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Hotel Being Sued for Using the Dewey Decimal System

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the who-knew dept.

cbull writes "Did you know the Dewey Decimal System isn't in the public domain? The rights are owned by the Online Computer Library Center. They are suing the Library Hotel in New York for trademark infringement. In addition, according to the article, libraries pay at least $500/year to use the system."

9 of 419 comments (clear)

  1. This could be good by Ryosen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just one more reason to do away with an antiquated filing system.

    --

    Ryosen
    One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
    1. Re:This could be good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Both Dewey and Library of Congress are "divide and conquer" stratergies - that is, you split the search space into smaller and smaller chunks until you find what you're looking for.

      This is an acceptable solution when you're searching on paper or your search sapce isn't that large, but today we have computers and far more data.

      For example, "Algorithms in C" is a classic text a lot of people here probably own.

      But does it belong under "math", "computer science", or "computer languages -> C"? (Dewey seperates Computing out into a seperate category, rather than placing it under math).

      The answer, of course, is all three.

      The ideal system would be a free-text search of all the books in the catalogue. But until we can do that, keywords and searchable abstracts are more useful than categories. Just put the damn books on the shelf in order of author.

    2. Re:This could be good by Zoop · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The ideal system would be a free-text search of all the books in the catalogue.

      No, no, no, no.

      What is needed is that PLUS exactly what you hinted at: faceted classification.

      Books can be arranged on the shelves by author or FILO or whatever, but they should be, in the age of computers, indexed by multiple heirarchical facets.

      Keywords and free-text searches are far too unreliable, even in the age of Google. If you're doing serious research, you can't rely on the first Google hit, you need to try several different methods. In fact, Google's methodology, ranking by weighted hyperlink popularity, wouldn't apply to books.

      What you need are a combination of faceted classification (like the subject entries in the cataloging software most libraries use) and free-text as well as abstract searching. Quite frankly, humans and the software they write are too stupid to classify everything well enough to use one system or another exclusively.

  2. Out of business by larien · · Score: 4, Insightful
    We're not interested in putting the hotel out of business.
    Er, so why are you suing for "triple the hotel's profits since its opening or triple the organization's damages, whichever is greater"? Yes, they're willing to settle, but to be honest, the first line should have been a lawyer's letter, not filing a complaint. I can only assume that the lawyers can charge more for filing a complaint so they advised them to file rather than discuss.
    1. Re:Out of business by Meowing · · Score: 5, Insightful

      One more time: The hotel isn't just using the classification system, it stole the trademark "Dewey Decimal" to advertise a profit-making business that uses the system. If Microsoft decided to rename its Services for Unix product to Linux.NET without getting Mr. Torvald's permission, would that be okay?

  3. Connections by mopslik · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From the article:

    "A person who came to their Web site and looked at the way (the hotel) is promoted and marketed would think they were passing themselves off as connected with the owner of the Dewey Decimal Classification system."

    Don't you think that a person browsing the website might just think "Oh, they're a theme hotel"?

    On the other hand, if libraries have to license it, then I guess that's how it works.

  4. Why not use the LC system? by Wohali · · Score: 3, Insightful

    My alma mater uses the Library of Congress system for numbering its books. Sure, it's not quite as simple for children to understand (a letter code, followed by numbers, then more letters), and is copyrighted, but as far as I know it's royalty-free to use.

    --
    "But always she's the spectre of uncertainty I first endured, then faded, then embraced..."
  5. Re:Trademarked? by GnrcMan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think they trademarked the term "Dewey Decimal System". The objection isn't to the use of the system itself (even if it was patented, I doubt the patent would extend to hotel room clasification) it's that the website uses the term (or trademark) Dewey Decimal System all over it.

  6. Re:A better history by Blondie-Wan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think the point is that anything invented 130 years ago by someone who died 72 years ago damn well ought to be in the public domain by now, and the fact that it's not is a shining example of why drastic overhaul of so much IP law is desperately needed.