Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Privacy and Terms
Hi, Ulf Möller wrote: >> I think if your planned licence change requires people to agree to >> these very lengthy and legalistic 'terms and conditions' then it's an >> indication that you are doing something wrong. > > It doesn't. It's just that during a review of the proposed license, a > lawyer pointed out that it is good practice to have terms of use for the > website. That recommendation would still stand if we chose not to change > the license. If we really must have such terms and conditions, and I still think we don't and am 1000% with what Ed Avis just wrote on boneheaded policies, then please at least put a giant banner on top: "This page is about the use of the openstreetmap.org web site only. It has NO RELEVANCE WHATSOEVER for you if you download OpenStreetMap data from somewhere and use that data, or if you use an OpenStreetMap editor to upload data. The only legal documents regulating that kind of participation are: ..." Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Privacy and Terms
Hi, Ed Avis wrote: > I do think that lawyers can get a bit out of control if you don't keep them > on a short leash, but do whatever you have to, I guess. As Francis Davey just said, there may be a choice. *Especially* if you are not based in a litigation crazy country like the US. > Just make sure that > site visitors aren't caught in the crossfire, and do not end up having to > agree > (explicitly or implicitly) to waive some of their rights. Yes, and please make sure that someone who is six years old can legally use the site. Anything that says "by using this site you confirm that you are umpteen years or older" is just not acceptable. We do mapping with schoolchildren, and we actually want to continue doing that! Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Privacy and Terms
Hi,
Francis Davey wrote:
> I can't really say much constructively about the terms of use without
> understanding what their goal is and what tolerance of risk the thing
> is being engineered to. For example, OSM data is going to be imperfect
> in places
In fact, this whole discussion is largely about Ts&Cs for our *web site*
and not for our data. The data thing is regulated somewhere else
entirely (in the ODbL license text and accompanying docs). What this
lawyer actually suggested is that we should have Ts&Cs governing the use
of our web site, which is of small importance compared to our data.
I am not even clear if the lawyer who suggested we need Ts&Cs for the
web site was only talking about the human facing side of it ("Web sites
are what you see in a browser, aren't they?") or about the whole HTTP
based API we offer. Probably the former, because it is difficult to make
a computer accessing the API understand and agree some Ts&Cs.
Bye
Frederik
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Printed maps and new license
Hi, George Ionescu wrote: > we're planning on creating printed materials which will include OSM maps. > Does the new license allow us to do so? Yes but anything you do before the new license is implemented, which may still be half a year away for all we know, is governed by the old CC-BY-SA. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Privacy and Terms
Hi, Elizabeth Dodd wrote: > I go to a website, i read, i look at pictures. > I know quite well that the contents are either copy left or copyright and i > should check before i copy anything. Then again if you're in the US and you see an image that shocks you you might sue the website owner for damages to your health, unless that owner was so clever to write in his terms and condition that you can't - or so it seems. > Put the lawyer back in the cage. +1 Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Privacy and Terms
Francis, Francis Davey wrote: > That may be true, but if I want to attach a complex contractual > obligation on anyone who uses the data (which is what the new open > data licence will do) then I need to make sure that you know you are > agreeing to it. This is most likely not going to happen with OSM data. We already have a well-established scheme where OSM data is downloaded, mirrored, and distributed anonymously. Not only do many computer sites automatically download new OSM data as it becomes available on planet.openstreetmap.org; this data is then aggregated, converted, and redistributed by many, professionals and hobbyists alike. It is not feasible to release the data only under the condition that the person downloading it has clicked some "I agree" button somewhere; because this would not only force us to change how osm.org works, but we would also have to add some "contractual" obligation to anyone downloading our data to only pass it on to people who agree to the terms/license etc! If you want more background, you might want to check the legal-talk archives for the words "browse wrap" and "click wrap". What we will most likely have is some message inside the downloaded data that says "by using this you agree to blah blah blah". > There's a difference between that and a pure copyright > licence since you don't have a right to use copyrighted material > without a licence (or some exception holding) so "I didn't know the > terms of the licence" won't help someone who wants to "steal" the > data, whereas if you want someone to be bound by a contract you have > to bring its terms to their attention. True but it is absolutely not feasible to make data release dependent on someone reading and agreeing to some terms. Even if it were, a license/contract scheme built on this would only require one rogue element violating the contract and passing the data on to others who haven't entered into the contract and everything would fall apart. > That of course is not the same question as the T&C's for use of the > website (which is a different matter) but I flag this up here as you > bring it up. It is a point that has been discussed a lot in the run-up to the new license. Any advice you have on all this is surely valued by the license working group, but you might want to read their minutes on osmfoundation.org and/or peruse the legal-talk archive to get an idea of the process. > No (though you will often see small print disclaimers on them). The > idea of restricting access to age 13+ strikes me as odd in the > extreme. When I get some time I'll do some research into what is going > on in the US that makes them do this. Please do because I would hate to lose my son's mapping help! Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Contributor Terms
Hi, Matt Amos wrote: > just so that this isn't hidden in the dark depths of the privacy > thread, i thought it's worth announcing the latest draft of the > contributor terms. this is the document that contributors would agree > to as the license is changed and on any new sign-up. Good but I dislike the long-ish part about the liability. I understand it is all for the benefit of the mapper but it does sound differently. It is as if you are about to give blood and they give you one page to sign that lists all the circumstances under which they guarantee not so sue you - kinda leaves you with the feeling "oh, I hadn't thought of that... how many other circumstances are not listed here under which they WILL sue me?" I'll heap a ton of praise on you if you manage to express section 5 in 40 words or less. What happens if someone, with malicious intent, deletes lots of data or uploads things that cause trouble (e.g. upload Teleatlas data, then tip off Teleatlas to make trouble). Do we reserve the right to sue them for damages, and if so, would this agreement be the place to hint at that? Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Contributor Terms
Hi, Brendan Barrett wrote: >> What happens if someone, with malicious intent, deletes lots of data or >> uploads things that cause trouble (e.g. upload Teleatlas data, then tip >> off Teleatlas to make trouble). Do we reserve the right to sue them for >> damages, and if so, would this agreement be the place to hint at that? > > Would they not be in breach of condition 1: Yes; let me change the example and ask whether we reserve the right to sue someone who uploads 100.000km of random motorways across Europe every day. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Printed maps and new license
Hi, George Ionescu wrote: > One more quick question, just to be sure: how should we handle > printing media in CC-BY-SA terms? > Is printing ©OpenStreetMap - CC-BY-SA on the map enough to ensure I'm > complying with current OSM license? If you have enough room then we prefer the URLs for OSM and CC written out. There is some info here: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Legal_FAQ#I_would_like_to_use_OpenStreetMap_maps._How_should_I_credit_you.3F However if your space is limited, abbreviations are allowed as the license only requires attribution "adequate to the medium" or so. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Contributor Terms
Hi, Ed Avis wrote: > Should say: You agree to only add contents for which you are the copyright > holder, *or which are in the public domain*, *or which already have permission > from the rights holder to distribute under Licence X*, or where you have > explicit > permission from the rights holder to submit the content. > > (Licence X being whatever licence OSM is using... so if another organization > releases data under CC-BY-SA or under ODbL or whatever, clearly it must be > permitted to add that to OSM. If not, something is a bit wrong.) ODbL, as fast as I understand, does not permit re-licensing, which means that even if you have other data that is ODbL licensed, you cannot upload it to OSM without express permission of the license holder. > If you want to be able to do future relicensing exercises then why not simply > ask > for copyright assignment? It is more honest that way I think. Yes but it also requires more trust from the mappers. If OSMF has copyright assigned, then Google can subvert the OSMF and have the OSMF board decide to grant Google a full commercial license with no strings attached for the symbolic price of $1. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Contributor Terms
Hi, Ed Avis wrote: >> ODbL, as fast as I understand, does not permit re-licensing, which means >> that even if you have other data that is ODbL licensed, you cannot >> upload it to OSM without express permission of the license holder. > > But if OSM also adoped ODbL then no re-licensing would be necessary. > Isn't this the whole point of copyleft or share-alike licensing? My reading until now was that because ODbL gives the original licensor super cow powers (namely of determining which other licenses are deemed compatible), it must be avoided to pass on these super cow powers to evil people like me (Fred sets up free world database, licenses it ODbL with himself at the license root, imports full OSM database without asking anyone, then decrees under section 4.4.e that for his project, ODbL is compatible with PD, and this makes the OSM data PD.) But please let someone from the license working group say something to this before I confuse everyone. > The current wording of the page says that the OSMF can grant any > licence they want as long as it is 'free' and 'open', which hardly > rules out the above scenario. Sh, don't say that too loud, it has taken us PD advocates a lot of work to sneak that bit in! Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Privacy and Terms
Hi, Ulf Möller wrote: >> No (though you will often see small print disclaimers on them). The >> idea of restricting access to age 13+ strikes me as odd in the >> extreme. When I get some time I'll do some research into what is going >> on in the US that makes them do this. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Protection_Act Should we perhaps have two sets of Terms and Condition - one that applies if the user is in the USA, and the other if he isn't? One with 200 lines of text, the other with 10? Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Privacy and Terms
Hi, Francis Davey wrote: > But - and I boringly restate this point because I'm not sure its been > necessarily understood - it depends what you are trying to do. There's > no legal right or wrong it all depends on what you want to do. Well said. Im am not sure that anyone here is "trying to do" anything. General rule: 1. identify threats 2. determine workable countermeasures 3. make decision of whether nastiness of #1 outweighs #2, taking into consideration that #2 usually affects all people at once while #1 comes with a certain likelihood 4. act accordingly Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Privacy and Terms
Hi, Ed Avis wrote: > Is anyone seriously suggesting that because factual information is not > covered by copyright, then in countries where no database right is > recognized, map data can be copied with impunity? [...] > I know this point has been raised many times, and the discussion tends > to go in circles, but I think it has never been satisfactorily > answered. Yes, unfortunately these things tend to be settled only if/when someone is actually sued, and often the result of such court proceedings isn't even applicable to other cases. > Either copyright applies to map data or it doesn't; and if > it doesn't, then why are we wasting time walking round with GPS > devices? It might be that it doesn't but we know that some people will fight to their (organisation's) death for it anyway - so do we want to spend the rest of our lives fighting legal battles because we know we're right, or just use a GPS and move on? > If it is the settled view of the OSM project, based on legal advice, > that copyright plus CC-BY-SA does not protect the Openstreetmap > geodata from being copied and incorporated into other works, can an > official statement be made to this effect? No, because we play the same game as everyone else does. We don't know if there is copyright but we claim there is, just to be on the "safe" side, i.e. at least instil some fear of potential lawsuits in those who would use our data without adhering to our license. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Privacy and Terms
Hi, Russ Nelson wrote: > On Jul 3, 2009, at 7:20 AM, Elizabeth Dodd wrote: >> It's a public site, no passwords, no sign up required to read it, so >> it's for >> the public to read. > > What if somebody posts hate speech (for the USAmericans)? > What if somebody adds Nazi party mapping parties to the calendar (for > the Germans)? > What if somebody invites women and men to a mapping party in Saudi > Arabia? > > The question isn't "what legal text do we need?" but is instead "What > legal risks do we expect the OSMF to have to defend itself against?" And what exactly would be the risks of the above? If we are alerted to a hate speech etc., we'll remove it (and I believe no matter what our Ts and Cs say, we will have to remove it). So what risk would any Ts and Cs mitigate and how? What if, god forbid, someone organises a mapping party in China, we would probably have to ban that via our Ts and Cs, wouldn't we? Because mapping is illegal there? > and if we then decide that some risks are too large to accept, "What > legal text do we need to ameliorate that risk?" The OSMF has no a > priori control over what gets posted via email to OSM editors ...and that's why no sane court would assume it has responsiblity. At least here in Germany if you operate a bulletin board or something, you are expected to remove illegal content when you find it or are alerted to it, but nobody will be held responsible for stuff their users post without their knowledge (unless you are proved to operate a site that explicitly invites e.g. Nazi contributions and then play innocent). Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Is CC-BY-SA really so ineffective?
