My understanding of the ODbL is that it covers an overall database, but not individual contents within it. So in order to use an ODbL database you also need a license (or other permission) to use the contents. Conversely, when offering a database to others under the ODbL, if you actually want them to be able to use it, you also need to provide a suitable licence for the contents. See the ODC FAQ at http://opendatacommons.org/faq/licenses/#db-versus-contents
In particular, the licensing instructions at http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/ suggest you need to include both the ODbL for the database, and a licence for the contents. The suggested form is: "This {DATA(BASE)-NAME} is made available under the Open Database License: http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/. Any rights in individual contents of the database are licensed under the Database Contents License: http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/dbcl/1.0/ " However, on the OSM license page at http://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright only the Open Database Licence is mentioned. There is no mention of any licence for the contents. Should we be specifying a content license for the OSM data on that page? If so, should this be the Database Contents License (DbCL)? (The DbCL is mentioned in the contributor terms, and there is a reference at http://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/License/About_The_License_Change#The_documents , but neither explicitly says that the OSM contents are indeed licensed under this licence. I also guess you could take the view that there are no rights in the OSM contents since each is individually an un-copyrightable fact. But to be on the safe side, to create an level playing field in all jurisdictions, and to re-assure potential users, I'd have thought it would be better to provide an explicit license for the contents anyway.) Any thoughts? Robert. -- Robert Whittaker _______________________________________________ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
