Lars Aronsson wrote:
For Wikicat, perhaps it could be based on Wikidata or
perhaps on
some other technical solution, but it also needs contents, and
this contents needs to be free (as in freedom). The dump of the
database must be possible to download and reuse for other
purposes. My point is that we currently don't have that kind of
content. What's lacking is not so much the technical platform, as
the contents. The most recent proposal ([[m:Wikicat]]) by Jleybov
is based on lifting catalog records from the Library of Congress
and other major libraries through a Z39.50 interface. I don't see
any contract with the LoC and other libraries that confirms that
these data can be reused for any purpose, and I don't see any
efforts being made to getting such contracts. Instead, on the
m:talk:Wikicat page, I see vague ideas about using data that are
available for educational non-profit purposes, and I personally
think that is quite insufficient. I don't think it is impossible
to solve the licensing issue, but I think it needs to be solved.
Just ignoring the legal issue is not good enough.
I don't see where copyright is an issue with this. The Library of
Congress is an arm of the United States Congress whose primary purpose
is to serve U. S. legislators. That would put its work in the public
domain. Is there any reason to believe otherwise? Other libraries may
have different views concerning their material, but how much of their
material is not in the LoC catalogue.
Ec