Hi, Matt Amos wrote: > or lucky that the FTC didn't shut us down in the US for not complying > with COPPA, etc, etc... What exactly would "being shut down in the US for not complying with COPPA" entail for an UK institution? IP packets being filtered at the Great Firewall? I just checked out the BBC web site and while they say "please get a parent's permission before taking part in any bbc.co.uk community if you're under 16", there is nothing remotely referencing COPPA there. Nor does it say "if you're under 13 you may not look at our web site". Then again, maybe the BBC have already been shut down in the US and nobody even noticed. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Is CC-BY-SA really so ineffective?
Hi, Ed Avis wrote: > Frederik Ramm writes: > >>> If it is the settled view of the OSM project, based on legal advice, >>> that copyright plus CC-BY-SA does not protect the Openstreetmap >>> geodata from being copied and incorporated into other works, can an >>> official statement be made to this effect? >> No, because we play the same game as everyone else does. We don't know >> if there is copyright but we claim there is, just to be on the "safe" >> side, i.e. at least instil some fear of potential lawsuits in those who >> would use our data without adhering to our license. > > I think this is a very sensible policy, and quite enough deterrent to stop > companies using OSM map data without following the CC-BY-SA share-alike terms. > I cannot imagine any map company wanting to take the risk. > > So I still don't understand why some people are so keen to drop CC-BY-SA and > start a legal arms race by using an EULA instead. If it ain't broke, don't > fix it. I was talking data. Our data is CC-BY-SA and will remain so, unless/until we decide to switch to ODbL or soemthing else. Nobody is saying that the web site terms and conditions, which we don't yet have any of and a lawyer suggested we should - would replace that license for the data. The lawyers's stance, supported by Russ Nelson et al., is that even though we didn't have Ts+Cs before to govern the use of the web site, this should be characterised as "broken" because it exposed us to risk and we were only lucky that nobody sued us for some stupid reason which Ts+Cs would avoid. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Is CC-BY-SA really so ineffective?
Hi, Grant Slater wrote: > Quote next section... > "If you're under 16: > - Never reveal any personal information about yourself or anyone else > (for example, school, telephone number, your full name, home address > or email address)." > > Not capturing any personal information from under 13 year olds, > effectively makes them except from COPPA. But you do agree that it is a far cry from the lawyer's boilerplate text which says: "In any case, you affirm that you are over the age of 13, as the OSMF Site is not intended for children under 13."? Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Privacy and Terms
Matt, Matt Amos wrote: > it's been said before, but it bears repeating: why bother? all the > time wasted arguing about whether copying information from copyrighted > maps is OK would be better used mapping, writing code or one of the > other thousands of productive tasks out there in the OSM community. Well, a good deal of those people who argue *against* copying from existing maps do so partly because they believe (hope, want, pray) that it is forbidden to copy from *our* maps without adhering to *our* license, not because they really want to copy from someone else. If it can be shown that we can copy from other maps with impunity, then we can bin the whole re-licensing effort and go PD right away. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Privacy and Terms
Hi, Matt Amos wrote: > but, to prove that we can copy from other maps with impunity there > needs to be a precedent, preferably in several jurisdictions. so could > someone please start ripping off OSM so that we can sue them and get > some case law, please? Ours or theirs? ;-) If we do a test case like that we'll have to finance both sides. Maybe we should start ripping off the OS, then we'd only have to pay for our own lawyers - bargain! ;-) Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] ODbL: Where do we stand regarding collective/derivative databases
Hi, generally good progress on ODbL; many things have been cleared up and we will soon be at a point where the proposal for a license change is not some cloudy abstract thing any longer but a very concrete proposal that people can evaluate. After the LWG has made an effort to resolve the questions about what is substantial and what is a derived work, in my eyes there's one big issue that remains, and that is "what is a derivative database". To recap, my understanding is that if I produce (+publish) works based on a derivative database that I have created then I have to make that database available, fully, under ODbL. If I, on the other hand, produce works based on a collective database that is half ODbL and half proprietary, then I only have to make the ODbL part available. Is that everyone else's reading as well? Let us look at someone who mixes OpenStreetMap and Navteq data. Say I produce map tiles (clearly a produced work, no?) where all the streets come from Navteq, but all the footways come from OpenStreetMap. There are a number of ways to do this, all leading to the exact same result, and nobody from the outside can see which of 1,2,3 I am using: 1. Configure my Mapnik tile generator so that it accesses two different postgis databases - one containing Navteq and one containing OSM - to produce merged map tiles. 2. Pour OSM and Navteq data into the same postgis instance but have different tables (e.g. planet_osm_roads and navteq_roads) which are joined by Mapnik's SELECT statement. 3. Extract all footway geometries from OSM and insert them into my postgis database containing Navteq street data, then run Mapnik on the resulting database. The way I read the license, option 1 would be definitely ok, option 3 would definitely lead to my having to release the Navteq data, and option 2 would be somewhere in between (probably ok until unknown to me, Matt comes along and makes Mapnik internally create temporary tables on the fly for better performance in which case I'd be creating temporary derivative databases without even noticing...) Evil business genius that I am, I would of course claim to be doing 1 even when doing 3 and nobody would have the right to challenge me, right? Which would ultimately mean that: "If there is any conceivable way that a produced work could have been created by using a collective rather than a derivative database, then only the ODbL licensed part of the data source has to be released." This is becoming interesting, we're very much into real-world business scenarios now. There are lots of people who'd shy away from using OSM outright but if they could use a Navteq basemap and sprinkle that with any additional detail that OSM might have that would be just great for them. Let us look at someone who has a Navteq and an OSM data base, and runs a comparing analysis which results in *removing* all features from the OSM database which were also in Navteq. He clearly creates a derivative database but one which has no data added, just data deleted. He now employs technique #1 from above to merge the Navteq data set and the reduced OSM data set into one that contains the "best of both worlds". Since he is clearly operating on a collective database, he only has to release the derived OSM database under ODbL - the value of which is almost zero to the community since it has no data added (the only thing you can do with it is find out which of OSM's features are present in Navteq as well). Is everything I write here correct and compatible with what others are thinking? Is there some lawyer opinion on cases like this documented somewhere in the vast depths of our Wiki and LWG minutes? (I'm just trying to determine what exactly ODbL mandates - not trying to find out what would be desirable in an ideal world.) Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL: Where do we stand regarding collective/derivative databases
Hi, Frederik Ramm wrote: > He now > employs technique #1 from above to merge the Navteq data set and the > reduced OSM data set into one that contains the "best of both worlds". I meant that he employs technique #1 to create a produced work from the Navteq and the reduced OSM data set - not that he actually merges them, that's the whole point of course. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL: Where do we stand regarding collective/derivative databases
Hi, Matt Amos wrote: > LWG cannot entirely resolve these questions, as they need open > discussion and community consensus (which we obviously can't provide > on our own). even then, final interpretation is up to the courts. Of course. Thanks for your comments, I especially liked the a(b(X)@c(Y)) part which is a nice structure to think about this. But about my Navteq+OSM example, you said that > my reading would be that the deletions from the OSM data are a > derivative database of both the OSM data and the navteq data and that > the combination of navteq + (OSM - derivative) constitutes a public > use of that derivative database, requiring the release of the navteq > data. Now if I loaded my Navteq database into postgis and created a buffer around every object, generating one giant buffer area multipolygon for the whole world, then I could use that to subtract data from my OSM data base and would then only have to publish the giant multipolygon under ODbL (because that was mixed with OSM data) and not the original Navteq data. So this means I'd have to get permission from Navteq to release the giant buffer multipolygon under ODbL but if that is granted, I could continue with my OSM-enhanced Navteq tiles plan, and OSM would gain precious little from having access to the Navteq buffer multipolygon. Right? Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Can feature names be determined from copyrighted data?
Hi, Pavel Zubkou wrote: > Can I look at > *copyrighted* map for a name of lake that is placed at about 10km > northen from city X? Generally not. We have lots of areas in OSM where data has been legally traced from Yahoo aerial imagery but where we're missing road names - precisely because we must not copy them from copyrighted material. This is a gray area, legally speaking, but we tend to be strict and recommend not using copyrighted maps at all. An exception to this, although not codified anywhere, is where data can be reasonably expected to be part of your personal life. For example if you have canoed on that lake and map it later, but find that you have forgotten its name, it is ok to look it up. Or you actually were there and still remember the name but you only read the name in a travel book that you had on you. (Otherwise half of the street names in my area, which I know by hard, would be illegal to enter into OSM because I ultimately read them on a copyrighted map.) Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Can feature names be determined from copyrighted data?
Hi, Pavel Zubkou wrote: > In Belarus maps are an objects of copiright ([1], Article 7.1), but > "information as such" does not covered by copyright (Article 8.2). The situation is very similar in many other countries (google for "facts are free"). Some countries (notably the EU) have a special database law that protects collections of facts as if there was a copyright on the collection, even if the individual facts are free; the proposed new ODbL is partly based on this concept. Even in those countries where there is no such database law, we do not copy names from copyrighted maps because we want to be on the safe side. Of course, if you write to the map provider, citing the legal text and asking whether according to this text you have the permission to copy names from his map and he responds with something like "as long as you copy only facts but not the actual design of my maps that's fine" then you are on the safe side. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Re-licensing and public domain contribution as an user option
Hi, Gioele wrote: > Instead of choosing between re-licensing to ODbL and having their > contribution removed, they could choose to release their contribution (past > and future) into public domain. Should we go ahead with the ODbL relicensing - a question that is still not answered and for which we'll have to thoroughly evaluate wheter ODbL as it has emerged now really does what we want - then this idea has my full support. On the surface it is only formalising something we're doing on the Wiki anyway, but I feel that this would be a good move to show the PD people that they have at least been listened to, even if the end result is something else. It does not hurt OSM to give PD people this option of expressing themselves, but it does a great deal for them. It has to made clear of course that PD data in a database governed by contractual and database restrictions (like the ODbL) is not really worth anything, so the fact that individual bits inside the database are PD would only have a symbolic meaning. Also, of course, if someone makes a PD contribution on top of a CC-BY-SA licensed contribution by someone else, then only the "diff" is PD, and the resulting object is still CC-BY-SA. I think when we send out the note to people (or put up a web page) it should say: (a) I don't support the new license or anything else, delete my data. (b) I hereby agree to ODbL () and to the contribution agreement at and for the time it takes to make the switch I'm fine with CC-BY-SA as well. (c) I really don't care, all my past and future contributions to OSM are PD, do what you want. Answer (c) would then simply set a flag in the user preferences somewhere and that's it - for everything else we would act just the same as if the user had answered (b). Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Software using open street map data and Licensing model / restrictions
Hi, Alex wrote: > My mobile client will download the tiles that I will have generated > and display them with Point of Interest information that will be > coming from OSM, commercial data, and user generated content / POIs . > > What I want to know is if my application itself and my website (that > will be presenting a google/OSM style Ajax map) has to be licensed > under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 No, you are free to license your application any way you like. > or is it only > the subset of OSM data the I will be working with ? If you produce tiles that contain OSM data then those tiles - including all commercially sourced data depicted on them - must be licensed CC-BY-SA, i.e. anyone is free to trace the commercial data off the tiles. You can only circumvent that effect by creating overlay tiles and display them on top of each other in the client (i.e. base tiles from OSM = CC-BY-SA, overlay tiles with commercial data = proprietary license). > What exactly can I do with the OSM licensing model when I use OSM data > into my application (note that the data is not included as-is in the > app but downloaded as tiles inside my client) Anything you produce from OSM data must be CC-BY-SA licensed (e.g. if you compile OSM data into some special compressed map format for your application then these special compressed files must by CC-BY-SA). If you mix OSM data with someting else into an end product then that end product must also be CC-BY-SA. If your application displays OSM data loaded from file 1 and proprietary data loaded from file 2, then you can keep the licenses separate. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] OS map copyright expiry dates, FOI request
Hi, TimSC wrote: > The next question that occurs is can OS > reverse their view or is an FOI binding in some way. I'd say they can probably always backtrack, but they cannot blame you for taking this answer as face value and start using OOC maps. It is just five years difference anyway, so if you start using the maps on 1st January 2011 and they find out in 2012 and ask you to remove your stuff, you just have to drag the process for a while and you're clear again ;-) Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] attribution of data for use on TV
