2010/1/12 Ed Avis <e...@waniasset.com>: > > That is an interesting point. > > If map data is covered by copyright, then without copyright assignment > the ability of the OSMF to enforce share-alike is weakened.
As I've observed OSMF cannot enforce share-alike under the existing contributor terms because everyone in the world is granted a non-exclusive licence. An assignment of copyright (to OSMF) would not affect that. Second, in the UK at least - I cannot really speak for other jurisdictions - if the CT were slightly rewritten so as to expressly grant the OSMF a right to sue as a non-exclusive licensee then s.101A of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 would give OSMF that right (provided that the agreement is "signed", which should be easily possibly by supply of name of contributor and a button indicating that the assignment is effectively signed) at least as far as enforcing share-alike goes. You could also grant an exclusive licence with grant back of a licence for the contributor on whatever terms. > > On the other hand, if map data is not covered by copyright, then the > assignment of copyright licence to the OSMF is not necessary. > > Either way, having a blanket grant-of-licence in the contributor terms > without actually assigning the copyright seems a suboptimal choice. Not necessarily. -- Francis Davey _______________________________________________ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk