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Individual facts or datum are not copyrightable, but "collections of facts" -- particular expressions of data -- are. This is what makes phone books, databases, and the like subject to copyright. P.S. N.B. IANAL On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 9:59 AM, Jonathan Rochkind <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Interestingly, outside the US it's somewhat more possible to claim copyright > on "factual data" than inside the US, Europe for instance has types of IP > and copyright protection for databases that the US does not. > > But basically, the answer is that nobody knows for sure, not even the > lawyers. > > Jonathan > > Bryan Baldus wrote: >> >> On Tuesday, September 23, 2008 4:17 PM, Nate Vack wrote: >> >>> >>> Huh. They claim copyright of these records. I'd somehow thought: >>> 1: The federal government can't hold copyrights >>> >> >> The page [1] states: >> >> "Copyright" >> "Records in the MARC Distribution Services originating with the Library of >> Congress are copyrighted by the Library of Congress for use outside the >> United States. Subscribers are granted copyright permission to selectively >> redistribute records outside the United States; contact LC prior to any >> distribution." >> >> So, in the U.S., they are not copyrightable, but outside the U.S. some >> copyright claim might be justified. >> >> >>> >>> 2: As purely factual data, catalog records are conceptually >>> uncopyrightable >>> >> >> For the most part, personally I would agree with this, at least for >> individual records (though some parts of the record, like the 520 summaries, >> might contain enough original creativity that could be considered >> copyrightable). Others might believe otherwise, at least as it pertains to >> the collection of the records as a whole--for example, OCLC's copyright >> claims on their database of records. >> >> ########################## >> >> On the Fred 2.0 records, aside from their age, I wish they were available >> in MARC 21 format rather than XML with NFC encoding. When I tried to use >> MarcEdit to convert the files from XML to MARC 21 (January 2007), I ran into >> issues with character encodings. The files also seemed to lack header lines >> like: >> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> >> <collection xmlns="http://www.loc.gov/MARC21/slim"> >> >> [1] <http://www.loc.gov/cds/mds.html#lcaf> >> >> Thank you for your assistance, >> >> Bryan Baldus >> Cataloger >> Quality Books Inc. >> The Best of America's Independent Presses >> 1-800-323-4241x402 >> [log in to unmask] >> >> > > -- > Jonathan Rochkind > Digital Services Software Engineer > The Sheridan Libraries > Johns Hopkins University > 410.516.8886 rochkind (at) jhu.edu > -- Shawn Boyette <[log in to unmask]>