Stephen Gower <socks-openstreetmap....@...> writes: >In the current process, data from contributors who >individually agree to re-licence their edits will be included in the ODbL >release of OSM and data from those who refuse will not be included, but >there are a large number of past contributors who cannot be contacted. As >things stand, the data from these uncontactables will have to be deemed >insignificant as far as copyright law goes, or also deleted. In 5, 10, 15 >years, or whenever circumstances mean a new licence is appropriate, there >will be many many more uncontactables, and given they will have contributed >under ODbL, there will be less wriggle-room to declare their contributions >insignficant.
I don't believe a mere licence can affect whether a contribution is significant under copyright law. If you mean that there might be contract-law reasons, consider that there may also be an implicit contractual relationship between the OSM project and its contributors, who have added their work in good faith on the assumption that it would go into a CC-licensed world map. (It's not as if the OSM project was saying to contributors 'please agree to licence under CC-BY-SA, but it doesn't matter anyway, because they're not copyrightable'; rather, there was and is an understanding that both sides will respect the spirit of the licence terms, whether or not there may be legal loopholes.) Back to the original question, then: the argument for section 2 is that it makes future relicensings possible. The argument against is the same: that it grants too much power to the OSMF, even if subject to a vote of 'active' contributors. -- Ed Avis <e...@waniasset.com> _______________________________________________ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
