Did you know that the Dewey Decimal System is an owned trademark? I didn’t. Nor did the owners of the Library Hotel. But they do now …
The Library Hotel, overlooking the New York Public Library, opened in August 2000 as an homage to the Dewey Decimal system of classifying books by topic. Each floor is dedicated to one of 10 Dewey categories. The 60 rooms are named for specific topics, such as room 700.003 for performing arts, with appropriate books inside.
Trouble is, the classification system isn’t in the public domain.
Online Computer Library Center, a nonprofit organization based in this Columbus suburb, acquired the rights to Dewey Decimal in 1988 when it bought Forest Press. The system is continually updated, with numbers assigned to more than 100,000 new works each year as soon as they are cataloged by the Library of Congress, according to the OCLC website.
Now the library group is suing the Library Hotel, accusing it of trademark infringement.
Which is fine, I suppose, if they just wanted to be acknowledged as the trademark owner, or something like that. Instead, this non-profit wants treble damages (which I would think woudl be around, oh, zero), or triple the profits the hotel has made since opening.
It does seem that the organization contacted the hotel owner three times over three years, asking for acknowledgment of the trademark, but got no reply.
Still — given that it only charges libraries $500 to use the system (though, frankly, that still seems outrageous), and given that very few people would likely go to the hotel thinking it was actually a library, or vice-versa, asking for triple profits seems a pretty goofy thing to do.
(via Volokh)
Err…”the Library Hotel”, not “teh Library Hotel”…
🙂
I nearly choked when I saw this article on “Slash Dot”. What a hoot! I’m glad I have not gone ahead with my plans to “deweyize” my non fiction books (sadly in need of some sort of organization beyond “alpha by author”). I’d hate to be hit with treble damages for all the money I haven’t made over the years.
You’d think they’d be happy that this hotel seems to be built around a concept…the concept of ENCOURAGING READING!!!! But no, instead of working something out (maybe those three letters over the years were misinterpreted as library fines?), they whip out their lawyers and fire away.
Too bad!
Fred Kiesche
http://ars.userfriendly.org/users/diary.cgi?id=FredKiesche
Heh. Sounds like the Hotel needs to pay them 500./year they have used the system – or triple that and make it 1500./year past due, 500./year in future years. What’s the fuss?
I hate our legal system. It’s broken.
Typo corrected.