Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CTs are not full copyright assignment
On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 10:44 AM, Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com wrote: Grant Slater openstreetmap@... writes: - block anyone who says no from contributing and presto! you have your 2/3 majority of active contributors. Reality check... So to steal all our precious data and kick the majority of the contributors the stupid evil OSMF you propose would have to shut down people contributing and joining OSM for 9 MONTHS before they could run such a rigged system. You're right, it is a fanciful and unrealistic example, at least from the point of view of keeping a running OSM project with contributors. It would be a way to get a static copy of the map under any terms wanted. However, what I hope people realize is that these 'evil conspiracy theory' arguments are the same ones used to assert that CC-BY-SA doesn't protect the data, any company could just copy it, and so on, despite not a shred of evidence that this has happened. funny thing is, i don't see these 'evil conspiracy theory' arguments coming from lawyers, whereas i've heard the 'CC-BY-SA doesn't protect the data' argument coming not only from lawyers, but also from Creative Commons itself! I wish people would apply a more realistic perspective and 'assume good faith' a little bit more in these matters too. as do i. everyone serving on OSMF working groups, including LWG, cares deeply about the state and future of OSM, and they spend a great deal of their time trying to ensure that future. (small plug for the OSMF workshop, Sunday 12th - come along and chat with the board members and other interested OSMF members [1]) All I intended to demonstrate is that no amount of legalese and boilerplate in the licence or contributor terms will block out all possible abuses, so we should lighten up a bit. you're absolutely right. no matter what the license we have, or the terms that are offered to contributors, there will always be people and companies using the data without complying with the license, or contributors (possibly companies) uploading data which can't be safely used as part of OSM. i do believe that the new license and contributor terms better define what is acceptable, and that if/when it becomes necessary to take action in the future, we'll be in a better place. cheers, matt [1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Foundation/Board_Meeting_June_2011 ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] list of user IDs having accepted the contributor terms
as part of the voluntary relicensing phase of the move to ODbL, existing contributors have had the ability to voluntarily accept the contributor terms. to help the community assess the impact of the relicensing it was planned to make the information about which accounts have agreed available. this will help with the evaluation of the process and analysis of any consequent data loss, should the switch be made. at the last LWG meeting, having been put to the board for approval, it was decided to make this available [1], and i'm pleased to announce that this list is now up [2] and being regularly refreshed from the database every hour. i look forward to seeing the new analyses, visualisations and tools that can be built using this data. cheers, matt [1] https://docs.google.com/View?id=dd9g3qjp_86hf7fnqg8 [2] http://planet.openstreetmap.org/users_agreed/users_agreed.txt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] public transport routing and OSM-ODbL
I agree with Andy. This is what I understand the ODbL to be saying. Unfortunately, as with any legal text, its difficult to read and this is an unavoidable consequence of the legal system. If you need interpretation of the license, new or old, the best route may be to consult a lawyer. Cheers, Matt On Jul 8, 2010 10:18 AM, Andy Allan gravityst...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 9:35 PM, Oliver (skobbler) osm.oliver.ku...@gmx.de wrote: Hi Frederick,... Either you mis-spoke in this sentence, or you are wrong with this assertion. If you have a derived database, and make a produced work, you are required to make the derived database available under the ODbL. That's practically the whole point of the ODbL! Section 4.5b, which amongst other things is a classic could do with some scoping parenthesis piece of legalese, is only clarifying that if the produced work is made up from a collective database, e.g. (derived + some other db) =produced work then the collective db is not considered derived - i.e. the some-other-db can stay non-ODbL licensed. But if you make a produced work (actually, if you publicly use said produced work), then the derived database must be shared in any case (4.4a and 4.4c). As for Frederik's initial question, part 1. is unavoidably share-alike as soon as the produced work is publicly used. Part 2 I'll leave for others. Cheers, Andy ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-t...@openstreetmap.or... ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 9:24 PM, Simon Ward si...