I know you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth but there's not even an index or a rough idea what something like "Name Authorities" might mean. That's not what I call wide open doors, that more seems like doing some legally required minimum.
I know you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth but there's not even an index or a rough idea what something like "Name Authorities" might mean. That's not what I call wide open doors, that more seems like doing some legally required minimum.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_work_by_...
I can't imagine you'd get sued for putting online a copy of this if you comply with C&D notices, then again I'm very narrow-minded.
Regarding Name Authorities, this article should clarify it somewhat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authority_control
It's basically an authentication provider maintained by the Library of Congress, which serves to define cannonical identifiers for library-catalogued entities, like books and public figures.
The Library of Congress uses the MARC standard (developed internally) and that is the format of the Name Authorities files: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARC_standards
Then there's the old question of whether the works under copyright today will ever go in to the public domain, or if their copyright will be extended forever by future changes in copyright law.
So my question is, had copyright laws not been an issue, how much more would they have released?
There is also the larger question of whether the value of copyright law outweighs the value of not having it, so that everyone can benefit from this treasure trove of knowledge.
Given that the LoC has made it their goal to archive at least one copy of everything, I think they are not quite the right people to fall into your anti-copyright cross hairs. However, I do strongly agree with your overall premises.
The Library of Congress has put materials online for a number of years. American Memory was the first I became aware of:
https://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html
According to Wikipedia, it began in 1994.