Richard Fairhurst <rich...@...> writes: >>The licence should not try to impose additional restrictions on >>people beyond their own country's copyright law (and other applicable >>laws such as database right). > >In which case OSM becomes public domain.
Are you saying that the OSM data, currently distributable under the CC-BY-SA licence, is in the public domain now? What about, for example, Ordnance Survey maps from before the database right was introduced, and where the buyer has not agreed to any contract or EULA? >I'm repeating myself, I'm afraid, but you can take two approaches with data. >You can say "it's all PD". Or you can attempt to arm yourself to the teeth >by deploying whatever tools are available in your jurisdiction: copyright, >database right and contract. There is no middle ground. A weaker approach >(say, a copyright-only licence like CC-BY-SA) won't be applicable in all >countries, therefore in some places our data will be freely copiable. This is exactly my point. Copyright law is a trade-off giving limited exclusion rights to copyright holders in order to benefit the public. It is not absolute, so for example, copyrights expire after a certain time period. The scope of copyright in a particular country is decided by that country's legislature. If a certain country decides that maps are freely copyable, then that is a decision for their parliament to take and be answerable to their own voters. I think it is unethical to try to override that, even if software companies do it. (This is certainly an example where what is done in the world of software is not appropriate for free data.) And if in some places our data is freely copyable, so what? It does no harm to anyone outside those countries. Popeye is in the public domain in Europe but that does not mean you can freely import Popeye comics from Europe to the US. I think that 'arming yourself' with all the legal weapons possible is quite the wrong metaphor. The project is not about suing wrongdoers but about making free map data as widely available as possible. >The settled will [1] of the OSM community is that we want a share-alike >licence, Which we have. If you believe that CC-BY-SA is not a share-alike licence, or that somehow it does not work when applied to map data, then let's see the evidence. >That isn't the case for factual data. If you don't impose additional >restrictions over and above statute law, then there will be some countries >in which your data is unprotected, and it will leak out from there. Are you really saying it is possible to launder the OSM data by taking it to Bogoland, where is is 'unprotected', and then copying it and sending it back to Europe, the US or other developed country? If so then why don't you just do that in order to accomplish the relicensing? I may be exaggerating above but I just don't see what the problem is. It seems like legalistic speculation and FUD rather than a real scenario. If anyone can point to a case where this has already happened then I'll believe it - and start investigating how existing map data can be subjected to the same treatment... >Nonetheless if the OSM community wants a share-alike license, it has to use >this sort of language. Everyone who has contributed to OSM so far has done so under CC-BY-SA. I don't see where these large numbers of people are coming from who are unhappy with the existing share-alike terms and pushing for something more onerous. >I kind of think it should be compulsory for anyone posting to legal-talk to >demonstrate that they have read, and understood, Rural vs Feist and Mason vs >Montgomery. I will read those (anyone got a link?). -- Ed Avis <e...@waniasset.com> _______________________________________________ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
