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Aaron Kuperman | 1 Feb 01:15
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Re: Copyright in Bib Records

Some comments on whether individual records (as opposed to a
compilation) can be copyright.

A very high percentage of the records are produced by Federal (or
Congressional, which is virtually the same thing) employees, and are in
the public domain, at least as far as American libraries are concerned. In
addition, LCC and LCSH are also "owned" by LC, and similarly in the public
domain. While the library associations assert ownership of the catalog
code, most of the code was produced by civil servants on company time, so
arguably the copyright is owned by their respective employers. LCRI is
similarly a government product. So what's left for private copyright?

So what's left to copyright? That a book as 45 pages, and is 23 cm in
height? 

Then you have the question as to whether a bibliographic record,even if
copyrightable, becomes copyable by virtue of a library putting it in its
Z39.50 server. Copying bib records goes back to antiquity, and one could
argue that it is so much a custom that "the memory of catalogers runneth
not to the contrary", and that absent a statute to the contrary, the
Common law respects custom.

Obviously the matter could be resolved if the Congress passed a statute
(or better, entered into a treaty with the countries who share cataloging
tools with the US). Absent that, I'ld argue that as long as we are dealing
with records that are available for downloading, and as long as a large
part of each record represents LC's intellectual property, there is no
meaningful "copyright" of individual bib records (as opposed to
compilations).
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Tim Spalding | 1 Feb 04:46

Re: Copyright in Bib Records

On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 2:41 PM, R. Richards <richards1000@...> wrote:
> I also think the addition of substantial original prose, as in summary notes in MARC field 520, would weigh
in favor of copyrightability of individual bib records.

Yes, the original prose could be copyrighted, for sure. But that
doesn't mean the rest of the record would be. Copyright is atomic that
way; in the Feist case, the layout and design of the phonebook could
be copyrighted, but the facts contained in the listings could not.

>the public domain, at least as far as American libraries are concerned. In
>addition, LCC and LCSH are also "owned" by LC, and similarly in the public

The ownership of classification work is very tricky. There was a case
after Feist, _American Dental vs. Delta Dental_ that recognized
copyright in taxonomies. But it recognized only copyright the
*expression* of the taxonomy, not in the system itself. In the words
of the case:

"Section 102(b) [of the Copyright Code] precludes the ADA from suing,
for copyright infringement, a dentist whose office files record
treatments using the Code's nomenclature. No field of practice has
been or can be monopolized, given this constraint. ... But it does not
permit Delta to copy the Code itself, or make and distribute a
derivative work based on the Code, any more than Baker could copy
Selden's book."[1]

This makes it clear that, for example, OCLC cannot forbid people to
use Dewey if they get a copy. (I'm not saying OCLC would want to do
that.)
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Aaron Kuperman | 1 Feb 06:52
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Re: Copyright in Bib Records

On Sat, 31 Jan 2009, Tim Spalding wrote:
> 		[...]
> It would be interesting to look carefully at state laws. I gather some
> release all documents made by public officials into the public domain,
> and some do not. I just read through the UMich documents and they seem
> to suggest that if a librarian has cataloging as a regular duty, the
> copyright there--if any--is owned by the university. But there is also
> some question whether, because they class librarians as "faculty," it
> isn't the librarians who hold the copyright. At least we don't need to
> worry about *state* copyright law anymore=97Federal law now preempts it
> completely!

1. Any copyright would belong to the employer. It doesn't make a
difference what the official status is, if you are paid to write
something, the employer own the copyright. If the employer happens to be
the government, the government owns the copyright (probably meaning public
domain for the US, crown copyright for the UK). If you work for OCLC Tech
Pro (which does a good job), OCLC owns the copyright.  Remember that most
libraries are owned by some sort of governmental body. This also means
that if a public body wanted to assign its intellectual property rights to
someone, they would have to follow complicated procedures for selling the
taxpayer's property. If anyone other than the government tried to
copyright something for which the government is entitled to copyright,
they will lose in court and probably be assessed costs for asserting a
frivolous claim (which is why one often sees notes in books to the effect
than an asserted copyright in a work does not extend to the parts of the
work that the government owns the copyright).

2. "State" copyright may be moot, but Common law rules aren't. The basic
rule for millenia has been that a library can copy someone else's
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Tim Spalding | 1 Feb 07:27

Re: Copyright in Bib Records

> 1. Any copyright would belong to the employer. It doesn't make a
> difference what the official status is...

Hi. I think we're missing each other. I'm not sure where we disagree.
My point about the University of Michigan was that the University
itself explicitly disclaims copyright in the academic or educational
work of it's faculty.[See official policy, 1] That is, the University
does NOT own an article you write or the syllabus you make if you are
a faculty member. I'm sure a similar agreement or understanding is in
place at all or most other academic institutions. Nobody would teach
at a state school if the school owned every article they wrote!

In Michigan's case they class librarians as "faculty," which triggers
this personal copyright, but a later section exempts works "created as
a specific requirement of employment or pursuant to an assigned
institutional duty." So, while faculty, librarians' cataloging work is
probably considered work-for-hire, even if the academic articles they
write are not.

> server, or someone else's clay tablet. A custom that has been in effect
> for centuries can't be repealed by implication.

I hope you're right.

For clarity, however, I think the actual issues at stake with OCLC
having little to do with copyright and everything to do with license.
OCLC's copyright claim is very very weak. Its license claim—at least
against those who actually agreed to it—is strong.

> them. Perhaps the complainers should cite an actual case where OCLC sued a
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James Weinheimer | 1 Feb 12:26

Re: Questions re: 490 & 830

Don't forget the LCRIs, which are the main places to go. To see the current
rule interpretations that you mention, see:
http://www.loc.gov/cds/PDFdownloads/lcri/LCRI_2006-03.pdf

which is the source of the info at Cornell.