Hi, tele...@hushmail.com wrote: > My question is what type of attribution is appropriate? We had a huge discussion about this 2.5 years ago but not a lot has changed since, so you might want to read the thread with the misleading subject "OSM Layer into Adobe Illustrator", http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2007-February/011537.html where a guy from a TV broadcaster inquired about using the Baghdad map on-air. It all boils down to paragraph 4c of the CC-BY-SA license which says: "You must keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and give the Original Author credit reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing..." The problem is, or at least was for that particular request 2.5 years ago, that nobody in OSM can give you a definitive and legally binding answer what exactly "reasonable to the medium or means" is. I think I'm speaking for the majority of contributors when I say that having the credits in the credits roll at the end of a TV production is perfectly all right (that's the usual place for credits in that medium) but the responsiblity rests with you, or the broadcaster, in the end. > Anyway, I want to do what is > right here. So, do I simply attribute in the app and let my TV > users know I'm using OpenStreetMap data OR do I need to attribute > on-air? I could easily add an OpenStreetMap attribution in the > splash screen and about box. For *you* it is sufficient to tell your clients - in a manner reasonable to your medium, i.e. computer software - that you're using OSM data and that this comes under the license CC-BY-SA 2.0. That's all that is legally required from you. The fact that the data is CC-BY-SA then means that your customers, when using the data, must also acknowledge the source and specify the license; this, however, is not your responsibility but theirs. Of course if you are interested in a healthy long-term relationship with your customers you should advise them accordingly, lest they get a bollocking from angry OSM contributors (see http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Lacking_proper_attribution) and then complain to you about not having been informed. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] New license status
Hi, James Livingston wrote: > On 28/09/2009, at 11:16 PM, Gustav Foseid wrote: >> Well... There is no copyright that expires after 15 years. Sui >> generis database rights expire after 15 years, but copyright is >> hardly very relevant for an OpenStreetMap database dump. > > In Europe maybe - however there are countries where database do have > inherent copyright separate from the copyright over their contents, > for example in Australia. I think the copyright wouldn't expire for 70 > years here, which is definitely more than the 15 for European sui > generis database rights. I think we should try very hard to make conditions the same for all OSM users on the planet, as far as possible. If what you say is true then we should make sure (via the content license) that the content is not protected longer in Australia than anywhere else. Personally, as I am opposed to us trying to dictate to our users what they may and may not do with our data, I would appreciate to see OSM data go out of copyright as quickly as possible. (I once tried to talk our share-alike hardliners into accepting one year, on the grounds of one-year-old OSM data being practically useless... but they wouldn't have it.) Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Protection time of ODbL
Matt, Matt Amos wrote: >> And 2. you are wrong because ODBL tries exactly that, to assert rights >> over the collection even in jurisdictions where there are none, by >> invoking the idea of a contract - so where is it written that the >> contract, which may well exist in parallel to sui generis rights in >> Europe, also terminates after 15 years? > > you're wrong - the contract asserts no rights over the collection. > that's why we need a contract, because there are no "sui generis" > rights to take advantage of. I don't think I understand you, or maybe you don't understand me. I'll try this in individual steps: 1. We want to protect the database as a whole; 2. For countries with database law we can sail under that law; 3. but for countries without we need to use a contractual component; 4. such a contractual component is built into the ODbL; 5. the contractual component doesn't have an explicit time limit; 6. the ODbL doesn't say "the contractual component is only valid for those countries without database law"; 7. which means the contractual component which protects our data from day one in places like the US is also valid in Europe (where it usually takes backstage to the stronger database law component); 8. from this it follows that after 15 years, a planet file in Europe is protected no more or less than a fresh planet file in the US. So *either* it's free-for-all after 15 years in Europe but then it is also free-for-all after 1 day in the US. Clearer now? > yes. over insubstantial amounts of data, there's no copyright claimed. Aren't you now mixing database law and copyright terms. Whether or not something falls under copyright has nothing to with whether it is substantial related to some kind of database, has it? For example if OSM user "n80" artfully crafts a way that doesn't even exist and uploads it to OSM, then that way would perhaps be protected by copyright in some jurisdictions, completely independent of the database and whether or not it is substantial. If I read the contributor agreement correctly, then we require from "n80" that he declares never to exercise his copyright. Whether or not, and for how long, database protection covers his work of art, does not come into the equation - the copyright question is over when the data is uploaded. Correct? Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Protection time of ODbL
Hi, Frederik Ramm wrote: > So *either* it's free-for-all after 15 years in Europe but then it is > also free-for-all after 1 day in the US. ... *or* the contractual component is still valid in Europe even after the sui generes protection expires, which validates the OP's question. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Protection time of ODbL
Hi, James Livingston wrote: > On 30/09/2009, at 7:36 AM, Frederik Ramm wrote: >> Question is: 1. what about the contents themselves. Have we reached a >> consensus that the contents of the database are themselves not >> protected >> by copyright and do we explicitly say that we don't claim any >> copyright? > > I don't think that a consensus on what we think matters when > discussing whether the contents of the database are protected by > copyright Well if you say you don't claim any then for all intents and purposes it does not matter whether your jurisdiction says that you could claim copyright or that you couldn't. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Protection time of ODbL
Hi, Jukka Rahkonen wrote: > Was the answer to my question that nobody knows how long ODbL is protecting > the > data and it is impossible to tell it exactly? No, I think the answer was "forever". Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] OSM IDs as foreign keys (was: ODbL "virality" questions)
Hi,
(for those on dev; this started out as a discussion on whether or not we
want to put any legal/license restrictions on external users linking to
OSM objects for identification, e.g. a restaurant guide saying "this pub
is OSM node #12345")
Matt Amos wrote:
> i would hope so too, as it makes OSM data more attractive for those
> users who don't need to manipulate the data, but need to annotate it
> or reference it. i, for one, would really like to see the next
> beerintheevening or tripadvisor based on OSM data, not just the tiles.
My problem with this is that while I'd gladly allow anybody to do that
from a licensing point of view, I'd rather not have people do that from
a technical point of view (and that's why I'm switching over to dev with
this).
Personally I view OSM object IDs as quite frail, and subject to change
without notice at any time. I do not think that OSM object IDs should be
used as foreign keys in any application. I even object to all those
lists on the Wiki which point to hard-coded relation IDs - I, for one,
will delete and re-create an object any time without much thought if it
makes sense to me, breaking any such external entry point.
I fear that if many people treat OSM IDs as permanent, this will have a
restraining influence on us editing our own data ("I wanted to replace
this restaurant node by a building outline for the restaurant but then I
got complaints from users of 15 restaurant guides and Flickr because the
restaurant had suddenly vanished there, and so I reverted my edit").
Until now, if someone asked me a question in that direction, I always
said they should make their own ID a foreign key and tag the OSM object
with something like "restaurant_guide_xyz_id:1234". Which is not ideal
from a data access perspective of course, but allows people editing OSM
to properly work with that.
If we really want to head in a direction where external users refer to
OSM objects, then I think it would be wise to manifest that in the
database somehow, and create some kind of "permanence API" or so, where
you can request a permanent handle for a certain object from the API,
and the API will give you a number, and then if someone deletes and
re-creates an object they will be able to transfer that number to the
new object somehow.
This is of course something for the future, but letting external users
refer directly to OSM IDs sounds like asking for trouble to me.
Bye
Frederik
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL "virality" questions
Hi,
> no-one is suggesting that the extraction of names, locations and IDs
> would be somehow outside of the ODbL. any site using these as lookup
> keys would have to release that data under the ODbL.
[...]
> as a concrete example, let's pretend i have a site, beerintheOSM,
> which rates pubs and allows commenting and photo uploads. if i'm
> storing the reviews linked against pubs linked against OSM
> (name/location/ID), i definitely have to release the
> (name/location/ID) records
Wait a minute.
If I run "beerintheOSM" as a crowdourced project - say, a Wiki - and
people can enter new pubs, and the names are entered by those who create
the entries, and I don't even store lat/lon locations, I just allow my
users to add an OSM node id in some kind of template which I then use to
retrieve and display the map for the area, then surely I do not have to
release the records?
* The name was not taken from OSM
* the location is not even stored in my database
* the OSM ID... well yes this would have to be released but not with
context, i.e. I could simply release a list of OSM IDs saying "these are
used in beerintheOSM somewhere
If anyone doubts the above then think what would happen if I didn't use
the OSM ID to draw a map, instead the OSM ID would just be listed there
in the text ("by the way, this pub is OSM node #1234") - which is the
same from a database perspective. Surely such reference cannot trigger
any viral effect?
Bye
Frederik
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] reciprocal data agreements
Richard, Richard Weait wrote: > Imagine a data provider using perhaps cc-by, or a BSD style permissive > license contributes their data to OSM. > Imagine then that they would like to monitor changes in OSM to data > that originated from their source. > Imagine then that they would like to incorporate those changes, with > or without further vetting, back into their dataset under their > license. I agree that this would be very desirable; however it would allow our sacred data to leave the protecting cage of ODbL and live on under a CC-BY-SA or, God forbid, a BSD license which would be unpalatable to many contributors. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL "virality" questions
Hi, Matt Amos wrote: > this is the crux of the question. the ODbL makes no distinction > between lat/lon data, ID data, or any other sort of data. so the > question then becomes; if i'm using some data from an ODbL database > and incorporating that into my database, do i have to release all of > my database, or just the bits of it which came from or were derived > from the ODbL database? Let's look at the reason why we have this whole viral license, shall we? (I'm taking off my "this is all stupid and we should do PD" hat for a moment and act as if I were a share-aliker.) The idea behind this is that we don't want to give anything to people which they then make proprietary - the worst case being that one day OSM ceases to exist and only some proprietary copy remains. The license is there to ensure that OSM data remains free. But a site that *only* takes OSM IDs in order to link to them does not create anything of their own. If OSM one day ceases to exist then the OSM IDs stored in that site become worthless. They only store pointers into our database, they don't make a derived product. (If I tell you to download a film and skip to 6'32 because that's where the action is, am I creating a "derived work" of that film?) You are right in saying that by the letter of the license, an id is data just like anything else. But the spirit surely affects only *useful* data? Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL "virality" questions
Hi, Matt Amos wrote: > can the SA requirement be satisfied by saying that we consider the > extracted IDs to be an ODbL part of a collective database, where the > proprietary data is the other part? it would require the ODbL part > (i.e: the list of IDs) to be made available, but nothing else. It would work, but I'm trying to think if this would have adverse side effects. Can this be compared to Google importing all of OSM into MapMaker and then only making available the OSM part and not anything newly created? Would that still count as a collective database? If not, then where is the boundary? I'm going back to this notion of "usefulness". Firstly, is a database a database if it is one-dimensional? My feeling is that a database must always combine at least two values: Have one, look up the other; have the other, look up the first. Is a list of all valid post codes in a country still a database if it doesn't have names or geometries? Is the list of all latitudes in OSM still a database? It could be that an extract of some OSM IDs is not even a derived database. Assuming for a moment it were a database, then, being rather useless, is it substantial? Could we perhaps say that if you extract only one dimension from OSM, this can never be a substantial extract - a list of latitudes, a list of longitudes, a list of keys or a list of values, or a list of IDs? Or could we perhaps even specify that anything that doesn't use our geometry is not substantial? A list of all pubs in Madrid would be substantial since it needs geometry; a list of all pubs on the planet would not be substantial. That would neatly cover anyone wanting to use any number of OSM IDs for linking as he would never use the geometry from OSM. But that would again raise a cascading substantial-ness problem - what if I publish an OSM extract of Madrid and someone else counts all pubs in there. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL "virality" questions
Hi, Matt Amos wrote: >> Or could we perhaps even specify that anything that doesn't use our >> geometry is not substantial? A list of all pubs in Madrid would be >> substantial since it needs geometry; a list of all pubs on the planet >> would not be substantial. That would neatly cover anyone wanting to use >> any number of OSM IDs for linking as he would never use the geometry >> from OSM. > > are you suggesting that someone wanting to run beerintheOSM would have > to have a worldwide scope? it wouldn't even be possible to be > country-specific because that would give it a geographic scope and > therefore depend on the geometry? I was thinking that if he relies on *our* geometry then he's making a substantial extract, whereas if he uses some other means to list the pubs in, say, England and then just references our nodes, that's ok then. In one case he has the data already (name of pub + as much knowledge about the location as required for his application) and only links to OSM as an additional source of info. In the other case he is using OSM to find information in the first place. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Proper attribution
Nick, Nick Black wrote: > Could you point out where CloudMade is not attributing OSM properly and > we'll fix it right away. The whitehouse.gov/change site does have a mixed OSM/Cloudmade copyright notice but lacks the CC-BY-SA declaration that most people believe is required. It was me who added this entry originally, but in the "who" column I originally put "US Federal Government", not "Cloudmade". Other people have later extended the entry to talk of "Cloudmade clients" or something, and I removed my name from the "Added By" column at that point because I was, after all, only talking about the whitehouse.gov site. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Proper attribution
