The Open Content Alliance (OCA) was a consortium of organizations contributing to a permanent, publicly accessible archive of digitized texts. Its creation was announced in October 2005 by

Yahoo! Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, and its a ...

, the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

, the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...

, the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

and others. Scanning for the Open Content Alliance was administered by the Internet Archive, which also provided permanent storage and access through its website. The OCA was, in part, a response to Google Book Search, which was announced in October 2004. OCA's approach to seeking permission from copyright holders differed significantly from that of Google Book Search. OCA digitized copyrighted works only after asking and receiving permission from the copyright holder ("opt-in"). By contrast, Google Book Search digitized copyrighted works unless explicitly told not to do so ("opt-out"), and contends that digitizing for the purposes of indexing is

fair use Fair use is a Legal doctrine, doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to bal ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

had a special relationship with the Open Content Alliance until May 2008. Microsoft joined the Open Content Alliance in October 2005 as part of its Live Book Search project. However, in May 2008 Microsoft announced it would be ending the Live Book Search project and no longer funding the scanning of books through the Internet Archive."Book search winding down"
Live Search Blog. Official announcement from Microsoft. Last accessed October 20, 2024. Microsoft removed any contractual restrictions on the content they had scanned and they relinquished the scanning equipment to their digitization partners and libraries to continue digitization programs. Between about 2006 and 2008 Microsoft sponsored the scanning of over 750,000 books, 300,000 of which are now part of the Internet Archive's on-line collections.

Opposition to Google Book Settlement

Brewster Kahle, a founder of the Open Content Alliance, actively opposed the proposed Google Book Settlement until its defeat in March 2011.

Contributors

The following are contributors to the OCA: * Adobe Systems Incorporated *

Boston Library Consortium The Boston Library Consortium (BLC) is a library consortium based in the Boston area with 26 member institutions across New England. Membership and governance The Boston Library Consortium is a consortium of twenty-six institutions: sixteen i ...

Boston Public Library The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1848. The Boston Public Library is also Massachusetts' Library for the Commonwealth (formerly ''library of last recourse''), meaning all adult re ...

* The Bancroft Library *

The British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

Columbia University Libraries Columbia University Libraries is the library system of Columbia University and one of the largest academic library systems in North America. With 15.0 million volumes and over 160,000 journals and serials, as well as extensive electronic resources ...

* Emory University Library * European Archive *

Getty Research Institute The Getty Research Institute (GRI), located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, is "dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts".

HP Labs HP Labs is the exploratory and advanced research group for HP Inc. HP Labs' headquarters is in Palo Alto, California and the group has research and development facilities in Bristol, UK. The development of programmable desktop calculators, ink ...

* Indiana University Libraries *

* Johns Hopkins University Libraries *

McMaster University McMaster University (McMaster or Mac) is a public research university in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main McMaster campus is on of land near the residential neighbourhoods of Ainslie Wood, Ontario, Ainslie Wood and Westdale, Ontario, Westd ...

* Memorial University of Newfoundland *

Missouri Botanical Garden The Missouri Botanical Garden is a botanical garden located at 4344 Shaw Boulevard in St. Louis, Missouri. It is also known informally as Shaw's Garden for founder and philanthropy, philanthropist Henry Shaw (philanthropist), Henry Shaw. I ...

* MSN * The National Archives *

National Writers Union National Writers Union (NWU) is a trade union in the United States for freelance and contract writers founded on 19 November 1981. NWU is affiliated with the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the International Authors Forum (IAF), a ...

Natural History Museum, London The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum (Lo ...

National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...

O'Reilly Media O'Reilly Media, Inc. (formerly O'Reilly & Associates) is an American learning company established by Tim O'Reilly that provides technical and professional skills development courses via an online learning platform. O'Reilly also publishes b ...

Perseus Project The Perseus Digital Library, formerly known as the Perseus Project, is a free-access digital library founded by Gregory Crane in 1987 and hosted by the Department of Classical Studies of Tufts University. One of the pioneers of digital libraries, ...

Prelinger Library The Prelinger Library is a privately funded public library in San Francisco founded in 2004 and operated by Megan Prelinger and Rick PrelingerAudioRichard and Megan Prelingerinterview at KQED-FM (NPR) (1 hour) It holds over 50,000 books, perio ...

and

Prelinger Archives The Prelinger Archives is a collection of films relating to U.S. cultural history, the evolution of the American landscape, everyday life, and social history. Originally based in New York City from 1982 through 2002, it is now based in San Franci ...

* Research Libraries Group * Rice University Libraries * San Francisco Public Library * Simon Fraser University Library * Smithsonian Institution Libraries * Universidad Francisco Marroquín, Guatemala *

University of Alberta Libraries The University of Alberta (also known as U of A or UAlberta, ) is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta, and Henry Marshall Tory, t ...

* University of British Columbia Library * University of California Libraries *

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

University of Georgia The University of Georgia (UGA or Georgia) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia, United States. Chartered in 1785, it is the oldest public university in th ...

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC, UNC–Chapel Hill, or simply Carolina) is a public university, public research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. Chartered in 1789, the university first began enrolli ...

University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa (), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a Official bilingualism in Canada, bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on directly to the northeast of Downtown Ot ...

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...

* University of Virginia Library * Washington University in St. Louis * William and Flora Hewlett Foundation *

Xerox Corporation Xerox Holdings Corporation (, ) is an American corporation that sells print and digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox was the pioneer of the photocopier market, beginning with the introduction of the Xerox ...

* York University Library

Biodiversity Heritage Library The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is the world’s largest open-access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives. BHL operates as a worldwide consortium of natural history, botanical, research, and national libraries working ...

, a cooperative project of: *

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...

* Harvard University Botany Libraries * Harvard University, Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology *

* The New York Botanical Garden *

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,10 ...

* Smithsonian Institution Libraries

References

External links

* (official website)
Video from Open Content Alliance Launch, Oct 2005
{{Authority control Online archives Open content projects Organizations established in 2005

Opposition to Google Book Settlement

Contributors

See also

References

External links