Oh! You're right, they're clear about that on their web page, as well.
As Bryan points out.

So, wait: A bunch of libraries could pool together, buy the Whole
Enchilada for $28k, and put up a torrent?

Or, put another way, for less than the base salary of a starting
developer, *everyone* in the US could have access to this *massive*
store of authority data and build Awesome Things?

Think we could find a consortium that'd pony up? ;-)

Cheers,
-Nate

PS - Dear rest of the world: you're on the honor system, OK?

On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 4:36 PM, David Fiander <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> One of the most important pages in the print volumes of the Library of
> Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), is the title page verso, which
> includes publication and copyright details. The folks at LC very
> clearly understand US copyright law, since on that page you can see
> that they claim that the LCSH is copyright LC _outside of the United
> States of America_.
>
> The same probably holds true for the copyright claim on the name
> authority files. You folks in the United States can do what you will
> with impunity, but us unwashed masses beyond your shores are likely to
> get in trouble. Probably the next time we attempt to cross the border.
>
> - David
>
> On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 5:21 PM, Jason Griffey <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> As I mentioned, they are available from Ibiblio on the link above. The
>> copyright claim is...well...specious at best. But no one really wants
>> to be the one to go to court and prove it. They've been publicly
>> available for more than a year now on the Fred 2.0 site, and they
>> haven't been sued, to my knowledge.
>>
>> Jason
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 5:17 PM, Nate Vack <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 3:49 PM, Bryan Baldus
>>> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> One way (as you likely know) (official, expensive) is via The Library of Congress Cataloging Distribution Service:
>>>
>>> Huh. They claim copyright of these records. I'd somehow thought:
>>>
>>> 1: The federal government can't hold copyrights
>>>
>>> 2: As purely factual data, catalog records are conceptually uncopyrightable
>>>
>>> Anyone who knows more about this than I do know if they're *really*
>>> copyrighted, or if it's more of a "we're gonna try and say they're
>>> copyrighted and hope no one ignores us"?
>>>
>>> Curious,
>>> -Nate
>>>
>>
>