Hi, Richard Fairhurst wrote: > So, y'know, I look forward to every CloudMade tile incorporating a > 5,000-strong list of contributors, which swells to 5,001 the next time some > retard decides to globally change of shop=groceries to shop= greengrocers or > whatever it was. One reason we should really flag "bot" accounts - assuming that mass-changing something into something-other does not earn you any copyright *even* if original contributions were copyrightable. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODBL enforcement: contract law and remedies
Hi, Ed Avis wrote: > This is where I disagree (or at least, am unpersuaded so far) since I > haven't seen any hard evidence that copyright is inadequate. If this were > the case, then there would be no need for anybody to give permission for > relicensing, since under the current copyright-only setup anybody (including > the OSMF) could just take the data and relicense it under the terms they want. Technically true, but in between the legal and the illegal we have the category "legally possible but frowned upon", and OSMF would probably not like to be seen in that category ;-) > However, I recognize that this is a matter of opinion, not fact, and there > must be those within the project who think that we should try to override > national law in favour of stronger protections, just as EULAs for computer > software attempt to override legal rights to reverse engineering. Indeed, there are in fact people who have gone on record saying they will stop contributing, and remove their previous contributions, if OSM were to become a PD project. > There is still the small question of whether any such place exists. Again, > is there any evidence (rather than just repetition of the same opinions) > that in some country, OSM data is effectively in the public domain? If your question is: "Has anybody ever used OSM data without regard to the CC-BY-SA license, been sued, and lost" then the answer is, to my knowledge, no. (I don't know if CC-BY-SA has ever been tested in court, even with regards to clearly copyrightable works.) > And is that country significant enough to make it worth imposing a new, > contract- > based licence on the rest of the world just to address this 'problem'? The contract approach is primarily there because many believe the US to be such a country. >> The Science Commons people, righly, say that it is morally doubtful to >> claim copyright where none exists, and I think in this vein the ODbL is >> morally superior to CC-BY-SA for OSM data, because the latter is based >> on copyright which in all likelihood does not exist for OSM data. > > That's interesting. However the ODBL also claims to be a copyright licence, > while acknowledging that what is copyrightable varies between jurisdictions. ODbL does not make an attempt to extend copyright to individual items in the database (saying that this must be governed by another license). As I understand it, the copyright aspect of ODbL only covers things like the data structure or schema etc., but not the contents. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODBL enforcement: contract law and remedies
Hi, Matt Amos wrote: > ODbL does exactly this: it is a copyright and database rights license, Can you explain this some more. I thought the copyright aspect was explicitly not covering the content (a fact that was actually critisised by a legal reviewer who found it too clumsy to have an extra license for the content). >> Thanks. Those are indeed problems with the licence. But only the first >> one is a reason to *drop* CC-BY-SA; the remaining ones are just as easily >> addressed by dual-licensing under both Creative Commons and some other, >> more permissive (and acceptable-to-some-lawyers) licence. I would happily >> support such a move. > > you'd happily support distributing the data under a license which is > not likely to protect it? I think he's asking for evidence of "not likely". Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODBL enforcement: contract law and remedies
Ed, I don't quite follow your logic. You seem to be saying: 1. there is no proof that CC-BY-SA doesn't work; 2. there is danger that anything based on contract law weakens the protection we have for our data (because breach of contract doesn't give us a strong handle) 3. you accept that CC-BY-SA uncertainties may have turned off some potential users 4. you would happily go along with dual-licensing OSM under CC-BY-SA and "some other, more permissive" license. Is that a correct sum-up? If so, then would not the "other, more permissive" license you are willing to grant in 4 automatically lead to the weakened protection from 2? "Dual licensing", after all, means that the licensee can choose any of the available licenses and not be bound by all the others he or she does not choose. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODBL enforcement: contract law and remedies
Hi, Ed Avis wrote: >> if we carry on licensing CC BY-SA we may get to the state where CC >> BY-SA is challenged. if the challenge is in the US, i think there's a >> good chance of OSMF losing, > > Would that be such a disaster? If such a precedent were set, then any > factual data derived from OSM would also be in the public domain in that > country, and could be shared freely and incorporated into the project, > giving just the same result as if CC-BY-SA were in force. No, that would be great. My personal belief is that OSMF is going over the top with this whole share-alike thing. ODbL may be a working license, but the question whether we want or need share-alike to achieve our goals is a wholly different one - a question where from day one we had a small but vocal number of project members saying that share-alike is a must, and OSMF never had the balls to question, or even challenge, that. Indeed, the very first "official" statements from OSMF already contained what is still the official chicken wording today: "[A PD license is] unlikely to be adopted by all.", or "unlikely to be palatable to many OSM contributors". What this has in effect done is given them (the OSM contributors who are against public domain) a veto right - without even counting how many of them there are. Which is strange, given that it is near certain that ODbL will "not be adpoted by all" and "not be palatable to many OSM contributors" (simply because there are so many to start with). With the ODbL this does not seem too important - if push comes to shove we're willing to delete and re-create data which is not re-licensed by the respective contributors; but for the PD cause, the fact that there were hardliners unwilling to agree was used as the reason for not pursuing this. I'm happy that the license working group has done a lot of work to present us with the best possible share-alike license for our data. As Matt concedes, this license still has weaknesses, some of which may be fixable at a later date, and others may just be results of trying to be free and enforcing something at the same time. We are now at a point where we have a clear alternative; go ODbL, or go PD. (Or stay with CC-BY-SA but I really think that sticking to the CC-BY-SA is more an expression of wishful thinking that anything else.) PD, of course, has weaknesses too. Still I'm inclined to think that the problems and weaknesses incurred by PD will hurt less than those incurred by ODbL. PD is easy to understand, provides maximum usefulness of our data in all possible circumstances, and requires absolutely zero man-hours of work tracking down "violators"; creates no community friction because over-eager license vigilantes have to be reined in; poses no risk of seducing OSMF to spend lots of money on lawyers; allows us to concentrate on or core competencies. But to get back to your initial sentence; if OSM were proven to be copyright-free because it contains only factual data, then any factual addition to OSM would probably be copyright-free in that country as well, but if we then take that and put it back into OSM, maybe the author would sue us in another country (he extracts the data in the US where this is free, then transfers it to the UK, then enriches and sells it; we take it, upload it, he sues us in the UK - something like that). It's a mean world out there and if someone wants to create trouble for us they will always find a way. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODBL enforcement: contract law and remedies
Hi, Andy Allan wrote: > That is, Creative Commons have advised > us, and everyone else, to not use CCBYSA for data. It doesn't come > more plain than that. I would very much appreciate if *everyone* who invokes Creative Commons saying that CC-BY-SA is not suitable for data would also add the second bit, namely that they suggest using CC0, their PD variant, for data. When Mike Collinson said in hist SOTM speech that Creative Commons do not recommend CC-BY-SA for data, I half-jokingly called from the audience: "What *do* they recommend?" - but he left that bit out. I didn't think much of this but in the last few days I have read many times over that Creative Commons suggest not to use CC-BY-SA for data (which is true), but nobody ever bothers to say that they actually spoke out against ODbL as well because they believe data should be CC0, that is basically PD. I'm not saying that Creative Commons are always right, but trying to make it sound as if they were endorsing OdBL is a bit heavy. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODBL enforcement: contract law and remedies
Hi, Ed Avis wrote: > In general, the ideal licence would not need to be fully watertight in > all jurisdictions, but only strong enough to provide a good deterrent > in practice for most individuals and companies. What would you want to deter them from? Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Extent of share alike?
Hallo, Matt Amos wrote: >> However, my question is, how far does the share alike >> section of the Creative Commons licence go. I want to share the map data >> with OSM but not the other sections of the work. > > this lack of clarity is one of the problems with the CC BY-SA license. > the short answer is: i'm not sure. the longer answer is: the image you > render to the screen must be CC BY-SA licensed, ... not so fast! We generally say that: * if you produce an image that contains OSM and other data, then deliver this image to the client computer, then the whole image is CC-BY-SA. but * if you produce two different images, one with OSM and one with other data, and the two are overlaid on the client computer (by software acting on behalf of the user), then your second image can be licensed whatever you want. Only if the user (who is considered to have created a derived product by asking software running on his computer to take two images and merge them) then further publishes the image - which you may or may not allow as the image contains your data! - would the image have to be made CC-BY-SA. Otherwise it would not be possible to e.g. overlay OSM data and CGIAR "noncommercial use only" hill shading in an OpenLayers application. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Illegal activity
Hi, Richard Fairhurst wrote: > I'm not particularly au fait with national copyright law in mainland > Europe. Doubtless you can answer on France: I can't see anything in > German law that would give protection. I have lost thread of what kind of protection exactly you are talking about, but German copyright law stipulates that photos - and this is commonly read as "including photos taken from the air through automated means", have 50 years of copyright protection during which any use (!) of the photos requires permission from the copyright holder: http://dejure.org/gesetze/UrhG/72.html Some lawyers say that because German copyright requires a person as the rights owner, any kind of automated photography cannot be copyrighted. Others, and they seem to form the majority, say that the person who "conditions" the machinery used to take the photos becomes the rights owner. There is some German-language discussion of this here: http://www.schmunzelkunst.de/saq2.htm#luftbild Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Extent of share alike?
Hi, Matt Amos wrote: > does that mean that no-one can redistribute a screenshot of the > application? Yes, that's my reading, unless you invoke some superior right to "fair use" or "citation" or whatever applicable in your country; which would of course make any copyright discussion obsolete. - I regularly use screenshots from proprietary web sites in my talks and I believe I have the right to do so without even looking at their license, but I am not 100% sure that this is within the law. > the CC BY-SA portion would imply that the screenshot > would be CC BY-SA, but the license on the "other layer" of the image > wouldn't allow that. Correct. I think that CC-BY-SA creates an incentive for the secretive data provider to, instead of combining his own data and CC-BY-SA data server-side and delivering it to the customer, furnish the customer with a bit of software and feed him CC-BY-SA and proprietary data through separate channels. That way, the data is combined on the users' computer, leaving him user with a dead-end undistributable (but usable!) lump of data. Surely a win for Freedom! Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] PublicEarth and their Terms of Use
Hi, Tim Waters wrote: > Then there's the nice issue of making a database from users > identifying locations based on Google Maps. You mean that issue nobody except OSM seems to care about ;-) If they'd be using OSM, would they have to CC-BY-SA all their data? [Is that why the aren't?] I don't think the business will fly but it's worth a try. It's one of these things that I'd never attempt because I'd think it is so obvious how I'm trying to siphon off community knowledge and not let the community use that knowledge - but quite a few businesses thrive on that and I can literally hear armies of PublicEarth fanboys cry out "how cool is that!". Bet they have some kind of iPhone app to go along with it. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] OSMF license change vote has started
Hi, Simon Ward wrote: > but while we’re > trying to prevent all sides equally Preventing all sides equally is indeed something we're aiming at, with all our hearts ;-) Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Licence termination
Hi, David Groom wrote: > From this I infer that, unless a "Person" is in breach of the Terms of the > licence, we give them the right to access the OSM database under the terms > of the licence as it was at the time they first started to use the database. I think you are mixing up the terms "database" and "database". It's easy to do because they are so similar ,-) 1. A "database" is a collection of independent works, data or other materials arranged in a systematic or methodical way and individually accessible by electronic or other means. 2. A "database", on the other hand, is a machine which you can access using specific queries to retrieve data. If we terminate the license, this does not mean that anyone who has downloaded our database (1st definition) must now play to other rules. The license that was valid when they downloaded the database will continue ad infinitum for that downloaded database. Access to our database (2nd definition), however, can be governed by any rules we like, and we can change them as we see fit. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL Enforcement (Re: OBbL and forks)
Hi, James Livingston wrote: > Which brings us on to enforcement - at some point a user is going to use > ODbL licensed data, not comply with the licence, and not respond to > asking nicely. Who is going to sue them to enforce the ODbL and for > what? I am certainly not going to sue anybody. I consider my data PD anyway, but even with ODbL in place and considering the best interests of the project as a whole, for me it would be perfectly sufficient to be able to say publicly that X is using OSM illegally. I would definitely oppose any allocation of funds or effort to chase violators over and above that. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL Enforcement (Re: OBbL and forks)
Hi, Rob Myers wrote: > Rather than naming and shaming, the FSF and the SFLC always work quietly > to get compliance from people who break the GPL. They don't call them > out in public or drag their asses to court to make an example of them. > Legal action and the publicity that brings is a last resort. I think > that's a better balance. Agreed, although this of course requires determined and capable people to do the work. If there are such people in OSM who do that voluntarily then that's good. If there are no such people then I would object to spending money to hire them from outside the project. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] ODbL: How obscure/inaccessible can published algorithms be?
