Security measures can be set in place to prevent
the scenario you describe.

Tagging systems (or pop culture cataloging) such as those
used by Amazon.com were consciously or unconsciously
inspired by Berman's work, but although they are dynamic
and current, they are simplisitic and undisciplined...we've
got a sort of highly personalized marginally literate chaos
where 5 people can all tag the same item differently
and the sixth person who may search for that item may not search for it
using any of the tags the previous 5 assigned.

Berman's system is dynamic and current but also
finely, structured and highly disciplined, he's
created a great cognitive map of interconnected
associations that bring order to chaos and clarifies
and defines issues evolving in the culture...
you could say a good search engine does that
but his brain worked and still works in a more
exquisitely sophisticated and powerful way than
any search engine I've used.

As to someone using his work for profit...get real
no one besides ourselves has a clue
to the value and usefulness of Berman's work,
and they don't care to find out...and they
certainly would not make the effort to
deconstruct it and turn it into a Twitter
version of a catalog, especially since
they can't profit from it.

There's no monetary gold to be harvested from
Berman's work...there's treasure of another
kind!



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ross Singer" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 10:30 PM
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] The Berman Catalog


> I'm not sure this addressing the criteria of the licensing.  How would
> you stop "commercial" purposes?
>
> Say I work for a UK-based vendor that starts with a "T" (as hard as
> that may seem) and I devise a script (or, even more crazily, have root
> access to the server to the server that the Berman catalog runs on...)
> that pulls the data into publicly accessible Platform store.  You
> know, for the common good.
>
> Some random developer then uses that Platform store, builds an
> interface on, because, you know, Berman data!  It's cool!  But they
> have Google Ads in their interface.
>
> Some (admittedly small) amount of money changes hands from Google to
developer.
>
> UIUC decides to sue since this against their licensing terms.
>
> Who's liable?
>
> Go!
> -Ross.
> p.s.  The answer here is for UIUC to license this under an open data
> license -- NOT for a developer to "release and pray".
>
> On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 9:42 PM, md <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > In regard to Harvey's concerns about the license agreement for the
> > Berman catalog:
> >
> > The catalog IS publicly available on the Sanford Berman website and
> > has been for about 3 years.   Ed began development of a Ruby
application.
> > His work was very important and very appreciated....just not finished.
> >
> > The license agreement states that you must use the databases for
> > scholarly, education and research purposes, not for commercial or
> > other purposes.    That's how I'm using the databases.    That's how
> > I imagine everyone would use them.
> >
> > Ruby was one solution but I'm open to others.
> >
> > The structure of Berman's work is so complex and beautiful,
> > the content so innovative and global that I would think anyone
> > with an OSS Opac...Koha etc. would welcome the honor
> > and the challenge of giving Berman's work a new environment
> > to live in.
> >
> > So who among you will accept the challenge?
> >
> > ---Madeline Douglass
> > [log in to unmask]
> >
>