@bleah.co.uk wrote: The upgrade clause in the ODbL should be sufficient for any future licensing, and if the change is away from that, I expect as a contributor to be consulted about it. any change away from that must be chosen by a vote of the OSMF membership and approved by at least a majority vote of active contributors. if you want to be consulted about any future licensing change, just join OSMF or continue to actively contribute to OSM. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 12:41 AM, Simon Ward si...@bleah.co.uk wrote: On Wed, Jan 06, 2010 at 12:21:41AM +, Matt Amos wrote: It may suit you, as a consumer of OSM data, to not give a damn about contributing back to the project, but that's not what OSM is about. i'm both a producer and a consumer of OSM data. and i do care about contributing back, which is why i'm volunteering my time to help replace the broken license we currently have with one which works, rather than behaving in a derogatory and uncivil manner on the mailing lists. I didn’t detect any uncivility on the part of 80n, and comments like yours would just worsen any impression of the situation, so please refrain. i thought the implication that i don't contribute to OSM, and don't give a damn about contributing back to the project was extremely derogatory. maybe i need to go re-order some thicker skin, because mine is clearly wearing thin. My view on the ODbL is it’s a much better fit. It’s the contributor terms that are currently broken and need fixing, otherwise we move from one broken situation to another just as broken situation. great! LWG is working on it, and your concerns have been noted. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 11:25 PM, Anthony o...@inbox.org wrote: On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 6:07 PM, Francis Davey fjm...@gmail.com wrote: What would be acceptable? The current situation is acceptable. We all grant a license to everyone under CC-BY-SA. which ranges from being basically PD in some jurisdictions to being a BY-SA license in others. so what would be acceptable *and* internationally applicable? cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Answer the questions!
On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 10:19 AM, Lulu-Ann lulu-...@gmx.de wrote: the end of voting comes closer and nobody has answered the questions on the license use cases page yet. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Use_Cases i think i got them all. and the answers mainly came from reading things which had been discussed elsewhere, and weren't based on any new input from counsel, so don't take them as legal advice ;-) cheers, matt ___ 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?
On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 7:37 AM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: It's clearly not the same difficulty. And the point of this is that it's going to be almost impossible to detect a derived database in use. You said yourself that you'd just assume that anyone processing OSM data would be presumed to be using a derived database. it is the same difficulty. it can be almost impossible to detect whether someone is using OSM data or not, especially if the output isn't tiles or extra data has been mixed in. The example I described above clearly demonstrates that you can't differentiate between company A who doesn't use a derived database and company B who does. You counter example, that maps are just as difficult is hardly relevant, and incorrect anyway. In most cases you can detect the infringment because you would have the evidence in front of you. my counter example is relevant, as it shows that the situation isn't really changing; only the terminology is changing. clearly we aren't going to be able to agree on this, but for the benefit of anyone else with the stamina to have reached this far down the thread: 1) if a company is publishing produced works, and isn't making an offer of a database available, you can contact them and ask them (politely of course) whether they have forgotten to make an offer of their derived database available. 2) if a company is publishing maps, and you suspect they're derived from OSM but aren't appropriately attributed or licensed, you can contact them and ask them (politely of course) whether they have forgotten to put the appropriate attribution and license on their maps. the situation we have at the moment is that most of these situations are clearly evidenced. with the ODbL i expect that to remain true, since it's going to be pretty obvious that company X's routing/geocoding/tiles aren't rendered directly from planet and will involve a derivative database. furthermore, i expect that in the future, as currently, most license violations will stem from an incomplete understanding of the license, or forgetfulness, more than maliciousness. The reality is that the derived database rule is almost unenforceable in the way that you describe it. It would be a massive drain on OSMF resources to try enforcing such a policy and would certainly be a very strong case for many commercial companies to avoid OSM data like the plague. i don't believe so. have you talked to any commercial companies who would be more put off by the new license than the old? cheers, matt ___ 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?
