Public Domain Works + The Open Library
October 17th, 2007
As some of you will know, Public Domain Works, a joint initiative of the Open Knowledge Foundation, Free Culture UK and the Open Rights Group, had its alpha launch back in August. The Public Domain Works Database is an open registry of artistic works that are in the public domain. Since the project was first publicly announced in June 2006, the PDW team have been busy mining through data kindly donated by Phillip Harper and the BBC Archives and building a web interface for it.
After an initial plan to partner with a project called WikiBiblio, Jon Phillips of Creative Commons announced that WikiBiblio was going to merge with the Open Library (whom we’ve blogged about before). He also suggested that Public Domain Works becomes a partner - which is currently being arranged.
The plan looks to be to upload the Public Domain Works data to the Open Library, and to use read/write APIs to continue to develop different front-ends for different jurisdictions - each with its own algorithms to determine which works are in the public domain.
The Open Library will be an invaluable resource for open metadata about works in the public domain if all goes to plan!
Related posts:
- Cornell University Library keeps reproductions of public domain works in the public domain Yesterday Cornell University Universit
- Mapping the Public Domain - Call for Assistance! For a while we’ve been planning to
- Which works fall into the public domain in 2010? On the first of January every year works
- Public Domain Works Database Project The Open Knowledge Foundation have been
- Public Domain Calculators: updates and a new list! Back in June we solicited for assistance
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December 6th, 2007 at 7:14 am
[...] While prominent bibliographic projects such as OCLC are closed (see the oclc package entry in CKAN), projects such as The Open Library (which we’ve blogged about here and here) exemplify the benefits of an open approach. (See this post on Jay Datema’s blog for an interesting view of open licensing for bibliographic data.) [...]
June 5th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
[...] For a while we’ve been planning to help to produce a set of Public Domain Calculators - which each aim to indicate whether or not a given work is in the public domain in a given jurisdiction. The idea arose in relation to our Public Domain Works project (a registry of works in the public domain) and its integration with the Open Library. [...]