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] viral attribution and ODbL
Frederik Ramm wrote: TimSC wrote: / What is the point in paragraph 4.3, if it can be easily side stepped? / We have a well working culture of attribution in science, where you usually quote the source you took something from, but not the source behind the source behind the source. Yes, this works well in science and is enforced through professional standards (not legal standards). This prevents the attribution chain exploding. For example, Newton (or Leibniz) is not cited every time calculus is used! / And would the large data set import rights holders be happy if they // found out? / In the light of this, yes, it can be said that the attribution requirement for produced works should be dropped altogether; I think it has remained in the license as a symbol. Symbols can be powerful even if legally meaningless. Look, we want you to attribute us, but we freely chose not to burden you with tons of license code in order to force you to. I oppose this principle of putting in symbols or totems in the license, particularly in this case when it is misleading to the legal meaning. The license, under our interpretation, allows public domain produced works. Paragraph 4.3 hints that the opposite is true. This is confusing and doesn't promote legal certainty. I suggest a better place for requesting an optional courtesy attribution would be an a license preamble. I also note that, with this interpretation, the human readable summary is also wrong. For any use or redistribution of the database, or works produced from it, you must make clear to others the license of the database and keep intact any notices on the original database. This is not true down the chain?! A case of wishful thinking I expect. I am beginning to conclude the ODbL is a bloated, confusing mistake. We would be better serviced in our project goals by a simpler license i.e. a public domain-like license. In case public domain is impossible use to large GIS imports, a local database should be hosted separately under their particular license. I admit, integrating them together for large scale maps would be technically problematic. I think technical problems are preferable to legal problems which are almost inevitable with any share-alike license. TimSC PS. http://www.sciencecommons.org/projects/publishing/open-access-data-protocol/ ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] viral attribution and ODbL
TimSC wrote: I am beginning to conclude the ODbL is a bloated, confusing mistake. We would be better serviced in our project goals by a simpler license i.e. a public domain-like license. Public domain is unequivocally simpler. For many of us it is also the right thing to do - see the wiki userbox for details. I, and many others, have always wanted OSM to be PD. But in five years, we have never been able to obtain clear agreement for this. There is a significant number (probably a large minority) of contributors who will not consent to any licence without share-alike. Their beliefs are heartfelt and therefore sometimes very vocal. So the main choices are: a) Persist with CC-BY-SA. Most people with an awareness of data copyright law, including CC themselves, believe this is unsuitable. b) Given that project-wide consensus for PD is unlikely to be reached, fork the project and create a PD OSM, starting with PD datasets and contributions from PD-supporting users. This may be possible, and there's nothing to stop you or I from doing it, but no-one has seriously attempted it. c) Move to another sharealike licence which is more suitable for data. OSMF has chosen to follow c) and has managed it, thus far, with a surprising amount of consensus given our fractious community. I think they've done well and am grateful to them, and LWG in particular, for the thankless hours they have put in. If you would like to promote b) yourself you are very welcome to do so, and I suspect many people would support you; nonetheless, past mailing lists suggest that, if OSMF were to do so, it would almost certainly result in the implosion of the Foundation. I think your characterisation of ODbL as bloated and confusing is grossly unfair. It has been drafted by people with significant knowledge and experience in this area of law. It is complex. Database IP law is complex. You have come to the conclusion that a PD declaration is easier, and I agree with you, but to criticise the licence itself for that is unjust. cheers Richard ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] viral attribution and ODbL
Richard Fairhurst wrote: But in five years, we have never been able to obtain clear agreement for this. I assume this is based on gatherings of OSM members, mailing list discussions, IRC, etc. But I have never been directly asked by OSMF what the future license should be. I suspect that the majority of mappers will go with the flow, with a small number of vocal supporters on both sides. But without polling the members who can't know what the consensus is, so perhaps this is something OSMF should do? Until then, the level support for PD and ODbL among mappers is pretty much speculation. We might regret losing the share-alike people, but we may gain new PD only fans. Again, this is an unknown variable. OSMF has chosen to follow c) and has managed it, thus far, with a surprising amount of consensus given our fractious community. I guess I differ with OSMF as I have not seen a viable share-alike database license. I know many knowledgable people think ODbL is it. I am inclined to agree with the Creative Commons comments on the situation: share-alike is not appropriate for databases. Basically option (c) is ruled out in my mind, as I agree with CC on this issue. I think they've done well and am grateful to them, and LWG in particular, for the thankless hours they have put in. True, they do a job that would have made me go crazy. Thanks to all in the LWG! But most mappers I talk to regarding ODbL only can say I trust OSMF is doing a good job, so I assume ODbL is OK. People would probably go along with anything they propose. But we can't assume the resulting license is suitable just because they tried their best. (And I believe they are trying their best!) I suspect many people would support you; nonetheless, past mailing lists suggest that, if OSMF were to do so, it would almost certainly result in the implosion of the Foundation. I don't see it as an either/or choice, OSMF can do both. I think SteveC mentioned that might be a possibility of hosting both in parallel (or did I imagine that)? Did that thought go anywhere? The bin I suspect... oh well. Another possibility is to have a list of approved licenses that more or less interoperate (mainly BY type licenses) and put attribution in the metadata. Any rendering of the map would then be responsible of display of attribution based on the metadata tags. This idea probably won't work for SA licenses as they tend not to interoperate. That would be my preferred option. Or hosting that with a parallel ODbL database might work. Thing is it is hard to get a PD organisation independent of OSMF because OSMF is meant to reflect the interests of the mappers. If a good chunk of mappers want PD, OSMF should respect that. (Admittedly we don't know how many mappers want PD, since OSMF didn't ask us.) I think your characterisation of ODbL as bloated and confusing is grossly unfair. I was trying to support my point about ODbL being bloated based on this thread discussion so far. I would be interested in your (Richard's) and Grant's opinion (and anyone else's opinion) on my question regarding attribution and can it be stripped off a public domain produced work? My interpretation is attribution is not necessarily preserved in PD works, therefore that paragraph is bloat (and I would welcome any comments on that view). The accusation of it being confusing is mainly a subjective view from my layman reading of the ODbL. I don't really understand contract law, so I am not particularly surprised. I am relatively comfortable reading the CC licenses (which are of course not appropriate to databases). But the difficulty of the full ODbL text being understood is an obstacle. Creative Commons also has this view of ODbL. This is only partly mitigated by the human readable summary. Grant Slater wrote: Nice simple ODbL summary: http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/summary/ (Created by Matt) / Grant Did you notice my point that the human readable summary seems to be at variance with my interpretation of paragraph 4.3? If the human readable summary differs from the legal meaning of the full license, that would be a problem. (See the second last paragraph of http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2010-April/003294.html ) Does anyone in the LWG have a view on that issue? Regards, TimSC ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Nike and (lack of) OSM attribution
On Wednesday 21 April 2010 01:35:52 Laurence Penney wrote: Interesting that Bing Maps is credited on the main Nike Grid page, which shows b/w aerial photography after you've watched the Flash intro and chosen a postcode: http://www.nikegrid.com/ Yep. They could, instead, have spent five minutes and whipped up a slippy map: http://maps.cloudmade.com/?styleId=16340 That helps to point out the similarities - look out for the clusters of little footways. -- -- Iván Sánchez Ortega i...@sanchezortega.es Un ordenador no es un televisor ni un microondas, es una herramienta compleja. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
