reserved for the people, not for OCLC

[deborah]

Thingology has been doing a good job of reporting on the dangers of the new OCLC policy [PDF] which goes into effect in February, explaining how it de facto removes work from the public domain. This is important: a private company is, by licensing terms, effectively stealing intellectual content created by government employees in the course of doing their jobs, and putting in noncompete clauses which make it implausible for these government agencies to contribute to public domain or open licensed efforts such as the Open Library. Read:

• OCLC's Proposed New Guidelines for the Transfer Bibliographic Records
• A Look at the Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records Revision
• The New OCLC Policy and Federal Libraries
• Stealing Your Library: the OCLC Power Grab
• The Elusive Moose and OCLC
• The New OCLC Policy and Federal Libraries

Then, if you are angry -- and you should be -- sign Aaron Swartz's petition. And then, if you are a librarian or a WorldCat user, sign the Petition for OCLC to Collaboratively Rewrite Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records.