Mike Taylor 🦕
A blast from sixteen years ago: Aaron Swartz writing about how OCLC, which was started to help libraries, now controls and terrorizes them.
https://web.archive.org/web/20081218092812/http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/oclcscam
Stealing Your Library: The OCLC Powergrab (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)

Aug 17, 2024 at 4:29pmWeb
Show threadnavtisAug 17, 2024
@mike How do you feel about Anna's Archive using the entire OCLC catalogue database to index their 'collections'? ('OCLC catalogue datatabse' is already begging the question of whether OCLC have any moral right of ownership in the first place)
Show threadMike Taylor 🦕Aug 17, 2024
@navtis I'm all for it. OCLC are exploitative bullies, and whatever it takes to liberate what they've stolen is fine by me.
Show threadMike Taylor 🦕Aug 17, 2024
@navtis Every time someone tries to make an open alternative to WorldCat, OCLC shuts them down with legal threats. So that leaves only the alternative of an ILlegal alternative.
Show threadnavtisAug 17, 2024
@mike I'm relieved, I was starting to think I was the only one to feel like that. Companies stealing the public domain, then public domain supporters saying 'ah, but WE have to follow the law'.
Show threadMike Taylor 🦕Aug 17, 2024
@navtis Yes, quite. What's legal does not map one-to-one with what's right.
Show threadOpen Science Community TwenteAug 17, 2024
@mike Just before the current century started it seems the first step was taken towards the first Open Source library system: https://koha-community.org/about/history/
History – Official Website of Koha Library Software

Show threadMike Taylor 🦕Aug 18, 2024
@OpenSciTwente I'm a big fan of Koha, and one big chunk of it is software created by my employer (the Zebra Z39.50 server). Now we're mostly working on FOLIO, another major open source library system, which in use at places like U. Chicago, Stanford, Cornell and (soon) the Library of Congress.
Show threadkcoyle checking the perimeterAug 18, 2024
@mike the best part is that OCLC replies, and that reply is dripping with honey-coated spin/lies. I went with Brewster to OCLC when he went to negotiate for their bib data. On arrival I was shunted off to another room until the day was over. They didn’t want me letting him know how badly they were lying. It was astonishing!
Show threadMike Taylor 🦕Aug 18, 2024
@kcoyle Ugh. Part of the problem is emotional inertia. Long-time librarians remember when OCLC provided a service instead of a protection racket, and can't find it in themselves to quite believe they have gone SO off the rails. Even new librarians are fundamentally nice people and like to think the best of others. But they all need to take the blinkers off.
Show threadMike Taylor 🦕Aug 18, 2024
@kcoyle "The purpose of the Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records is […] to facilitate the freest possible use of WorldCat bibliographic data"!!!
Show threadkcoyle checking the perimeterAug 21, 2024
@mike I think most librarians understand the OCLC problem. But there is indeed a need for a shared database of library holdings to function for inter-library loan, and to make certain purchasing decisions. Had OCLC not purchased every other service (WLN, RLG...) libraries would have options. It's a monopoly even more than Google is. Anyone who tries to compete is sued (III, Alma).
Show threadkcoyle checking the perimeterAug 21, 2024
@mike Because OCLC claims to "own" the records in libraries' local catalogs, there is no path to creating an alternate solution. And if a library or a group of libraries complain (As U Michigan did once) OCLC can cut off services that the libraries need to function on a day-to-day basis. OCLC is THE metadata mafia. OMG there is so much about it that needs to come to light.
Show threadkcoyle checking the perimeterAug 21, 2024
@mike https://dltj.org/article/oclc-tax-exemption-status/
OCLC does not meet federal rules for nonprofit status. When it was questioned, the Ohio legislature created a new category, "serves libraries", to its nonprofit law - a category that only applies to OCLC.
A History of the OCLC Tax-Exemption Status | Disruptive Library Technology Jester

Disruptive Library Technology Jester Blog Posts

Show threadMike Taylor 🦕Aug 21, 2024
@kcoyle It turns out that CLAIMING to own things is just as good as actually owning them, provided you're big enough to bring expensive-to-defend legal threats to the real owners.
Show threadMike Taylor 🦕Aug 21, 2024
@kcoyle Exactly. The problem is vexatious lawsuits, not anything technical. Creating an alternative to OCLC products is not that technically difficult. The problem is that anyone who starts down that road is legally chilled into oblivion. It's mob tactics.