On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 6:27 PM, Anthony o...@inbox.org wrote: On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 1:08 PM, Matt Amos zerebub...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 3:37 PM, Anthony o...@inbox.org wrote: On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 2:37 AM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: The example I described above clearly demonstrates that you can't differentiate between company A who doesn't use a derived database and company B who does. What if company C makes a derived database and gives it to company D? Does company D have to release the derived database? no. if company D is a subcontractor to company C and no produced works are published. if either company C or D publish produced works from the database, they must make an offer of it. if company D isn't a subcontractor then company C must make an offer of the database. Okay, so if company C makes derived database and gives it to company D, then company D creates tiles with that database, company D has to offer the database to anyone who receives the tiles, right? yes, if D is a subcontractor of C. otherwise both C and D must offer it. However, if company D downloads the original database from OSM, then company D creates tiles with that database, company D doesn't have to offer the database to anyone who receives the tiles, right? they've almost certainly created a derivative database, for example if they're using postgis+mapnik, so i'd say they would have to offer that database. Rereading the ODbL, this seems like the most natural way to read it. Assuming these two points are true, what is considered the original database? Anything on the official (planet.openstreetmap.org) download site? Only databases which were created by OSMF employees? Only the raw on-disk PostgreSQL datastores? Something else? technically, it's the on-disk postgresql datastore, plus the server implementation. the planet is a database dump, and loading that into a database is creating a derivative. If I distribute a tile on March 31, 2010, what exactly do I need to offer? The exact portion of the database which is used to create this tile? If the data later changes, I still need to keep the old version in case someone takes me up on my offer, right? Is it enough to keep the full history and expect people to look at the timestamps to figure out the state of the database at the time of their download? no. LWG took legal advice on this and it's sufficient to provide the latest version of the database, or whatever you have which is as close to the version the user used as possible. Can users decline the offer, in which case I can delete the database? Can I give users the option to download the database immediately or to decline the offer, so I don't have to keep historical data around indefinitely? it's not necessary to keep historical data. and you don't have to keep dumps around either. the offer is pretty much if you contact me, i'll give you my database as close as i can to the version you used. if you practically can't keep the dumps, then that's not a problem. if you delete all records of the database, then your only options are to recreate it, or reveal the method used to create it. Do they have to mention company C? if D produces works, or further distributes the database or a derivative of it then yes. What if company C gives them permission not to, or if company C asks them not to reveal who they are? attribution is at the company's option, so if company C doesn't want to be attributed then D can't mention them. the reverse is also true, if company C wants to be attributed then D can't remove that attribution notice. of course, neither C or D can remove the attribution to OSM, as OSM wants to be attributed. cheers, matt ___ 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?
On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 8:41 PM, Anthony o...@inbox.org wrote: On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Matt Amos zerebub...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 6:27 PM, Anthony o...@inbox.org wrote: Okay, so if company C makes derived database and gives it to company D, then company D creates tiles with that database, company D has to offer the database to anyone who receives the tiles, right? yes, if D is a subcontractor of C. otherwise both C and D must offer it. What constitutes being a subcontractor? Subcontractor as in work for hire? C has to offer it to whom? I thought C only has to offer the database to D. the wording used in ODbL is Persons other than You or under Your control by either more than 50% ownership or by the power to direct their activities (such as contracting with an independent consultant). oops, what i wrote earlier wasn't quite right: C only has to offer the database to D, and D has to offer it to recipients of tiles. (unless, of course, C is publicly using the database as well.) You must also offer to recipients of the Derivative Database or Produced Work... So, if Company C makes a derived database, and gives it to Company D, and Company D makes a Produced Work, and gives it to Company E, Company C has to offer Company E the Derivative Database? i think at that point company D has to offer the derived database to company E. Can users decline the offer, in which case I can delete the database? Can I give users the option to download the database immediately or to decline the offer, so I don't have to keep historical data around indefinitely? it's not necessary to keep historical data. and you don't have to keep dumps around either. the offer is pretty much if you contact me, i'll give you my database as close as i can to the version you used. if you practically can't keep the dumps, then that's not a problem. if you delete all records of the database, then your only options are to recreate it, or reveal the method used to create it. So, you kind of didn't answer my question. If I distribute a produced work, can I ask the recipient Do you want the data?, and if they say no, then I never have to worry about them coming back and saying okay, now I want the data? sorry, i must have misunderstood the question. i think that would be between you and the recipient. I guess if I have to offer even downstream recipients the database, it doesn't much matter. That person might say they don't want the data, and then give the produced work to a friend, who then calls me on the phone and demands the data. yeah, the following passage might apply: 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. which seems to imply that the offer extends to anyone who sees your produced work. i'm not sure how it extends to derivatives (where permitted) of your produced work, though... cheers, matt ___ 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?