Hi, OdbL has this requirement where, if you publish a produced work based on a derived database, you also have to publish either (a) the derived database or (b) a "diff" allowing someone to arrive at the derived database if he has the original, publicly available database or (c) an algorithm that does the same. Is that correct so far? To use a simple example, let's say I build a WMS that works with OSM data. To make this perform well at low zooms, I have to combine ways into longer bits and simplify their geometry. The result is clearly a derived database that falls under the above, and in practice I would probably choose the "a" route and simply make a weekly PostGIS dump available for download and be done with it. However, I wonder about the permitted ways of doing (c). I guess it would probably permitted to specify a number of PostGIS commands that achieve the changes. - Let us assume for a moment that applying these PostGIS commands would require a machine with 192 GB of RAM and Quad Quadcore processors and still take two weeks to complete, putting it out of reach of many users. Would it still be permitted to do that? Or, would it be allowable to say: "For simplification, a Douglas-Peucker algorithm is used." (leaving open the exact implementation and parametrisation of DP - bear in mind that with some algorithms, how they work is easily explained but implementing them in a way that runs on standard hardware may be a hard task). Or, would it be allowed to say: "For simplification, just load the data set into and hit Ctrl-S X Y, then choose Export to PostGIS"? What about: "For simplification, we did the following steps: . These steps in this sequence are patented by us, so if you want to follow them, please apply to us for a license to use our patent." Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL: How obscure/inaccessible can published algorithms be?
Hi, Matt Amos wrote: > let's assume it's known that this company is definitely using OSM data > - determining that can be difficult, depending on exactly what it is > they're doing with the data. in general, it's very difficult to do > anything directly from the planet file alone, so i'd suspect that any > company doing anything with OSM data has a derived database of some > kind and, if there's no offer evident on their site, i'd contact them > about it. I think it would be great to have some standardised "declaration form" that we could point people to. Not something that people are forced to use, but something they *can* use as an easy way to help them play by the terms of the license if they want. Something like this: -- This site publicly uses data derived from OpenStreetMap. Description of derived data: ... [ ] We are making the derived data available [ ] here: ... in the following format: . on a regular basis, licensed under the ODbL. [ ] on request; please contact .. [ ] We are making a "diff" file available that allows you to arrie at the derived data if you have a recent OpenStreetMap database, [ ] here: in the following format: . on a regular basis, licensed under the ODbL. [ ] on request; please contact .. [ ] We are providing a machine-readable description of the algorithm used to arrive at the derived data, [ ] here: [ ] on request; please contact .. -- Another idea, again entirely voluntarily, would be to set up a register of organisations using OpenStreetMap data, where they could create an account and make the above declarations. If we sell that well, with a "wizard" kind of user interface that guides them through their obligations regarding ODbL, then many people would probably use it because it makes everything simpler for them. The über cool thing about this is that we'd get a list of OSM-using people for free ;-) Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL: How obscure/inaccessible can published algorithms be?
Hi, 80n wrote: > I think you've lost the thread. Now, you are arguing that you can't > spot a derivative database. My original question was aiming at whether or not there are ways to weasel yourself out of the requirement release derivative databases or the algorithms leading to them. I think we have now established that whenever you do something with OSM data that involves a derivative database, but just to make things simpler for you and not as an absolutely necessary component, then nobody can prove that you are using a derivative database, and nobody has a legal right to challenge you for an explanation - it's your business secret. People can write to you and ask; and if you don't reply (or reply that you don't use a derivative database) all they can do is sue you for breach of license and hope that the judicial process finds out the truth. It is not such a big difference from what we have today. Even with Easter Eggs and all, I can never prove beyond doubt that someone is using OSM, I can only collect evidence and then ask a court to clear things up. But it is probably easier to collect that type of evidence than to collect evidence for someone having a secret derived database. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL: How obscure/inaccessible can published algorithms be?
Hi, Anthony wrote: > Where does one draw the line between a "Derivative Database", a > "Collective Database", and a "Produced Work" anyway? Part of the answer is, in almost salomonic fashion, here: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Produced_Work_-_Guideline There's also tons of discussions about this on the lists which i suggest you could read, e.g. start from http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2009-July/002673.html Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
Hi, Gervase Markham wrote: > The new Contributor Terms contain the equivalent of a joint copyright > assignment to the OSMF. You have said that multiple times already, but I - and, it seems, others - don't view it that way. You do not assign copyright to OSMF; you only grant them a license to sublicense. > That makes this recent article by Michael Meeks > on copyright assignment in free software very relevant: If the article is only relevant to copyright assignment situations, then I don't think it is relevant for us. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
Hi, Anthony wrote: > Where is the actual legal phrasing of this "license to sublicense"? In the paragraph just below the actual legal phrasing of the "copyright assignment"! Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
Hi, 80n wrote: > By comparison, ODbL+Contributor Terms has properties that break this > principle. A derived work can not be fed back into OSM unless the > author agrees to the contributor terms. Whether or not to require the contributor terms for any individual contribution is fully up to OSMF, is it not? They could simply drop it, change it, or make an exception any time. So if someone does something really interesting and deliberately doesn't agree to the contributor terms, hoping to protect his data against feedback into OSM proper, an exception could always be unilaterally made and the data fed back. Unless OSMF has changed the license meanwhile (or until they change the license) - then that contribution becomes incompatible with the rest. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
Hi, Simon Ward wrote: > I also think the definition of an active contributor is too narrow. I > actually think it should be scrapped completely, because it doesn’t > matter whether somebody isn’t active any more. Oh yes it does, because if someone isn't active any more it will become harder and harder to get an opinion out of him. Someone who is not active any more will often have lost interest or lost his life, that's why, while desirable, it is not practical to give them a say. Unless you're willing sign something that says "I agree that OSMF will make two attempts to contact me at my registered e-mail address with information on how to vote on an upcoming license change suggestion, and if I don't react then that counts as an "abstain" vote." Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
Hi,
Simon Ward wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 06, 2010 at 02:44:53AM +0100, Frederik Ramm wrote:
>> Unless you're willing sign something that says "I agree that OSMF will
>> make two attempts to contact me at my registered e-mail address with
>> information on how to vote on an upcoming license change suggestion, and
>> if I don't react then that counts as an "abstain" vote."
>
> Oh, and there should most definitely be more than one attempt at making
> contact. I assumed it went without saying. I must remember not to make
> too many of these assumptions. :)
Well in the current setup, it is in OSMF's interest to reach you,
because if they want to change the license, they need a "yes" from 50%
of active mappers. (It is not sufficient to simply write to all active
mappers, and then if 100 of them reply and 51 are in favour, the change
goes through.) So that hurdle is rather high; anyone who cannot be
reached or who doesn't respond is by default a "no" vote. That's why I
think it is valid to try to keep the pool of people smaller by saying
"active contributor" with the definition behind it.
If we were to say we want to poll every single contributor past and
present, then it would be absolutely impossible to even get 50% of them
to respond, much less to understand the proposal or be bothered to vote.
In such a scenario, you could not possibly put the hurdle at "50% of the
electorate" but you would have to say "50% of people who respond". And
this then requires some sort of definition of how much time and money
must be spent on OSMF side to reach the person ("what, my email address
was invalid, if you had just googled my name you would have found my new
address..." etc.)
So: EITHER we do "50% of all active contributors (with no reply being a
no vote)", or we do "50% of all those who have ever contributed *and*
bother to reply".
Bye
Frederik
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [odc-discuss] Draft of an Open Data Commons Attribution License
Hi, SteveC wrote: > then we also need a NC version. NC licenses are not compatible with OKFN's own definition of "Open Knowledge", Paragraph 8: (quote) 8. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the work in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the work from being used in a business, or from being used for military research. Comment: The major intention of this clause is to prohibit license traps that prevent open material from being used commercially. We want commercial users to join our community, not feel excluded from it. (end quote) Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Public map with osm violates CC-by-SA
Jonas, Jonas Stein wrote: > http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/DE:Wandertafel > has the wrong license information been fixed already? Those who know don't read this list. Those who read this list mostly don't read German. A posting to talk-de would probably return more results! Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] You may not sublicense your rights under these Terms to any person
Hi, Stefan Neufeind wrote: > Hmm, so actually we'd need some volunteers on a toilet trip to go there, > check the toilet details and map it from their own site-survey. I'm sure the .au community can provide interesting foodstuffs to further that objective! Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Are we strict enough with imports ?
Hi, (I'm hijacking this thread which Nic started about legalities of imports on legal-talk, and moving over to talk) Nic Roets wrote: > My suggestion is that we should have a fixed, but simple procedure for > users who import data: I think that every import should start with a deliberation on whether to import *at all*. Currently, I have the impression that many people are very trigger-happy when it comes to importing data. I believe that is running the risk of making OSM into one giant data rubbish dump. The old-style GIS community is currently working on several projects that collect what they call "metadata" - basically, because they know that there are so many different people with so many different data sets, they are working on ways to describe these datasets in a way that hopefully enables intelligent clients to present data retrieved from all of them as one coherent data set. This is of course extremely difficult and introduces many problems that one does not have when using just one huge database instead of thousands of different databases. But since many datasets are not static, you cannot simply grab them and pour them into one large database and be happy. What does this mean for our data imports? Data that is externally "owned" and maintained should not be imported, with the following exceptions: * if the data is so important for us (usu. as the foundation for other crowdsourced stuff) that we'd rather have and outdated version of it in OSM than nothing at all; * if we are confident that we, the OSM community, will do a better, more reliable, more thorough, and more timely job in updating the information than the original owner (this includes cases where the original owner has ceased maintenance); * if he are confident that we can easily synchronize our database with any updates made by the original owner to his data set. In all other cases it would be *much* more desirable to establish better mechanisms of merging OSM data with that other data in preparation for map drawing etc., rather than pulling it all in and having it rot. I would very much like to develop a kind of "litmus test" for imports, and get the message across that not every import is a good import (even if legally spotless). Today, even newcomers to OSM sometimes seem hell-bent on importing large quantities of data just because they can. I would like to remind people that OSM has a very lively culture of surveying data - and I'd rather have 1 sq km surveyed by a newbie than 100 sq km imported. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Are we strict enough with imports ?
Hi,
Jean-Guilhem Cailton wrote:
> Ok, but please do not forget that in crisis situations (e.g. Haiti),
> there could be people dying while the "deliberation" would be taking
> place...
This is something to be discussed later, I guess, but my take is that we
should separate "crisis stuff" from the rest of OSM, to the point of
having separate databases. We'd still use the normal OSM tools but there
would be a special API server for a crisis region. There, people could
do whatever they please (even more so than in "normal OSM") without
interference from others. After the crisis has subsided, temporary
structures removed and so on, work could then start on moving selected
items from the "crisis map" over into the normal OSM map.
If this is not done, I sense a potential for conflicts of all kind. As
apparent in the dramatic wording you chose above ("there could be people
dying..."), a humanitarian crisis anywhere could put strain on the
project as a whole: "What, you want to take the database offline for a
weekend to perform the move to API 0.8 that you have planned for half a
year? But there could be people dying!" - "What, the database didn't
work for a whole night and the admin was in the pub? But there could
have been people dying!" - "What, you want to do a world-wide day of
post box mapping? But this is going to slow down the API and there could
be people dying!", and so on.
Being able to provide value in humanitarian crises is a side-effect of a
healthy OSM - not a core purpose of OSM.