James Weinheimer  j.weinheimer@...
Director of Library and Information Services
The American University of Rome
Rome, Italy

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James Weinheimer | 1 Feb 12:36

Re: Questions re: 490 & 830

Sorry!
Forgot to mention that the rule is LCRI 1.6A2.

James Weinheimer  j.weinheimer@...
Director of Library and Information Services
The American University of Rome
Rome, Italy

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James Weinheimer | 1 Feb 15:50

Re: Open source interfaces

On Fri, 30 Jan 2009 22:19:15 -0600, Bryan Baldus
<bryan.baldus@...> wrote:

>Do other catalogers (and end users--such more advanced ones, including
>reference librarians and researchers) find the alphabetical browse
>essential, or am I alone in this? 

I also believe that browsing is critical, even the alphabetical method, but
I think that the present implementation--based on the technological
limitations of the old card catalog--is not very useful. I went into this to
a certain extent in my reply to Thomas Mann at: http://eprints.rclis.org/13059/
but to this group, perhaps I should discuss it more fully. There are some
other aspects of subjects that I discussed there that I still agree with,
and I won't discuss them here.

Basically, the alphabetical arrangement is not really alphabetical. Of
course, the originators of the system understood this very well and in the
card catalogs, they had no choice except to use a combination of the
dictionary catalog (alphabetical) plus the classed catalog (for subject
subdivisions and other sub-bodies). A lot of this happened because of the
realities of catalog maintenance. For example, catalogers would add subject
cards under “Shakespeare, William” and when there were too many cards to
look through, they would go back and subarrange the cards into groupings
that made sense to them: biographies, criticism, places where they lived,
and so on. This method had to be more formalized once the cards began to be
shared, so we have the rules as they exist today.

In any case, when new subjects arose, catalogers were always trying to
determine what the entry element should be (as they still do). With the
concept of “art in Afghanistan” should “art” be subarranged under
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J. McRee Elrod | 1 Feb 17:39
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Re: Browse arrangment (was Open source interfaces)

James said:

>I also believe that browsing is critical, even the alphabetical method, but
>I think that the present implementation--based on the technological
>limitations of the old card catalog ...

Oh you young whippersnapper.  The present strict computer alphabetical
arrangement: numbers first, nothing before something, was a late
arrival (John Rather).  Earlier card catalogue arrangements were more
systematic, e.g. under subject, there were separate subject
subdivision sequences for topic, geographic, and period subdivisions.  
6XX$x$z$y would have allowed this, plus now one for $v, but I've never
seen it done.  Personal name 100/700 indicator "2" would allow the
"old" card catalogue practice of compound surnames, e.g.,
"Smith-Jones" to come after "Smith, William", as opposed to after
"Smith, Henry" as now.  I have no idea why MARBI dropped that
indicator.

Many of us divided our "old" card catalolgues into author/title and
subject divided catalogues, arranging cards behind subject guides in
inverse chronological order.  Many OPACS are not that sophisticated,
and have subject hitlists in alphabetical order by main entry.  Why
should an author whose name starts with "A" be more relevant than one
whose name starts with "Z"?

Present arrangement is based on simple "computer see computer do",
*not* on the "old" card catalogue, which was far more sophisticated.

   __       __   J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@...)
  {__  |   /     Special Libraries Cataloguing   HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/
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J. McRee Elrod | 1 Feb 18:11
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Re: Questions re: 490 & 830

James said:

>Don't forget the LCRIs, which are the main places to go. To see the current
>rule interpretations that you mention, see:
>http://www.loc.gov/cds/PDFdownloads/lcri/LCRI_2006-03.pdf

While LCRI 1.6A2 helps with source of information, LC has now stopped
using 830 at all, leaving it to users to change 490 0 to 490 1, and
enter the 830.

   __       __   J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@...)
  {__  |   /     Special Libraries Cataloguing   HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/
  ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________

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R. Richards | 1 Feb 20:06
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Re: Copyright in Bib Records

Aaron, thanks for your very interesting comments. I agree that the case for copyright in individual bib
records is weak for the reasons you mention. But here are some additional suggestions for arguments in
favor of such a copyright in individual bib records created by persons other than U.S. federal government
employees. 

The statute and cases seem to suggest two avenues by which copyright could attach to an individual bib
record containing noncopyrightable material: under Section 102(a)(1) of the Copyright Act, if the
record “integrates” the noncopyrightable material with copyrightable expression; or as a
compilation under Section 103 of the Copyright Act, through the selection and arrangement of the
noncopyrightable material. More detail on this appears in the last paragraph below. 

Aaron’s comments seem to suggest that respecting individual original bib records created by persons
other than federal government employees, the following might be considered factors weighing in favor of
a finding of copyrightability (under Section 102 or 103): 

    • the creating library did not put the bib record on a publicly available server for free-of-charge,
unrestricted download, which might be viewed as relinquishing copyright or granting a broad implied
license; 
    • the presence of substantial original prose, such as in field 520 summary notes; 
    • use of classification numbers or codes not created by U.S. federal government employees (such as DDC or
UDC); 
    • use of subject headings or subject terms not created by U.S. federal government employees (such as
Sears headings, or genre terms from thesauri not created by LC or NLM). 

In addition, for certain types of works combining noncopyrightable and copyrightable material, the
courts recognize what is termed a “thin” copyright, which protects only against copying of the
specific wording and arrangement used in the work, but not against slight variations or derivative
works. See Cont’l Cas. Co. v. Beardsley, 253 F.2d 702 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 358 U.S. 816 (1958),
http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/253/253.F2d.702.174.24752_1.html (“[I]n the
fields of insurance and commerce the use of specific language in forms and documents may be so essential to
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