{"id":3524,"date":"2010-07-29T14:28:40","date_gmt":"2010-07-29T18:28:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/?p=3524"},"modified":"2010-07-29T14:41:52","modified_gmt":"2010-07-29T18:41:52","slug":"skyriver-sues-oclc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/29\/skyriver-sues-oclc.html","title":{"rendered":"SkyRiver sues OCLC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/theskyriver.com\/\">SkyRiver<\/a>, the new bibliographic records company created by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iii.com\/\">Innovative Interfaces, Inc.<\/a> (III) owner Jerry Kline, has filed suit against <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oclc.org\/\">OCLC<\/a>, alleging that they are &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.choiceforlibraries.com\/docs\/SkyRiverNews-20100729-SkyRiverOCLC.pdf\">unlawfully monopolizing the markets for cataloging services, interlibrary lending, and bibliographic data<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>SkyRiver has been joined in the suit by III.\u00a0 To my knowledge, OCLC has not yet responded to the suit.<\/p>\n<p>SkyRiver set up a website called <a href=\"http:\/\/choiceforlibraries.com\/\">Choice for Libraries<\/a> to provide information about their activities relating to the suit, and is encouraging the use of the <a href=\"http:\/\/search.twitter.com\/search?q=%23skyoclc\">#skyoclc<\/a> hashtag for Twitter posts.<\/p>\n<p>The most thorough coverage I have seen so far is from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.libraryjournal.com\/lj\/home\/886099-264\/skyriver_and_innovative_interfaces_file.html.csp\">Library Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>My initial thoughts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Why set up an informative website, post the press release, but not post the actual legal document (redacting monetary portions, if necessary)?<\/li>\n<li>Why is III part of this lawsuit, besides being owned by the same person?\u00a0 Has III suffered damages from this?<\/li>\n<li>Why aren&#8217;t the libraries\/universities who found their OCLC charges being increased 1100% (Michigan State University and California State University, Long Beach, according to the press release) not part of the suit?<\/li>\n<li>It is certainly interesting to see two companies for whom I have been critical regarding business practices involved on opposite sides of a lawsuit involving business practices.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Overall, this will be interesting to watch.\u00a0 There are many benefits to be had by libraries if business practices are brought into the open and examined in a fair way.\u00a0 If this is only played out as a public relations battle, the benefits are diminished.<\/p>\n<p>I really wish that this had been initiated by the affected libraries, or at least in partnership with them.\u00a0 A battle simply between two (or three, depending on how III relates to the case) companies won&#8217;t necessarily provide the courts with the broader picture of the whole bibliographic services business.<\/p>\n<p>As long as it is &#8220;this bibliographic records provider is hurting this other bibliographic records provider&#8221;, libraries can still be stuck on the receiving end of a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/2008\/12\/10\/oclc-license-policy-a-recommendation.html\">fundamentally flawed business model<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This is a lawsuit that might be necessary to bring some pressing problems into the open, but I am not so sure that SkyRiver\/III is the right combination of companies to champion the cause.<\/p>\n<p>Update: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.librarytechnology.org\/\">LibraryTechnology.org<\/a> has posted a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.librarytechnology.org\/docs\/14917.pdf\"><strong>copy of the suit<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SkyRiver, the new bibliographic records company created by Innovative Interfaces, Inc. (III) owner Jerry Kline, has filed suit against OCLC, alleging that they are &#8220;unlawfully monopolizing the markets for cataloging services, interlibrary lending, and bibliographic data.&#8221; SkyRiver has been joined &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/29\/skyriver-sues-oclc.html\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2922,2929,2939,2940,2943,2948,2949,2951,2952],"tags":[3970,3819,5278,5358,4039,4045,5363,4945,5280,5277,5279],"class_list":["post-3524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cataloging","category-ethics","category-ill","category-ils","category-libraries","category-news","category-oclc","category-online-databases","category-online-services","tag-iii","tag-innovative-interfaces-inc","tag-jerry-kline","tag-libraries","tag-library","tag-library-journal","tag-oclc","tag-online-computer-library-center","tag-skyriver","tag-skyriver-communications-inc","tag-twitter-inc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSU5g-UQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}