Bye
Frederik
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Contributor Terms draft changes
Hi, Mike Collinson wrote: > can someone sue on the basis of misuse of their > data? Our understanding from Counsel is: Yes. OSMF can on the basis of > collective/database rights. An individual contributor can if it concerns > data that they added. What would be the legal basis for that? Say I add a whole town to OSM. You then use that data with blatant disregard for the license. If I want to sue you, then you must have violated a right of mine, or broken a contract with me. Given that we are in the process of throwing away a license that is rooted in copyright because we say that copyright doesn't apply - which of my rights would you have violated, or which contract broken? Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] is this usage of osm a violation of cc-by-sa?
Jonas, Jonas Stein wrote: > On the webpage there is still no change. What did they say? There is a suggested process for dealing with such cases on http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Lacking_proper_attribution This process does not involve reminding the legal-talk list every two weeks about obscure German "Children's Paradise" web sites that still haven't got their attribution right ;-) Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Contributor Terms latest
Hi, Mike Collinson wrote: > - defining active contributor as a "natural person". This serves the > purpose of "no bots". OPEN QUESTION: We are not sure about this one as > this it excludes corporations or other legally organised entities. If > they have multiple accounts for individual staff, it has the reverse > effect. Perhaps not a good idea? Comments welcome. At least in Germany, only natural persons can ever have copyright on anything (it's not called copyright here, it's called Urheberrecht, rights of the creator; of course the creator can always give someone else an exclusive license but the root of the right remains with the natural person). So that would make sense. On the other hand, database rights can, and usually are, accrued by corporations and not individuals... Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] ODbL: Produced Works other than maps
Hi, until now, most of us (I believe) have viewed the ODbL's "Produced Works" concept as relating to something like a PNG image made from the OSM database. A map tile, if you will. I wonder what other forms of "Produced Works" there are. What, for example, about lists? If I produce from OSM a list of all bakeries in London, with addresses, and put that up on a web page - is that more something like a PNG image (a Produced Work), or is it already a database excerpt (a little Javascript magic might allow you to sort the table or to filter out certain elements - certainly characteristics of a data base)? If the latter - would things be any different if I offered the list (a) not on a web page, but as a PDF document which has less database-like capabilities, or (b) in printed form? Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL: Produced Works other than maps
Hi, Arne Johannessen wrote: > Note that just rendering the OSM database in PNG format doesn't > necessarily create a Produced Work. We have to be careful about the definition of "database" here. According to the legal definition of "database" which has been quoted here often enough, any PNG file made from OSM data would qualify as a database, which would render the whole concept of a "Produced Work" totally useless for OSM. Thus we have agreed that we are willing to consider a PNG file to be a Produced Work unless - and I don't find the specific wording on the Wiki right now but I think there was something like this - someone creates the file specially with the purpose of transporting the database through it. In that light, I fail to see the difference between a PNG image that represents a list of bakeries in London (which you and Andy would say clearly is a derived database or a substantial excerpt) and a PNG image with a map of London and little bread symbols where there's a bakery (which we do not want to be a derived database nor a substantial excerpt, or else the whole ODbL Produced Works idea would fall over and be useless - for example we could not mix our map with data licensed under another license). Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL: Produced Works other than maps
Hi, Arne Johannessen wrote: > How many bakeries are there in London? Without bothering to count, I'd > say Greater London surely has a lot more than 100, while The City > probably has less. (A hundred is the limit for 'not Substantial' > according to the community guideline for the meaning of Substantial.) I wasn't out to discuss the "substantial" bit. I know that an insubstantial extract is practically unrestricted but what I'm after is using a substantial portion of the data base to create a Produced Work, which may then be distributed under a license of one's choice. > If we're talking a Significant portion here, it definitely is a > Derived Database in both cases (list and PNG). A reasoning according to which the map image with bakeries painted on would also be a derived database which, as I already said, is surely not the intention of OSM's implementation of the ODbL. >> or else the whole ODbL Produced Works idea would fall over and >> be useless > > So far I have yet to discover its actual use. Pointers are > appreciated. :) The actual use is that you can create map images from OSM data which then do NOT fall under the ODbL. This is essential if one is to combine data from, say, a CC-BY-SA data source and our ODbL data source into one map image; were the image considered a Derived Database, the ODbL viral aspect would kick in and require you to license the image under ODbL which would clash with CC-BY-SA's requirement to license the image under CC-BY-SA. Not being able to produce a map image that contains an OSM base map and combines them with elements from another share-alike license would be a show stopper for the whole ODbL effort. We're doing open data specifically because we want to encourage people creating derived works, not to stifle that activity. > This is what the Produced Work thing might have meant: Cases where the > database's contents appear outside the database theme's domain. No, the Produced Work specifically meant something like this: http://c.tile.openstreetmap.org/12/2076/1410.png It is important to us that something like that does not require to be licensed under ODbL. I agree that if you have recently joined the discussion, or perhaps simply read the ODbL and thinking of a database in terms of the EU database directive, you'd be tempted to say that a PNG image like that must be a database. But if we don't manage to override that definition with a community norm, then one of the most promising aspects of ODbL, namely making it easier to deal with maps produced from our data, becomes void. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] OSM content on locked platforms
Hi, a recent discussion on talk-de has unearthed an interesting question with regards to iPhone/Appstore and other locked platforms. You will have to correct me if I'm wrong about the technical aspects of the Apple product range, since I am firmly on the Cory Doctorow side when it comes to iSomethings. But as I understand it, the iPhone is a platform that does not allow you to easily exchange software or data between devices. You can send someone an email to his iPhone but you cannot send them an application to install, and you cannot even send them, say, a new dictionary for the word processor software unless that word processor software explicitly has a feature that provides for such exchange. Now let's assume someone publishes, for a price, an application called the "London A-Z" for the iPhone, which is basically a map viewer with a data component, all data being derived from OSM and stored in the application. Now, CC-BY-SA requires that whoever buys this application should have the full right to make derivative works (of the data), pass it (the data) on, etc.etc., and indeed it also says: "You may not distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform the Work with any technological measures that control access or use of the Work in a manner inconsistent with the terms of this License Agreement." If I understand things correctly, then the whole iPhone/Appstore/Apple operating system combo is just that - a technological measure that controls access and use of the work, because you cannot retrieve the work from the iPhone without "jailbreaking" it, and you cannot install it on another iPhone without "jailbreaking" that. I would be interested in your thoughts on the legal situation here. Is distributing an OSM-derived data set on such a closed platform still CC-BY-SA conformant? Could I, if I were selling such an app, just say: "Here's the package on my web site for download - of course to install it on the iPhone you must go through the Appstore and pay $9.99 but if you jailbreak your phone then you can use the free version from my web page. Of course by jailbreaking it you violate Apple's license conditions..." - I mean it's not the software provider's fault that only DRM'ed software goes on the iPhone. Or is it? This also leads to interesting follow-on questions, namely (a) what would the ODbL say in a similar case? (b) is it in our interest - in the interest of "open data" - to allow such distribution of our data through closed platforms? Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Using img OSM data
David, there is certainly no limitation on playing around with OSM-derived maps as these are CC-BY-SA 2.0. However it seems cumbersome to me to decompile such a map when you can instead download and inspect the source code of mkgmap, the utility we use to create them (see mkgmap.org). You should be able to learn much more from that than from just decompiling the IMG file! Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] viral attribution and ODbL
Hi, TimSC wrote: > 1) Create a produced work under ODbL term 4.3 with proper attribution > 2) Release produced work as public domain with proper attribution > 3) Strip off legal notices and attribution (which I think is allowed, > almost by definition, for public domain works) > 4) Republish as public domain or any other license, without attribution This is allowed. > My question: where is the term that copyright notices must be preserved > done the chain of derived works? There is no such term for produced works. To achieve an attribution chain, we would have to have something that says "you may only release produced works under a license that enforces an attribution chain". Im glad we don't because I consider attribution chains to be evil. > Second issue, which is probably the flip side of the same coin: people > might be inclined to use works that use some sort of attribution license > and incorperate them into OSM (this almost certainly has already > happened, OS opendata, etc). The attribution must be included in any > derived works. We cannot import such data, even today, because we cannot make sure that the attribution is included in all derived works. So if you know of any such imports having taken place, they should be investigated and probably removed. We do have a wiki page where we provide general attribution along the lines of "parts of OSM include data from X, Y, Z; thank you for that". But there is no rule, now or under ODbL, that requires people somehow incorporate that into their works. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] viral attribution and ODbL
Hi, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote: > On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 19:43, Frederik Ramm wrote: >> I am not bothered about individual contributions because everyone who >> contributes *knows* what OSM is like and that he cannot expect to get >> personal attribution. If someone however has released something under >> CC-BY-SA without knowing OSM, they have reason to expect that wherever >> their work is used, they are given credit, and OSM doesn't do that. > > Whether someone "knows" OSM or not doesn't change how their > contributions should be treated. Both works (in your example) were > submitted under the same terms and should be treated exactly the same. I think there is a difference, certainly morally but even legally. If you submit, under CC-BY-SA, data to an online map which clearly does not give the names of all contributors, and later claim that the map was violating your terms, that is something different from publishing your data on a web page under CC-BY-SA and then complaining that someone took it, put it in a web map, and didn't provide attribution. I agree with your "*should* be treated the same" but I think the evil is lesser in one case than in the other. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] viral attribution and ODbL
Hi, M?rtin Koppenhoefer wrote: >> do we really want to require the 38th party down the line to still >> attribute OSM no matter how diluted the OSM content has become? > > yes. Why should it have become diluted? The very nature of a produced work is to dilute OSM content because otherwise it would be a derived database! > If you give this up, you do > almost the same then releasing PD, and that's indeed what you are best > known to advocate for. We *do* want to allow releasing produced works under PD. Note that we are talking produced works here, not the data istself! Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] CC-BY-SA and contractual obligations
Hi, CC-BY-SA means that the receiver of my derived work can do what he pleases, and I must not use technical or contractual methods to keep him from it. Say I produce PNG maps that illustrate motorway traffic density, based on OSM; I give the PNG to a paying customer, that customer may now upload it to Flickr if desired. I am not allowed to make a contract with the customer that prohibits him from doing so. I am, however, under no obligation to continue providing the service. So if I am selling subscriptions to my traffic service which allow a paying customer to retrieve updated maps at any time, and one customer then writes a script to pick up my data once per hour and upload it to Flickr, I can terminate the contract. (But not sue for copyright violation.) It can hardly be wrong to advise the customer upfront of what I am going to do; so I could write into my terms and conditions something like: "The CC-BY-SA license permits you the free distribution of any data you download from my site, however if you make use of that right, this contract shall be terminated immediately and any advance fees paid by you will not be refunded." Do you agree that this is all perfectly legal - i.e. that CC-BY-SA governs only the copyright side of things, but the contractual side is a wholly different beast? Or do you think that by doing the above, I would somehow illegally circumvent the CC-BY-SA "don't add restrictions" rule? Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Viral can be nice
Ævar, > Pretty much they only thing I've ever gotten out of OSM personally > (besides exercise and being able to use it on my GPS) is being able to > use the various map renderings by ITO World, CloudMade etc. under the > same free license as the data. That may well be; but OSM is not, in its core, a project for drawing pretty maps and share-aliking them. (I believe there's a task force on Wikipedia that does this.) > The discussion on the current issue of the week[1] seems to indicate > that at least some people share that view, or at least feel like being > pedantic in enforcing our current license. Even I, not being a supporter of our current license, request that people adhere to its terms; this is out of a basic demand for fair play. I wish we didn't have these restrictive terms but now that we have them, I expect everyone to play by them, and I too have written to people reminding them of their obligations under CC-BY-SA. This does not in any way allow the conclusion that I would be unhappy about losing the opportunity to write license enforcement letters about produced works once we've made the switch. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Viral can be nice
