Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODBL enforcement: contract law and remedies
Frederik Ramm frede...@... writes: 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. But presumably nobody who will stop contributing if OSM continues to be licensed under Creative Commons share-alike terms? 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. That would be needed to prove that CC-BY-SA is effective in some country. But I feel that the burden of proof is the other way around. If you suggest dropping the existing licence and moving to a much more complicated new one, you need to show good evidence that the current licence is not working. When I look around I see a thriving OSM project, with no evidence that the current CC-BY-SA licence has held back people from contributing or led to leechers distributing their own OSM-derived data under unfree terms. (That said, there are some cases where the ODBL is more permissive, since AFAIK it allows rendered map images to be distributed under the terms you want.) The contract approach is primarily there because many believe the US to be such a country. That might be so, but again, I really doubt you can copy maps with impunity, otherwise we would be copying street names from Google. -- Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com ___ 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
On 27/10/09 11:04, Ed Avis wrote: Frederik Rammfrede...@... writes: 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. That would be needed to prove that CC-BY-SA is effective in some country. But I feel that the burden of proof is the other way around. If you suggest dropping the existing licence and moving to a much more complicated new one, you need to show good evidence that the current licence is not working. When I look around I see a thriving OSM project, with no evidence that the current CC-BY-SA licence has held back people from contributing or led to leechers distributing their own OSM-derived data under unfree terms. (That said, there are some cases where the ODBL is more permissive, since AFAIK it allows rendered map images to be distributed under the terms you want.) You've enumerated two possible failures modes for the current license but ignored one important one - whether people are being put off reusing our data because of uncertainty over the license. We know for a fact that a number of people (especially people that have asked their lawyers for an opinion) have indeed decided not to use our data for this reason. The contract approach is primarily there because many believe the US to be such a country. That might be so, but again, I really doubt you can copy maps with impunity, otherwise we would be copying street names from Google. Ignoring the contract restrictions Google impose via their terms of use you mean? You see, other people do think contracts are needed ;-) Yes, I know that the whole question of whether those terms are binding in contract law given the lack of explicit acceptance is an open one but it certainly hasn't stopped them trying. Tom -- Tom Hughes (t...@compton.nu) http://www.compton.nu/ ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Question regarding commercial use
On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 5:11 PM, Sven Benhaupt sven.benha...@googlemail.com wrote: 2009/10/26 Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org Thanks a lot for your quick answer, this was very helpful for me. If so - would it also be legally ok if I would create a print map Yes, but the printed map is not a collective work any more; at least under CC-BY-SA the printed map would have to be licensed CC-BY-SA, *including* the depicted vehicle routes/positions. OSM has no problem with that, and your delivery company probably hasn't either (remember, CC-BY-SA does not mean you have to put it up on a web site or something, just that anyone who legally gets hold of such a printout may do whatever he or she likes with it). Ok, this is also what I understood. But as far as I'm informed the OSM project will change it's licensing soon (ODbl) - will it then still be legal to use the OSM data the way we want to use it? yes. if the change to ODbL goes through it is likely that the OSM tiles will remain CC BY-SA, or possibly move to a less restrictive license. in either case, what you are proposing will still be legal - and i think we want it to always stay that way. cheers, matt ___ 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
On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 1:06 PM, Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com wrote:
Matt Amos zerebub...@... writes:
[CC-BY-SA unclear, or not permissive enough?]
We know for a fact that a number of people (especially people that have
asked their lawyers for an opinion) have indeed decided not to use our
data for this reason.
That is certainly a good reason to switch to a simpler and legally
unambiguous licence. Have these same lawyers reviewed the ODBL and given
it the thumbs up?
Several lawyers have looked at ODbL and commented.
Yes - specifically what I was asking about was whether these same people
who decided they were unable to use OSM data under CC-BY-SA would be
happy to use it under ODBL. (Myself, I suspect not!)
we'll have to wait and see if they respond to the open letter. i
wouldn't want to put words in their mouths, but i suspect that ODbL
clears up a lot of the uncertainties with CC BY-SA.
you say simpler and legally unambiguous, but it's become clear to me
from my work on the LWG that it is impossible for something to be
simple, unambiguous and global in scope. copyright law is sort-of
harmonised across the world by the Berne, Buenos Aires and Universal
Copyright Conventions, which makes it easier to write licenses based
on copyrights. there's just nothing like that for mostly factual
databases yet.
Agreed. My inclination would be to keep things simple and stick with
copyright - with an additional permission grant of the database right
in countries where a database right exists. ('You may use and copy
the database as long as you distribute the result under CC-BY-SA, and
grant this same database permission to the recipient.')
ODbL does exactly this: it is a copyright and database rights license,
in addition to being a contract. the contractual part is necessary
because copyright + database rights almost certainly doesn't give
enough protection in most of the non-EU world, e.g: USA.
Clearly there is a tradeoff to be made between simplicity and covering
every possible theoretical case where somebody in some jurisdiction might
possibly be able to persuade a court that they can copy OSM's data.
It seems that the ODBL optimizes for the latter.
ODbL optimises for a trade-off of simplicity and completeness. it has
been through several comment stages and, at each stage, people said it
was too complex. however, when you dig into any particular clause
you'll find that they are necessarily complex. i'm not saying it can't
be shortened - just that most of the unnecessary complexity has
already been removed. lawyers don't revel in complexity for
complexity's sake - they deal with it because it's an unavoidable part
of the legal system.
even if you were to optimise for size over coverage, you'd still want
it to work in at least the EU and USA. the EU needs the bits about
database rights, the USA needs the bits about contract. throw in the
bits about copyright in an attempt to cover that base as well; that's
the ODbL!
here is my rationale for moving away from CC BY-SA
http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/License/Why_CC_BY-SA_is_Unsuitable
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?
cheers,
matt
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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] What should be considered legal?
Thanks. The reason I asked that was that I frequently forget where the GPS trace was taken - was it a road or a track, which village or whatever else. This usually happens in areas where OSM map is pitch white :) Yahoo maps aren't very helpful there either. well, you can still upload the traces as they are always usefull (also more than one on the same place), especially in white areas, but without further information (road name, road class, physical state, reference number, restrictions etc.) you should tag them as highway=road if you decide to do it (and if it wasn't cross country). Btw: I guess you ment yahoo aerial imagery, as we have no right at all to trace yahoo maps or take information from it. cheers, Martin ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
