers from making creative use 
>> of library metadata. I think OCLC feels a little threatened 
>> by what's going on in this age of open systems and they are 
>> scrambling to make sure they don't lose "control" over "their" data. 
>>
>> If you look at the proposed policy from this perspective it 
>> makes perfect sense...for OCLC. But does it make sense for 
>> the library community? Library systems are in danger of being 
>> further marginalized in the information society if their 
>> metadata are locked down even tighter in library-only silos. 
>> If libraries want to play a bigger role on the web they need 
>> to fundamentally re-think how their metadata are used, 
>> including use of that data by third parties. If OCLC's 
>> proposed policy stands as written, libraries will effectively 
>> be barred from considering innovative uses of their data 
>> unless OCLC gives its blessing. And given the tone of the 
>> proposed policy, how likely will that be?
>>
>> Bernie Sloan
>> Sora Associates
>> Bloomington, IN
>>
>>
>>
>>       
>>
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