[Web4lib] RE: Re: RE: More on the Open Content Alliance

[Karen Coyle]

Lars Aronsson wrote:

>If everybody went open, we wouldn't see closed-minded declarations 
>such as http://gallica.bnf.fr/les_droits.htm
>  
>
I'm not sure that joining the OCA would greatly change the BNF's rights 
declaration. The BNF is making the same mistake that many US libraries 
do, which is that it is declaring to hold rights in the digital copies 
of public domain works. Essentially, they are protecting their 
investment (or their behinds, if they fear lawsuits). Note that the OCA 
has not yet made a clear statement of rights relating to their works -- 
possibly because they don't really have anything up yet -- but say this, 
which leaves some ambiguity:

"What can people do with materials contained in the OCA archive?

The OCA will encourage the greatest possible degree of access to and 
reuse of collections in the archive, while respecting the rights of 
content owners and contributors. Generally, textual material will be 
free to read, and in most cases, available for saving or printing using 
formats such as PDF. Contributors to the OCA will determine the 
appropriate level of access to their content."
  http://www.opencontentalliance.org/faq.html

We'll see if they correctly label the public domain works as public 
domain, and don't put any usage restrictions on them.

kc

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Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kcoyle at kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
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