On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 12:07 PM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: 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? you don't have to publish any of these. the language used is that you have to offer these things, which means you don't have to be able to host these things. for example, sending a DVD through the post is in compliance with the license. also, these things have to be in a machine readable form. 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? yes. Or, would it be allowable to say: For simplification, a Douglas-Peucker algorithm link to DP wikipedia entry 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). no, i don't believe this would constitute machine readable form. Or, would it be allowed to say: For simplification, just load the data set into name of horribly expensive proprietary ESRI program and hit Ctrl-S X Y, then choose Export to PostGIS? i think this would constitute technological measures of restriction, so i think you'd need to provide a parallel distribution of the full unrestricted output. What about: For simplification, we did the following steps: detailed instructions that are easy to follow. 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. again, i think this would constitute technological measures, and would require a parallel unrestricted distribution. cheers, matt ___ 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?
On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 3:43 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: On what basis can you demand from company B that they release their intermediate database? You don't know (for sure) that they have an intermediate database. The ODbL doesn't give you any rights to ask company A to warrant that they are not using an intermediate database. company B is required, under the ODbL, to provide an offer of their derived database (or a diff, etc...). What kind of duck test can you use to be sure that a derived database is involved in the process? if you suspect that someone is using a derived database, and isn't making an offer of it, you are suspecting that they are in breach of the ODbL. this can be tested by asking the company and, if they don't provide a satisfactory response, legal proceedings could follow. this is similar to the AGPL. if you suspected that someone was distributing or allowing users [to] interact[...] remotely through a computer network with a derivative version of AGPL'd code, you could ask them where the corresponding offer is and, if they don't provide a satisfactory response, legal proceedings could follow. cheers, matt ___ 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?
On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 8:20 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 8:09 PM, Matt Amos zerebub...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 6:30 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 4:13 PM, Matt Amos zerebub...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 3:43 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: What kind of duck test can you use to be sure that a derived database is involved in the process? if you suspect that someone is using a derived database, and isn't making an offer of it, you are suspecting that they are in breach of the ODbL. this can be tested by asking the company and, if they don't provide a satisfactory response, legal proceedings could follow. Exactly. On what grounds would you suspect that either company was using a derived database? by whatever grounds you'd suspect that a company was providing services based on AGPL software, or distributing a binary incorporating GPL software - gut instinct ;-) In the scenario I described you'd have no grounds for suspicion. yes. and you'd have no grounds for suspicion if a company were using modified AGPL software, so you have to rely on gut instinct. 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. You're going to do that for every single organisation that publishes some kind of OSM data?!! Good luck. no, i'm going to assume that most organisations and are going to read the license and abide by it, the same way they'd read and abide by any other open source/content license. it's a similar situation to looking at a site and thinking they're using OSM data to render a map, without respecting the license. it's entirely possible that they have some other data source, or have collected the data themselves. so it's a gut instinct whether or not you think any of the data has come from OSM and should be followed up. Not at all. The lack of attribution is self evident. A derived database is not at all evident. company A: publishing a map with no attribution, but it's at least partly derived from OSM. company B: publishing a map with no attribution and it's all their own data. a lack of attribution is evident, but whether they're using OSM data isn't. you have no grounds for suspicion, but you might have a gut instinct. what do you do? cheers, matt ___ 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?
