The International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) have issued a statement on the metadata rights of libraries

Metadata and the metadata services that describe library collections are critical in supporting content discovery, knowledge creation, and libraries' public missions. Metadata describing library collections is not typically copyrightable, and should be considered freely shareable and reusable under most circumstances. However, some industry players restrict libraries' rights to use such metadata through contractual terms and market influence. Such restrictive activity is out of alignment with libraries' needs and public, not-for-profit/educational missions.


The endorsers of this document urge all organizations, whether for-profit
or not-for-profit, to uphold libraries’ rights and interests to use, re-use,
adapt, aggregate, and share metadata that describes library collections
to serve the public interest, without restriction or limitation.

The full statement is here. 

The International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) is an informal,
self-organized group currently comprising approximately 200 library
consortia in North and South America, Europe, Australia, Asia, and Africa. The
member consortia serve all types and sizes of libraries. ICOLC has been in
existence since 1996.

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