Thanks to a discussion on the oss4lib list, I was made aware of this post by Karl Fogel about the importance of insisting “that bibliographic data be license-free.” His comment is in the context of the recently released draft report of the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control. Karl recommends that the open comment phase to the general public for this report be an opportunity for as many people as possible to support the principle of license-free bibliographic data. A finger is pointed at OCLC here. Sounds like a worthy cause.

[Updated 12/12/2007:  This a.m. I read the most recent Thingology blog post from Tim Spalding and lo and behold, it was more about the topic of license-free bibliographic data.  He points to an online petition started by Aaron Swartz of Open Library fame.  I'm going to add my name to it and I encourage anyone else who supports this view to do so as well.]