On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 9:03 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 8:44 PM, Matt Amos zerebub...@gmail.com wrote: a lack of attribution is evident, but whether they're using OSM data isn't. you have no grounds for suspicion, but you might have a gut instinct. what do you do? If you have no grounds for suspicion then you do nothing. But checking the Easter Eggs is a pretty good method of establishing grounds in your example. That doesn't hold true for the derived databases in my scenario. are there easter eggs in OSM? i thought we followed the on the ground rule? ;-) it isn't a good method of establishing grounds if the data may have been modified by the inclusion of 3rd party data, or processed in a way which would change the visual texture of the data. basically, while sometimes you can be sure there's a derivative database or that data is from OSM, a lot of times you can't be. cheers, matt ___ 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?
On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 10:45 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 9:20 PM, Matt Amos zerebub...@gmail.com wrote: are there easter eggs in OSM? i thought we followed the on the ground rule? ;-) The two are not mutually exclusive. Ordnance Survey are well known for having very accurate maps, they are also known to have easter eggs. sure. but each easter egg is a deliberate inaccuracy. it isn't a good method of establishing grounds if the data may have been modified by the inclusion of 3rd party data, or processed in a way which would change the visual texture of the data. basically, while sometimes you can be sure there's a derivative database or that data is from OSM, a lot of times you can't be. I think you've lost the thread. Now, you are arguing that you can't spot a derivative database. i've been arguing that from the start. not only have i been saying it's difficult to tell if there's a derivative database, i've been saying it's the same difficulty as telling if a map is derived from OSM, or if a binary contains modified GPL code, or if a service is using modified AGPL code. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] OBbL and forks
On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 1:52 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 12:57 PM, Richard Weait rich...@weait.com wrote: On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 7:40 AM, mapp...@sheerman-chase.org.uk wrote: Hi, A quick question for the legal people: does ODbL allow the project to be forked? Why not? The code is in svn and has been for ages, ready for forking. Of course, you can't change the license on the GPL code that you fork without re-writing it. The OSM data can be forked now as cc-by-sa as the data is right there in planet, ready for forking. You could fork data from an ODbL project the same way. Of course the same requirements for relicensing would exist. You'd have to essentially replace all of the data to relicense the data. Could a fork relicense the Content in a different way? As I understand it the Content is unrestricted by any license or copyright claim. there's nothing in the ODbL or contributor terms i can see that would forbid it, but part of the reason for that is the lack of basis in law for protecting individual (or non-Substantial amounts of) Content elements in most jurisdictions. it might work if copyright were asserted in the UK based on the sweat of the brow doctrine, but then you'd have to be very careful about not distributing it to the US and other jurisdictions where they follow a creativity doctrine. Obviously any collection of the Content that forms a substantial amount would have to be wrapped in ODbL, so I'm not sure what it would mean in practice, but it seems that someone could re-publish an ODbL licensed database that contained Content that was restricted by a no-modifications clause or a non-commercial clause. section 4.8 says, You may not sublicense the Database. Each time You communicate the Database, the whole or Substantial part of the Contents, or any Derivative Database to anyone else in any way, the Licensor offers to the recipient a license to the Database on the same terms and conditions as this License. [...] You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this License. however, as you point out, this doesn't cover the Contents. i guess it's possible take the stance that there are no rights inherent in individual Contents (as in the US) and therefore any attempt to impose an ND/NC clause on the Contents isn't valid. I may not have understood the meaning of the Contributor Terms properly, but clause 2 seems to waive any rights in the Content from the contributors and I haven't seen anywhere that asserts any additional rights, so am I right to infer that the Content is not constrained in any way? yes, in non-Substantial amounts i believe so. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] OBbL and forks
On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 12:21 AM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 12:14 AM, Matt Amos zerebub...@gmail.com wrote: it's in that spirit, but it's also worth pointing out that we aren't asking for copyright assignment or any other rights assignment. that's a subtle, but often important difference. Matt, could you explain why it's an important difference please? because, when this issue has come up before, several people expressed concern about assigning copyright (or any other right) to the OSMF. there's a liberal license grant, but no assignment of rights. since people think it's an important issue, to avoid further confusion i thought it was important to point out that difference. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Are closed issues really closed post ODbL data removal plan