Tim, > OSM is not essentially anything at its core. It is different things to > different people. I'm talking about the sentence that defines OSM at the top of our Wiki page, which in all likelihood has been there in this form when most of us signed up. If you sign up to a project which claims to be A but to you the project is B, then that's all fine and dandy for you, just don't complain if the project later endorses a license that suits A better than B. > The fact that commercial data can't be merged with CC-BY-SA could be > said to be a limitation of commerical data, rather than a limitation of > CC-BY-SA. You're over-simplifying when you say "commercial data". Even GNU FDL data cannot be merged with CC-BY-SA. We have governmental data which is released "for noncommercial use only" - currently un-mergeable with ours. We have data released "for educational use" - not usable for the student who wants to plot that onto an OSM base map for his master thesis. This is a serious limitation and leads to many pretty maps *not* being made, or being made with non-OSM data. "How is that bad"? You tell me. Given a choice of (a) all maps can be made, but sharing them is a the maker's discretion versus (b) only some maps can be made, but once they are made they will always be shared I'd certainly find (a) to be more encouraging to creativity. > Can't the same thing apply to maps? And if SA is too restrictive for > produced works, why have SA at all? A watered down SA is the worse of > all worlds IMHO, which is the ODbL. This has high complexity with few SA > rights. The share-alike element in data is stronger with ODbL than it was with CC-BY-SA. Data is, I say it again, what OSM is about. Pretty maps are an offshoot - with OSM data being popular, anyone will be able to make pretty maps themselves, whereas *not* anyone will be able to quickly survey the planet. >> This does not in any way allow the conclusion that I would be unhappy >> about losing the opportunity to write license enforcement letters about >> produced works once we've made the switch. > Why are you enforcing terms you don't agree with? lol. Ok, so people > might not respect a license that you don't agree with, but why care > about fair play when the rules are wrong? I'm German. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Viral can be nice
Erik, Erik Johansson wrote: > Obviously a lot of people think Openstreetmap is more than just a > collection of coordinates in a db. I think you try to redefine it in a > way that supports your PD argument. Firstly, I am not making a PD argument but an ODbL argument here. Secondly, I'm not redefining anything, just pointing out the existing definition. Thirdly, I'm slightly offended by your "I've yet to see an argument ... instead of just opinions just as yours". I guess if all I can say is "just an opinion" while what you say is a proper "argument" then maybe I'll just recommend that you re-read the previous 2 years of legal-talk. The idea of no restrictions on produced works in ODbL doesn't come out of nowhere. > If ODBL existed in the same variants as CC does, this would be easier. An equivalent to CC-BY is currently in the works over at OKFN. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Viral can be nice
Hi, TimSC wrote: >> The share-alike element in data is stronger with ODbL than it was with >> CC-BY-SA. > I assume you mean it is "stronger" as in "enforceable"? Since CC-BY-SA is almost surely not applicable to a collection of facts like ours, it is not hard to make something that is more enforceable ;) > Perhaps I am > missing another area of strengthening. The intent of CC-BY-SA is all > derived works are also SA. Otherwise, it seems ODbL is weaker - produced > works are not share alike? Yes but we get something in return which is more valuable (if you define value in terms of how much something brings us closer to the stated goal of the project). My standard example is that of a guy who makes a T-Shirt with an OSM map of his town on it. Say he finds the data for the town insufficient, and spends a few days surveying the bits that are important for his T-Shirt. Under CC-BY-SA we have share-alike on the T-Shirt. This means everyone can buy the T-Shirt, put it under a scanner and hope to retrieve some meaningful data from it. (Plus people can simply upload the T-Shirt design to any T-Shirt making web site and undercut the original creator by one cent; a situation that reduces the likelihood that the T-Shirt will be made in the first place.) The improved data, however, need not be shared; since the improved data as such is never published, it does not fall under the CC-BY-SA share-alike clause. The data remains hidden to us; we only get a scanned T-Shirt. Under ODbL, we don't necessarily get the T-Shirt design. We consider the T-Shirt design to be the creator's intellectual property and grant him every right to restrict access to that. But what we do get is his improved data - because we say that this data is a derived work of ours, he has to share his improvements. Which is, in my eyes, a stronger request - we're not happy with people releasing some processed, filtered, compiled version of their data, we want the data itself. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Proposed human readable contributor terms
Hi, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote: > I've created a proposed version of the human readable contributor > terms on the wiki: > > > http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Database_License/Contributor_Terms/Human_readable > > The wording can doubtless be improved (please do so!), and maybe > there's something more to cover. Let's try to keep it short though. I think the wording is ok, but I would advise against translating it. I believe that presenting a crowdsource-translated "summary" above an English "legalese" could be interpreted as misleading the users. Personally, I think that translations are a problem in many places in OSM. Stuff is translated and then starts to rot because whoever did the translation goes hunting for the next non-translated bit. This is just the same as with imports; the translations create documents that nobody cares about, that do not have a community to support them. There seem to be some areas where it works, but I have the impression that triumphantly adding a 23rd language to some page on the Wiki does not, overall, improve quality. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] some questions about "Produced Works" under the ODbL
Hi, Oliver (skobbler) wrote: > Consider a "produced work" of something that cannot be reproduced because > disassembling is not possible. Take a "cake" for example (kitchen wise, just > for understanding the concept). You cannot produce a another cake from the > first cake or alter it because you cannot disassemble it to the original > ingredients since the ingredients have been transformed in a chemical > process. The cake would be a Produced Work. > > If you take a car it can always be disassembled to its individual pieces and > be rebuild. The car would not be a Produced Work. That is an interesting concept but I think it is misleading. What you're saying, basically, is that making a cake loses the (or some) properties of the ingredients, thus a produced work; making a car doesn't, thus not produced. (Of course making a car also entails irreversible actions but let's ignore that for the moment.) Transferred back to the map database, your argument would be that anything which does not allow one to go back to the data is a produced work. However, this is definitely wrong. If I make an excerpt of the full database, with no information loss, that's certainly not a produced work. But throwing away some bits - for example by simplifying the geometries - means that I still have a derived database and not a produced work, even though the process is not reversible. The produced work starts where being a database stops. (And yes I know that's not helpful.) The proposed community guideline talks of "intent". This hints at the fact that there may be an overlap; you and I may be producing the exact same thing from OSM, but yours may be a produced work and mine not. For example, I could take the bz2'ed planet file and transform it into a 57000x57000 pixel true-colour PNG image with the intent of being able to reverse engineer that PNG image into the planet file. My image is clearly a derived database. Now you might be a crazy artist who wants to give an extra touch to some work of yours, and without much thinking you take the planet file and slap on an image header and have it displayed. The image was not created with the intent of extracting the original data, so it is a produced work - even though the process is entirely reversible and the original planet file could be created from your image. On a smaller, and perhaps less unbelievable, scale, someone might create a special fine-line map rendering from OSM because he wants to laser-etch the stuff. Produced work. Someone else creates the exact same fine-line map rendering because he wants to scan it in with his map OCR program - derived database. > Also consider the intention behind the concept: The idea is that if someone > improves the original source then this improvement should go back to the > community. This is often said but it is my understanding that, as with GPL, any improvement you make to the data must only be made available under ODbL to those who are in receipt of the produced work made from it. This may or may not be "the community"; it would be entirely legal for me to improve the data, make a printed atlas, sell you the atlas, hand over the improved and ODbL-licensed data to you and say: "This is the only copy of the data. I recommend you shred it right away, as this will make your atlas unique!" Interesting question: If you did shred the data, would you be allowed to publicly display your Atlas afterwards? Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] some questions about "Produced Works" under the ODbL
Oliver, Oliver (skobbler) wrote: > I think the "updatability" is key when distinguishing between Derived and > Produced Work. That concept is completely new and has never been brought up in the discussions around ODbL. It might work and it might not. It would be good if it worked because that would make the distinction easy ;-) then again any distinction based on the pure properties of the work would not be able to take the "intent" into account which I explained in my previous message. You can certainly have a derived database that is not updateable (e.g. simply drop all IDs). I'm not sure if you can have a produced work that is updateable; I cannot come up with something right now. >> Interesting question: If you did shred the data, would you be allowed to >> publicly display your Atlas afterwards? > > To my understanding and in line with my concept above it could be treated as > produced work that is based on non-modified data. > > Otherwise any source data of a produced work would have to be made available > and I think this is not the intention. Not sure if I understand correctly. In my example, the atlas was meant to be a produced work based on *modified* data, thus I had to give the data to you; I assumed that you then destroyed the data which was within your rights, but later you decided you wanted to put the produced work on display. ODbL 4.3 says: "if you Publicly Use a Produced Work, You must include a notice associated with the Produced Work reasonably calculated to make any Person that uses, views, accesses, interacts with, or is otherwise exposed to the Produced Work aware that Content was obtained from the Database, Derivative Database, or the Database as part of a Collective Database, and that it is available under this License." This sounds as if you would have to "make [everyone] aware that [the database] is available under this license" - but in my hypothetical situation the database does not exist any more. The question I was asking is, what happens if a produced work survives the data from which it was created - does it then become "un-publicly-usable"? Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Potential huge License violation - anyone know anything about this?
Phil, Phil Monger wrote: > It's a new cycle book for London, with routes, etc. Pretty standard > fare. The problem? All the maps inside are blatant OSM copies (Mapnik, I > assume) with route overlays posted. Now this wouldn't be a problem, > obviously, except they are way WAY outside of CC-BY-SA. A general rule of thumb is, try not to get over-excited about these things. In most cases they really happen out of negligence. > None of the maps have *any* accreditation back to OSM on them. The only > place OSM is mentioned it on the very last page, very last line, where > it says "All other maps by Steve Dew using base maps by OpenStreetMap" ... which is already better than other uses we've seen. I think the already-quoted approach by TomH http://compton.nu/2010/05/how-not-to-credit-openstreetmap/ was very sensible, and calm, and worked well. In the long run we might even have a fleshed-out data working group (i.e. more than the odd bunch of already-overworked people we currently are) to take on such cases, like Steve suggested in his latest comment. Interestingly, if you read the comment section of Tom's post, there's a comment by one John Gilmore who is of the opinion that a book using some CC-BY-SA maps must be completely CC-BY-SA, an idea which I do not share - I think the book is a collected work where only the maps have to be shared. The OSM book that I have written has a lot of maps as well, and they are not always individually credited; but somewhere in the first few pages where it says that all this is copyrighted and you'll get shot if you disobey, I added an extra passage saying "This does not apply to the maps in this book which are from OpenStreetMap and licensed CC-BY-SA". > Ironically, it doesn't list OSM or OCM as "useful resources" for > cyclists ... I wonder why? This is really strange. I mean if OSM was useful enough to create the maps from... > I assume this hasn't been cleared and 'waived' by someone at OSM? Where > can we go from here? The only people who could "clear" something in that way, at least for now, is the community of all individuals who have contributed to these maps. > I have an urge to go start flogging scanned copies and claim .. "but > surely as a derivative work this is also a work released under > CC-BY-SA?" if that's what it takes to stop corporations like New Holland > from pilfering work like this. As I said, I would be quite cross if someone were to distribute scanned copies of my book because I don't believe that depicting OSM maps in it makes the whole thing derived. But it is an interesting question - if someone violates CC-BY-SA by taking OSM data and releasing it under his copyright, and you then violate his license by simply taking the stuff and distributing it CC-BY-SA, can he sue you? Can you be jailed for stealing from a thief? Probably depends on jurisdiction. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Potential huge License violation - anyone know anything about this?
