As many others have noted, OCLC is (quite properly) defending its trademark. Apparently OCLC has no problem with the hotel using the DDC as its organizing basis; what OCLC wants (and continues to want) is some recognition from the hotel's owner that the intellectual rights to the Dewey scheme belong to OCLC and not to the hotelier. Now, you can argue whether ownership of intellectual rights is a valid legal issue. Just because the DDC is used by libraries everywhere doesn't put it in the public domain.
I had a conversation last week with a person I know who works at OCLC. He told me that OCLC has written the hotel owner several times, and to his lawyer, and made phone calls, and so on and so forth. The guy paid no attention -- apparently didn't answer letters, return phone calls, or anything. So the lawsuit was designed to get his attention. According to my source at OCLC, the staff there is aghast and embarrassed. Oh, the irony! The world's bastion of library knowledge suing someone for emulating a library! Apparently if the hotelier were to answer their letters and acknowledge OCLC's ownership of the DDC, OCLC would probably settle for a dollar and a grant the guy a license. But they used a sledgehammer (triple the hotel's profits for 3 years) in their attempt to kill a gnat. How silly. I wouldn't worry about using the DDC In a library - OCLC's gripe is that the hotel is making money (i.e. commercially using their property) without giving credit. Most libraries aren't in the business of making money. Dewey, by the way, for all his contributions, seems to have been a virulent anti-Semite and avowed racist. See Yahoo or Google. Ted ========================================================================== HaSafran - The Electronic Forum of the Association of Jewish Libraries Submissions for HaSafran, send to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org/