On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 8:36 PM, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason ava...@gmail.com wrote: So my question is: 1. The closed issue I referred to contains the text OSMF counsel does not believe on something that seems to have fundamental significance to how the transition will be performed. Specifically the question of (addressed in my December 2008 mail) how we determine whether ODbL licensed works are derived from things still under the CC-BY-SA in February. The OSMF counsel seems to suggest that we only have to worry about this on a per-object basis, i.e. if there are some CC-BY-SA-only edits in the history of a given node/way/relation but I'd have thought we'd also have to worry about the case where someone has traced hundreds of amenity=* nodes from the layout of what's now a CC-BY-SA-only road network. But OSMF counsel thinks it's not necessary to remove nearby or adjoining elements. I know the OSMF contacted outside legal counsel to comment on the ODbL itself but has it solicited a second pair of eyes on these open/closed issues? It would be interesting to know whether other lawyers take such a narrow view of what constitutes a derived work. it would be interesting, and OSMF have contacted other lawyers for their opinion on other matters, but we only had one response. this doesn't fill me with confidence that if we asked for legal advice we would have many responses. on the other hand, OSMF counsel is a good lawyer, and i would expect him to know what he's talking about. if you know any lawyers who would be willing to give legal advice pro-bono, LWG would be very happy to hear about it. 2. Is anyone working on the technical side of the CC-BY-SA-only data removal, e.g. filtering the planet to throw out objects which have CC-BY-SA-only data in their history? I haven't seen anything on dev@ about this or on the wiki. What's the plan? yes. the plan (subject to change based on technical feasibility, of course) is here: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Backup_Plan#Marking_elements_.22OK.22 the key is that there must be an uninterrupted chain of ODbL-licensed elements from the first version of the element, followed by a referential integrity cleanup. at this point it's not clear that the relicensing will go ahead, but if it does you'll see more discussion of this on d...@. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Fwd: question about commercial use. import of data in OSM format
On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 10:36 AM, Jukka Rahkonen jukka.rahko...@mmmtike.fi wrote: Iván Sánchez Ortega i...@... writes: From: paul everett tap...@... What happens if the user imports an OSM file and I convert it to a virtual city model ? Then the city model has to be licensed the same way as the OSM data. At least, that is the current interpretation of the license. But if the data will be moved under ODbL next spring then the city model will perhaps be interpreted to be a Produced work and it could be licensed in any way you want. In that case you will need to make the database you have used for producing city models available under ODbl. It may mean that you must publish the procedure you are using for converting data from OSM format to some interim format that your city modeler component is using. If that is the piece of intelligence you are using for earning your living, be careful. i don't think anywhere in the ODbL it says that. if you distribute a produced work based on a derived database then you have to distribute the derived database. it was suggested that, in addition to the named methods of a) distributing a full dump or b) distributing a diff between the derived and original, a third method be added which is publishing the procedure. this *doesn't* mean that anyone has to open their source code or their secret procedures, just that they're limiting their options for distributing derived databases to either full dumps or diffs. ODbL might be a viral license, but it's only viral to data, never software. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] cloudmade maps copyright terms and conditions
On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 3:54 PM, Anthony o...@inbox.org wrote: On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 7:01 AM, Roy Wallace waldo000...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 9:41 PM, Martin Koppenhoefer dieterdre...@gmail.com wrote: If I have data derived from OSM data, do I have to distribute it? The licence does not force you to distribute or make any data available. But if you do choose to distribute it, or anything derived from it, it must be under the same licence terms as the OSM data. I read this like cloudmade could use their maps for their own purposes without redistributing it, or they have to put their maps under cc-by-sa 2.0 as well. Or did I misunderstand something? Well...does showing a map on a website mean you are distributing it? That's somewhat disputed in the US. If you're not distributing it, then you're publicly displaying it. But most courts have said it's distribution, despite the fact that people arguing for public display have a better legal argument :). CC-BY-SA doesn't seem to have any provision for public display of modified versions. Which I suppose technically means you're not allowed to do it at all. doesn't it? section 4b: You may distribute, **publicly display**, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform a Derivative Work only under the terms of this License, ... (emphasis mine) i don't see what the fuss is about - cloudmade's tiles are CC BY-SA, cloudmade's site isn't. you can redistribute a screenshot containing only tiles under CC BY-SA. you can't distribute a screenshot of the whole site, as that would contain non-CC BY-SA stuff. although i'm sure if you asked nicely, cloudmade wouldn't mind. as richardf pointed out, the legalese could be clearer. but to me it's already clear enough. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Extent of share alike?
