Guerrilla librarians free the $86k Library of Congress copyright database

Carl sez, "A couple of weeks ago, we wrote to Marybeth Peters, the Register of U.S. Copyrights, to ask why the copyright database had a copyright, and why it cost $86,000. On Friday, the Library of Congress blogged the issue, and dismissed the whole thing as a 'blogospheric brouhaha.' Well, the Library of Commerce can diss our distinguished signatories all they want, but lucky thing is these are all public records, and we're making all 21 million of them available for download." Link (Thanks, Carl!)

[#1 posted by queensissy , October 1, 2007 12:59 PM]

This seems like a non-issue to me; can somebody explain it further? Anybody can access the Library of Congress copyright records online...

[#2 posted by jphilby , October 1, 2007 3:09 PM]

Super. Now: about all those publicly-funded space photos NASA holds so close to its chest ....

[#3 posted by nick , October 1, 2007 5:00 PM]

My offhand response here is that Carl has done us a service, for which we should thank him (them).

Queensissy: there's more at the following bOING bOING entry and its comments section:

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/09/17/copyright-office-sho.html

[#4 posted by queensissy , October 2, 2007 10:52 AM]

Thanks, Nick. Makes a little more sense to me now...