Hi, Phil Monger wrote: > This is entirely derivative. The maps and route descriptions operate > together as *one piece of work* - indeed descriptions of the ways, place > names, distances, directions (ect) used in *the text* are taken from > *the mapping*. The text couldn't / wouldn't be there without the > mapping, leaving the entire thing as one piece of work, regardless of > the fact the maps are images, and the words are words. Mh. Maybe. I am not convinced. If someone took an OSM map and said: Oh, this looks like a nice bike tour, let me write this up in words - yes, that would be derivative. But if someone actually does the trip and then writes up where he's been... For example, in an OSM context, I consider it perfectly legal to use a proprietary map for the planning of a mapping party (i.e. for making the "cake" and deciding where to send people). Once they actually go there, cycle down the road, and note down the street sign, it doesn't matter what gave them the idea to go there - we are allowed to use the data that has been recorded. I'd grant the same rights to the cycle book writer *provided* that he has actually been there. I would look for hints in his description which are not on the map (e.g. "from here you have a nice view of this and that in the distance" or "watch out for the potholes here" or so). If there are indeed none, and the whole text could have been done by someone who just looked at the OSM map and never was there in the first place, then yes, that would be derived - but in that case, abusing OSM data is perhaps the smallest problem with the book ;-) > You wouldn't take 12 songs under CC-By-SA, wrap them together in an > album, add cover art, add liner notes, change a couple of words in the > songs, and then be able to claim the entire CD is your copyright. No, but nobody says that. What you say is "take 12 songs under CC-BY-SA, wrap them together in an album, add cover art and liner notes, and you have to release cover art and liner notes under CC-BY-SA", whereas I say that you *only* have to release the songs. > I don't think New Holland posting a message on a forum saying "Oh, gosh, > is that wrong? We won't do it again.." is a good enough answer. I can > cite examples of books and magasines getting into a LOT of mess for > incorrectly attributing stock images, so how should an entire book, > written around the premise that the maps are "free" be exempt from this > license? In my eyes they are not exempt. But mistakes happen and I think their reaction is ok. This is often overlooked but I think that by printing this book and making it available *even* in the form it currently has, they are already *improving* the standing of OSM rather than hurting the project. So yes, they're technically in violation of the license but I recommend cutting them some slack and acknowledging that never before has anyone in the UK made such a convincing public statement of OSM being good quality. > Surely .. SURELY the whole point of a CC-BY-SA license in the first > place is to *stop* someone taking it and using it in > a proprietary media, and instead encouraging people to "give something > back" by making their re-use re-useable? Or am I just tilting at windmills? I think that their re-use must be re-useable, i.e. their maps (which they seem to have slightly improved re. the labelling) must be free for others to copy. I think they have acknowledged that, and I don't think we should aim to make trouble for them just because "others have got into trouble for much less". (I'm somewhat uneasy about fighting fire with fire - just because the big greedy bastards sue everyone about the tiniest violations, doesn't mean we have to as well.) And I don't agree with you about the rest of the book; I still think it is not a derived work. But I don't have it in front of me so if on closer inspection it really looks like they haven't even bothered to cycle their roads then that's a problem. I know I'm perhaps too pragmatic here but the question I ask is: Would it have been better (for OSM) if the book hadn't been printed? And my answer is no. Of course others would say yes. And of course it would have been best if the book had been printed with proper attribution and license, which the next edition will no doubt be. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Potential huge License violation - anyone know anything about this?
Hi,
Oliver (skobbler) wrote:
> In addition we
> should put a sentence that they can make donation to OpenStreetMap and the
> community forgets about the mistake. Otherwise the OSMF might take further
> legal actions.
You mean as in
"Dear Mr President, I've got this photo showing you in bed with another
man, here's my bank account where you can make a donation, in which case
I will forget about it...
... unless I need more money later in which case I might again remember"?
Honestly, what you're suggesting smacks of blackmail. I do not doubt for
a second that it will work in some cases but I consider it morally
inacceptable, *especially* because every single contributor is entitled
to take legal action, so even if the accused paid up nobody in the world
can guarantee that he would not get sued, or get bad press.
(I'm not sure in how far this might change with the proposed license
change; if the license change puts OSMF in the sole position of being
able to sue then yes, OSMF could say they won't sue in exchange for
payment but I would still consider this questionable, not least because
it would mean that if they decline to pay we'd have to sue which I'd
like to avoid.)
> In cases where a company gains a financial advantage from a breach of
> license I think legal actions would be appropriate and should definitely be
> taken. I think this is important as many companies are already watching what
> happens in case of a severe violation to OSM data. If nothing happens many
> companies might take advantage...
I am very skeptical of legal action. If someone really takes the piss
then yes, perhaps, but it must never come to OSMF being a fundraising
machine for lawyers. Legal action can very quickly cost more than
everything else we do, and I would hate to be in a project whose main
activity, according to the balance books, is paying lawyers to sue people.
Legal action must be the exception, not the norm, and reserved for
really big cases. There is so much murky and questionable legal action
going on around copyright and maps, and it must never come to people
being fearful of using OSM because they fear the legal consequences of
misstepping.
Also, if we start threatening to sue people then we also need to set up
proper advice for users (if you follow these rules then we won't sue
you), and be prepared to answer questions ("I want to do X. Is that
allowed?") with something other than "Dunno, ask a lawyer, and we might
still sue you later".
Bye
Frederik
--
Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33"
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Potential huge License violation - anyone know anything about this?
Hi, Oliver (skobbler) wrote: > I just want to create a situation where people are > aware that abusing OSM data leads to consequences so that is becomes a > trade-off like not buying a ticket for train. If too many people use the train without paying then the operator will go bust. If too many people use OSM without attribution then...? Don't get me wrong, as long as we have this license we should insist on people following it, if only to respect our work. But by making comparisons like the above you're already playing what I like to call the "music industry game", which is neatly illustrated here: http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/ob/piratebay_header.jpg Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CC-BY-SA and derivate works
Alex, Alexrk wrote: > Am I right that such a tourist map could only be published under a CC-like > license again? In other words, if I do so and sell just one copy of that map, > any "Big Publishing & Co" could duplicate and sell the same on its own for > ..hmm.. half the price? Correct. > So if that interpretation of CC-BY-SA is correct, practically no one would be > able to do really creative things with OSM if she or he would like to get a > ROI > on that work? Our standard reply is that you cannot expect to apply old-world business models to our new world order. There is a lot of room for "really creative things"; taking our map and printing an A-Z is not exactly a prime example of creativity. The suggested ODbL license changes situation by allowing you to make a "produced work" and license that under a non-share-alike license as long as the produced work is not a database. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CC-BY-SA and derivate works
Alex, Alexrk wrote: > You might like AZ (or Falk or whatever) or not - but please don't > underestimate > the creative work of cartographers. Making a good readable, fine-looking > paper > map is far more than installing Mapnik, choosing some color styles and > pressing > the render-button. I know. > Why making to much assumptions or restriction regarding the kind of business > models evolving behind OSM? I think it's not a good attitude to say, we don't > like or respect this or that usage of OSM because it's too old school, it's > not > Web 2.0 or ..geez.. someone claims his own license for his IP (damn > capitalist ;-)). I am also of the opinion that it is desirable to give people as much freedom in working with our data as possible, so you are preaching to the choir here. But not everyone in our project will agree that the concept of "IP" is a good thing. You seem to be relatively sure about the idea that anything you add on top of OSM data is yours and yours alone - but if you take your finished A-Z product, and remove from it the data taken from OSM, and remove from it the tricks you have learned from the old masters when you studied cartography (surely that's their "IP", no?), and remove from it the nicely matching colour palettes that you have downloaded from a web site, and remove from it the font which has taken someone a full year to design, and remove from it the work of Mercator and those who came before him... is your own contribution in all of this really so large that it warrants that you should get 100% of the credit and revenue? I think that "IP" is grossly overestimated and overused in our society. Recently I used the tube in London and saw that even there some group of lawyers had an ad campaign aimed at people who think they "are up to something" and need that protected. I have had to sign countless NDAs in my life only for people to divulge stuff that any thinking person could come up with. Incidentally that it also the reason why I am against share-alike licenses - because they are rooted in IP, in the idea that our work of recording stuff around us somehow entitles us to dictate our terms and conditions to others. Just like you think that it is of course "all yours" if you design a good map from OSM data, OSMers assert that it is "all theirs". I find both positions morally questionable. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CC-BY-SA and derivate works
Alex, Alexrk wrote: > Lets assume someone works two weeks - hunch darkly night after night over > Adobe > Illustrator, coming up with a handmade city map of Hamburg. OK voila nice, > now > lets try to sell it in a small edition of printed copies (BoD or whatsoever). > But why should one invest two weeks of work + advance payments for the > printing > costs, if another big publishing house can take that map and sell it for half > the price, just because that company didn't had your "sunk costs" (and > possess > much cheaper publishing abilities). One idea would be to make a deal with them and have them commission you to make that map. If they make a good & wholesome product of it, and they don't sell at too much of a markup, would people rather buy their original product or the chinese facsimile for half the price? Another idea would be combining the OSM map with other, original content which makes the product something nice and special; that other stuff, if it is not derived from OSM, would not be CC-BY-SA, so while anyone can copy the map, they cannot copy the other stuff, and thus can never reproduce the "whole" that you have created. There are lots of business models that work with share-alike data; it is just that the old business models which are exclusively based on "pay me or I sue you" don't work. > Sounds not so promissing. From that point of view, share-alike would even > benefit monopolies - as typically any other "sunk cost"-intensive production > does. I don't follow your argument here. A Monopoly means there is only one provider of maps who can dictate the price. Whereas with share-alike, as soon as the would-be monopolist makes big profits, others will come and copy his map. Where's the monopoly there? > I think, I begin to understand, that CC is really not the right license for > OSM. CC is not the right license for OSM, but not for any of the reasons you have mentioned. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] legal-talk mailing list archive is broken
Hi, for some reason, the mailing list archive has been renumbered. When I search for something in Google now, I will find a mailing list post, wen when I click on the link, I see something else. Go back, click on "cached", and see the real thing. See e.g. this article from 2007 in which another article is referenced: http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2007-March/000179.html however if you click on the link you are led to a completely different article than the one the link was pointing to originally! Can it be fixed? Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CC-BY-SA and derivate works
Hi, Alexrk wrote: > Hmm, if I buy OSM-related consulting services at Geofabrik and don't pay for > it > - you don't wanna sue me? *zwinker* I'd probably just sell the debt to a collection agency ;-) Geofabrik sells a lot of custom data extracts where the customer gets exactly what they want, and thus while CC-BY-SA allows them to pass it on, someone else is likely to prefer getting their own custom extract rather than using something made for a different purpose. The old model, in my eyes, is: "I have something which anybody *could* copy without any damage to me; however I use copyright to threaten people not to do what they could easily do." It is widely used in the media industry. It is attractive because at least in theory it scales indefinitely - someone using this model can always dream of his photo being used for the iPad desktop or something. You are right in questioning the terms "old" and "new" because obviously my "old" model only came into being through the advent of digital technology. I much prefer something I'd call a "craftsman model" - I do some work for you, and you pay me for it. This obviously doesn't scale quantitatively - I can try to do work that is worth more thus raising my income, but I cannot work 48 hours in a day. > There might be > simple and more complex models. If a simple model works as well, so why not. The simpler, the better. I just don't like those models that threaten users. If I buy a kitchen mixer I can do with it whatever I please - I can take it apart, use the motor to drive a fan, and later re-assemble or sell it. Anything that is physically possible is also allowed. I'd like it to be like that with digital goods as well. > Actually it was just a fixed idea that came to my mind and I wondered how > this > would comply with share-alike - without making it too complicated. Just for > fun, > you know. I didn't intended to start a sophisticated, value added, > ad-financed > business model. As I said, you're preaching to the choir; actually I have always used an example very similar to what you write in the share-alike discussion: http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2007-March/000169.html > This might go to the wrong address again, Frederik, but sometimes I receive > an > impression, that some OSM folks distinguish users between leechers and > contributers and "we" and "they". Which I think is not appropriate. I > believe, > everybody who gets involved in doing something with OSM is a gain for OSM, > even > if one doesn't contribute data directly. Personally I tend to differentiate between the legal and the moral situation. Legally I'd like it all to be PD. Morally. however, if someone comes along and uses OSM data and behaves as if it was "all his", I tend to be critical of that attitude. Just like in science really, where as a scientist you generally have access to anything done by others and you are not even legally required to provide attribution, but if you don't the community will oust you. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] ODbL Use Case: comparing OSM and proprietary data
Hi, assume I have a Navteq data set and want to compare it with OSM, in the form of a map image (or tiled OpenLayers Map) where areas are coloured red (=Navteq has more roads) or green (=OSM has more roads). Assume that my algorithm is like this: 1. divide world up in z18 tiles 2. create a data set derived from OSM with number of road kilometres in each tile 3. create a data set derived from Navteq with same 4. create a data set derived from 2. and 3. which has a "shade of red/green" value for each z18 tile 5. create produced works from d. Then the only thing I have to release under ODbL is 4., a database that assigns a shade of red/green to every z18 tile. I do not have to release my Navteq source data, and not even my number-of-road-kilometres-count for either Navteq or OSM. Is that your understanding as well? Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL Use Case: comparing OSM and proprietary data
Hi, Frederik Ramm wrote: > assume I have a Navteq data set and want to compare it with OSM, in > the form of a map image (or tiled OpenLayers Map) where areas are > coloured red (=Navteq has more roads) or green (=OSM has more roads). My choice of Navteq was purely for illustration here, and the whole thing is a thought exercise to find out whether it would be sufficient, from an ODbL perspective, to release the very last database in my processing chain, rather than something from earlier on. I wasn't interested in Navteq licensing terms but in ODbL. Sorry for not making that clear. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
