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I think you may have missed that the court supported Google's use of a very small portion of Java API under the fair use clause of copyright law. So the parallel situation with DDC is that you can use a few lines from DDC under fair use, but you can't use large portions. Steve McDonald [log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- From: Code for Libraries <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Jakob Voß Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2021 3:07 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [CODE4LIB] DDC is like an API specification so it can be used freely Hi, A colleauge of mine just pointed me to a detail of the court decision in the case Google vs. Oracle. The Suppreme Court of the United States ruled that reimplementation of Java API is no copyright violation but allowed at least under fair use: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_Inc. The opinion of the Court contains a remarkable section on page 6: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/18-956_d18f.pdf "The second, less obvious, function is to reflect the way in which Java’s creators have divided the potential world of different tasks into an actual world, i.e., precisely which set of potentially millions of different tasks we want to have our Java-based computer systems perform and how we want those tasks arranged and grouped. In this sense, the declaring code performs an organizational function. It determines the structure of the task library that Java’s creators have decided to build. To understand this organizational system, think of the Dewey Decimal System that categorizes books into an accessible system or a travel guide that arranges a city’s attractions into different categories" Following this argument the Dewey Decimal System can be used as free as the Java API. I think that we (library developers) already assumed for specification of data formats, ontologies and data models but it also applies to other kinds of knowledge organization systems (classification schemes, thesauri, gazetteers...) including DDC. By the way if you know systems not covered in BARTOC.org yet, please let the editors know so we will add them! I doubt that we can share the raw MARC data of DDC with all of its details, but the class hierarchy, notations and headings (without limitation of depth!) can be used freely as far as I understand the court. Or am I missing something? Cheers Jakob -- Jakob Voß <[log in to unmask]> Verbundzentrale des GBV (VZG) / Common Library Network Platz der Goettinger Sieben 1, 37073 Göttingen, Germany +49 (0)551 39-31031, http://www.gbv.de/