On 2/26/2013 11:07 PM, Alexis Rossi wrote: > The data in Open Library comes from various libraries and other > sources. We don't know whether those other parties have asserted any > rights over that data, or whether they are legally able to do so. As > our Terms of Service states, we ourselves do not assert any rights > over the data in OL, but that doesn't mean that someone else won't. > I understand that you'd like us to put some clarifying license on the > data, but we don't have the information that would allow us to do > that.
This is, of course, an extremely facile and ultimately useless statement. It is like trying to deal with copyright issues by sticking your fingers in your ears and singing loudly. It obviously has not been reviewed by legal counsel, as it is probably insufficient to protect OL from copyright violation pursuant to the Safe Harbor provision of the DMCA. In the U.S., when transferring rights to real property there are two methods that are used almost exclusively: the warranty deed and the quit-claim deed. The warranty deed says, "I warrant (guarantee) that I own this land and I am transferring that ownership to you." The quit-claim deed says, "I might or might not have any interest in this land but if I do you can have it." If I give you a warranty deed to the Brooklyn Bridge you can sue me when it turns out you don't own it, but if I give you a quit-claim deed you're out of luck. Alexis' statement here is no better than a quit-claim deed. Now a bare recitation of facts (in the U.S.) is not copyrightable, so just filling in the form fields with simple metadata doesn't give rise to any copyrightable interest (see Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991)). But any "original work of authorship" which has a "modicum of creativity" is not only /copyrightable/ it is also /copyrighted/ on the instant of its creation (there is some dispute as to whether CC0 is legally enforceable -- I tend to think that technically it is not, but practically it is good enough). Thus, entries that require full sentences, such as "About this book" were automatically copyrighted. If the author of the entry is the person entering the data then CC0 /might/ allow the data to be freely used thereafter (if it can be shown that the author knew or should have known just what CC0 entails). If the entry was copied from a publication printed before 1923 then copyright claims have expired. But if the description was copied from Wikipedia (or Amazon), then all bets are off. I would bet real money that 99% of the cover images stored in OL are under copyright and that OL could be sued for republishing them. The actual damages for publishing any one image is probably negligible, but the number published is so great that OL is probably liable for statutory damages and perhaps is even criminally liable. Now, it's been over 25 years since I last practiced law, so I'm in no position to offer precise legal advice, but my first word of advice would be to get OL's policies reviewed by competent legal counsel. At the very minimum OL needs to implement whatever is required by section 512 of the DMCA so it can take advantage of the Safe Harbor provision. The current wishy-washy statement that "your contribution is given freely to the world" should be replaced with terms of service something to the effect of "you agree that you will not post copyrighted material to this web site and that you hereby grant to the world at large an irrevocable, non-exclusive license to reproduce and use in any way your original work. Text which is licensed by CC-SA or CC-SA-BY [with links to what those things are so the contributor is aware of the rules] /may/ be posted so long as the terms of those licenses are satisfied." Of course, the database schema (to the extent there is one, which is not much) needs to be extended to capture copyright data. I don't see OL being sued for its obvious violations, because there's virtually no harm being caused and no deep pockets to tap. Other people who use OL data in more useful ways? Caveat utilitor. _______________________________________________ Ol-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-discuss To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to [email protected]
