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----- Original Message -----
From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>
To: <xml-dev@lists.xml.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2003 9:36 AM
Subject: [xml-dev] OCLC turns evil (was ISO turns evil?)
> In today's New York Times:
> ----------------------------------------
> Where Did Dewey File Those Law Books?
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/23/nyregion/23DEWE.html
>
> By MICHAEL LUO
>
> Who knew that someone owned the Dewey Decimal System?
>
> Apparently not the owners of the Library Hotel, nestled in the shadow of
> the New York Public Library. Now the boutique hotel, which numbers its
> guest rooms and stocks them with books according to Melvil Dewey's
> century-old library classification system, is being sued for using it.
>
> "The Dewey Decimal System is a product, a trademark, a brand name," said
> Joseph R. Dreitler, a lawyer for the Online Computer Library Center, a
> nonprofit library cooperative that filed the suit last week in Federal
> District Court in Ohio. "The idea here isn't to put the Library Hotel
> out of business. The idea is to protect Dewey and the Dewey Decimal
> System trademark."
>
> The hotel opened three years ago at Madison Avenue and 41st Street. From
> its imitation card catalog in the lobby to its stately second-floor
> reading room, it is designed as a siren for book lovers. Each floor is
> devoted to one of the 10 main categories of knowledge in the Dewey
> system: Social Sciences, Languages, Math and Science, Technology, the
> Arts, Literature, History and Geography, General Knowledge, Philosophy
> and Religion.
>
> Hotel guests can request a specific floor or themed room, furnished with
> the corresponding books. History buffs might consider the ninth floor,
> with Biography (900.006) or Asian History (900.004). A technology
> aficionado might give Computers (600.005) a try.
>
> The most popular rooms, by far? Erotic Literature (800.001) and Love
> (1100.006). Room and suite prices on the hotel's Web site range from
> $295 to $770 per night.
>
> Hotel officials said yesterday that the owner, Henry Kallan, could not
> be reached in Prague, where he is opening a new music-themed hotel, the
> Aria. But the hotel's general manager, Craig Spitzer, issued a written
> statement saying that the Dewey Decimal theme was Mr. Kallan's "original
> idea," based on its proximity to the public library.
>
> "We are not a library lending books, but rather we have created a unique
> hotel experience for book lovers to enjoy," Mr. Spitzer said. "We do not
> believe that our guests or other consumers are confused into thinking
> the Library Hotel's hospitality services and the O.C.L.C.'s information
> services come from the same source."
>
> The Online Computer Library Center is seeking damages of three times the
> profits the hotel has made since it opened.
>
> Dewey, a librarian, invented the Dewey Decimal Classification in 1874
> and devoted his life to spreading it. Over time, it became the most
> widely employed cataloging system in the world, used today in 95 percent
> of public libraries in the United States....
> ---------------------------------------------------
>
> What's next? A charge for using the Dublin Core vocabulary?
>
> I guess it's time to stop using anything that isn't explicitly placed in
> the public domain or licensed openly, since even the institutions that
> are supposed to be encouraging people to use technology are getting far
> too interested in making a buck. (Network Solutions seems to be the
> leader of the pack in this category, but the virus is spreading.)
>
> This trademark case is pathetic.
>
> Simon St.Laurent
> http://simonstl.com
> http://monasticxml.org
>
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