On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 5:48 AM, David Vaarwerk da...@mineraldata.com.au wrote: Thanks for your all the responses, they do help. I think keeping the map and the business data separate with a double license is the best solution as suggested. So I will have a map with only OSM data, obviously anything I put in will become CC. I am happy to share the geographic location (lat. long.) of all businesses if OSM wants or can take this info (the obvious problem is space on the map and that businesses are constantly moving - updating becomes an issue). To keep things separate on another web page within the site I will serve from a separate database business information (phone number, website, service etc) that will have no geographic location information in it. The only overlap will be a business name. As far as I can see OSM doesn't record the street address of cafe's etc only their location. street addresses of any feature can be recorded in OSM. see the karlsruhe schema [1] for more information and [2] for an example of it in use. cheers, matt [1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/House_numbers/Karlsruhe_Schema [2] http://osm.org/go/euutR1zjR-- ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Extent of share alike?
On 11/2/09, David Vaarwerk da...@mineraldata.com.au wrote: I have made a map and business guide from scratch that you can see here http://www.mineraldata.com.au/wp/index.html [1]. I would like to share the map data with OSM and use OSM as a base map for this and other maps/ business guides - I assume there is no problem with this as long as I attribute the work. wow. that looks awesome! 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, and therefore allow people to do all the things they can do with a CC BY-SA work. but you may have other rights in your data depending on your jurisdiction. whether you can use these to prevent sharing of the business directory is a question for a Real Lawyer. Is someone able to clarify this? Can I just share the map data? actually, you don't have to share the map data. CC BY-SA considers only the published work, which in your case is the image that the flash app renders to the screen. only that work needs to be CC BY-SA, although we obviously welcome sharing more! for a (maybe) definitive answer, you might want to contact a lawyer. it's a hassle, but they're the only people who can give you real legal advice. 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 Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 11:20 AM, Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com wrote: Matt Amos zerebub...@... writes: you'd happily support distributing the data under a license which is not likely to protect it? I happily support the status quo, where map data is freely available under CC share-alike terms, and I see no evidence of evil mapmakers copying it with impunity. absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, and so forth ;-) I think he's asking for evidence of not likely. that can be found in the why cc by-sa is unsuitable document. i went into the first point at length, referencing some legal precedents (mostly in the US). i've had several people look over and check the document, including lawyers, so i'm fairly sure that the reasoning isn't wrong. The legal theory sounds reasonable as far as it goes, but there is little evidence that there is any problem in practice. so it makes sense to move to ODbL - then there's a sound theory as well as no problems in practice. Has any lawyer in fact said to you: as things stand, it is quite possible to copy OSM data in the United States, redistribute it under any restrictive licence you want, with nothing that the OSM contributors can do about it; and I would give this legal advice to my clients. In my view this is very far from being the case. of course not - lawyers don't talk like that. lawyers have actually said to me; CC BY-SA isn't a strong license for factual data. it would be difficult to defend in the US and other jurisdictions where copyright doesn't cover factual data. from looking at the case law, both RichardF and i have come to the conclusion that CC BY-SA just doesn't work for OSM, and that ODbL is better (fsvo better). the science commons people also looked at CC licenses for non-creative data [1] and came to the conclusion that: Many databases, however, contain factual information that may have taken a great deal of effort to gather, such as the results of a series of complicated and creative experiments. Nonetheless, that information is not protected by copyright and cannot be licensed under the terms of a Creative Commons license. so, no - no lawyer has ever given me a statement as strongly-worded as i'd advise my clients to take OSM data and re-license it, presumably because there is some risk that we could sue in NL or BE or something like that. on the other hand, from a defensibility point-of-view, OSMF can't possibly enforce all its rights in dutch and belgian courts - many license violators will have no assets or presence in the EU. 