On Mon, 10 Jul 2006, Dave Fawthrop wrote:
On Mon, 10 Jul 2006 10:40:58 -0500, "Joshua Hutchinson" <joshua@hutchinson.net> wrote:
|How is it that the OCLC can enforce such a claim when the DDS was first written in 1870 (according to their website)? Shouldn't it be out of copyright and therefore open for anyone to use? | | |> ----- Original Message ----- |> From: "Andrew Sly" <sly@victoria.tc.ca> |> > Drawbacks: |> > Intellectual rights claims may limit usage. (OCLC claims rights |> > to use this system and licences it out to libraries.)
There will be a 1922 version which we could use.
Looking at the site: http://www.oclc.org/dewey/ I see this notice at the bottom of the page: All copyright rights in the Dewey Decimal Classification system are owned by OCLC. Dewey, Dewey Decimal Classification, DDC, OCLC and WebDewey are registered trademarks of OCLC. In other words, they are taking everything they can get. DDC is regularly revised. (I believe the 22nd edition is latest) Modern Dewey is significantly different from its original publication. Also, the term is trademarked. However, I'm not saying "No, this is impossible." A good thing about the wiki approach is that it (hopefully) encourages different concurrent approaches. I'm just suggesting that if PG ends up having a high-profile use of DDC, OCLC might object. A drawback of using some old version is consistency with what is current. Not only have many new headings been added over time, but there has been much revising and moving headings from one place to another.