OCLC yesterday was granted a change-of-venue motion in the ongoing lawsuit filed against the nonprofit by bibliographic services company SkyRiver Technology Solutions and library automation company Innovative Interfaces (III). The lawsuit's venue was changed to the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Ohio, where OCLC is headquartered.
The suit, in which SkyRiver/III accused OCLC of antitrust violations and anticompetitive business practices, was filed in July in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California, where SkyRiver and III are based.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White, in his order, found that several factors weighed in favor of transfer. For example, several key witnesses that both parties intend to call reside closer to Ohio, including high-level OCLC employees and witnesses affiliated with Michigan State University (MSU). (In the suit, SkyRiver/III claims that OCLC used punitive pricing "in an attempt to coerce its members to continue to subscribe to OCLC's cataloging service and not use SkyRiver's cataloging services," citing MSU as an example.)
SkyRiver/III argued that it had witnesses from California and Arizona that it intended to call, but the judge found, after weighing the arguments, that "the Southern District of Ohio is a more convenient forum for third-party witnesses."
The Ohio venue was also considered more convenient for accessing OCLC business records, which are stored in Dublin, OH. SkyRiver/III argued that, because the records are stored electronically, their location was irrelevant, but the judge claimed that SkyRiver/III had "failed to demonstrate that OCLC's records are stored primarily in electronic form."
Reader Comments (3)
What about the argument that because OCLC brings revenue to Ohio from all over the world an Ohio jury would be more likely to vote to retain the status quo?
Posted by Jeffrey Beall on October 29, 2010 07:01:38PM
Moving this case to Ohio will indeed cause suspicion of the jurors motives, and of OCLC's influence with the courts over the move. I wonder at the motives of OCLC. Are they just trying to keep a hold of their monopoly? Are they in the business of saving libraries money? Are they aware that in the 21st century, any library's cataloguing dept has to constantly justify its viability on their production capability and costs. OCLC's automated cataloguing (WCP) seems to be a good solution, but the OCLC (or LA) subscription fees required are prohibitivly expensive for many libraries, and vendors (if they can find an alternative they will). Free market, ie Sky River/III, may find better solutions to the cataloguing conundrum -- every library wants perfect cataloguing but none in my experience wish to pay for it -- than committees (horses into camels). I speak as a cataloguer/acquisitions librarian, who was recently made redundant from a small Australian university who restructured its tech services into the loans area, then disposed of me. They needed the money that bad. I am now a cataloguer working for a library vendor, and am still searching for how to make quality cataloguing cheaper and more affordable for all the libraries I deal with.
Posted by Nan Sweetser on November 1, 2010 04:57:38PM
It will be an interesting case to wacth. Could SkyRiver have been simply a venture launched for the hope of bringing such a lawsuit? Could the ultimate goal be a large cash settlement? Further, post whatever ultimate settlement; would Skyriver be a possible selloff to a Goggle or a Microsot?
Posted by SimonSays on November 5, 2010 07:02:37AM