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, in which case we would have to scramble to get a new license in place. the way i see it, there are two options: 1) decide that licensing is more trouble than it's worth and PD the lot (since that would be more-or-less the effect of losing a challenge in the US anyway), 2) move to a more defensible license before CC BY-SA is challenged. cheers, matt [1] http://sciencecommons.org/resources/faq/databases/#canicc ___ 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 Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 1:19 PM, Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com wrote: Matt Amos zerebub...@... writes: Dr Evil doesn't need an unlimited legal budget - he just needs to live in a country where non-creative data isn't copyrightable. ...and in a country where it is crystal clear that the OSM data is 'non-creative'. That point is far from obvious to me. it's crystal clear to me: OSM data represents what exists on the ground - it represents facts. the US definition of creativity is (paraphrasing) that two independent people doing the same thing come up with different outputs, each expressing individual creativity. i'd argue that if two OSM mappers mapped the same features over the same area then the output wouldn't differ significantly (i.e: by more than the tolerance of the GPS/aerial imagery/etc...). therefore OSM data is unlikely to be considered creative. Even in the USA there is certainly enough meat in OSM for a straightforward copyright infringement case, IMHO. If it were a collection of pure facts with no expressive content and no scope for imagination or judgement then I would agree that trying to enforce share-alike with CC-BY-SA is problematic. i don't agree. if we just wanted to give maps away for free then we'd PD it. if we want stronger copyleft than that, then we have to start thinking about enforcing those copylefts. Yes. But if enforcement comes at a cost, you must trade off how much legal weaponry you want against the disadvantages of a more complex or (in some ways) more restrictive licence. I lock the door of my house, but it is not a worthwhile tradeoff for me to install barbed wire fencing, searchlights or a moat. Even though there is a theoretical possibility someone could break in, the deterrent of a locked door is sufficient in practice. Even though the fact that something hasn't happened in the past does not guarantee it won't happen, I can use the past few years of experience as some justification for saying the current deterrent is enough. from discussions with lawyers and reading background case law, i'd say that CC BY-SA for OSM data is like leaving your front door wide open and a sign saying there may or may not be a vicious dog, no-one has found out yet. The question to ask is not 'is our legal framework absolutely watertight in smacking down anyone, anywhere in the world, who violates the licence' but rather 'is it a strong enough deterrent in practice to make sure that share-alike principles are followed and promote free map data'? no legal framework is ever absolutely watertight. ODbL isn't watertight. CC BY-SA is a sieve. 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, PD isn't viral - any factual data derived from OSM might well be protected by other IP rights (e.g: database rights) reserved by the deriver. In the particular case of the US, there is no database right. fine, then privacy or publicity rights, trademark rights, patent rights, or any other IP. the rights aren't important - what's important is that a failure of CC BY-SA is a failure of share-alike. additionally, there's the difference between what CC BY-SA requires you to share and what ODbL requires you to share. sure, CC BY-SA might keep the tiles in the free domain, but it doesn't keep the data in the free domain. This depends on what exclusionary rights OSMF and the contributors have over the data, which is what we are discussing. If the data is subject to copyright then yes, CC-BY-SA does keep it free. If copyright does not apply and there is no database right to consider, then CC-BY-SA does not work, but I doubt that any other licence would. You can try making a contract or EULA as the ODBL does, but that is flaky; if the data is truly in the public domain, then courts are unlikely to accept that adding any amount of legal boilerplate will change that. flaky is better than nothing. CC BY-SA doesn't work and database rights aren't widespread. that doesn't leave much to work with. If you take a very sceptical, pessimistic view of CC-BY-SA's effectiveness and enforceability, you should do the same for ODBL. I don't think that is always the case here. yes, let's do the analysis: CC BY-SA in NL, BE: databases are copyrightable, making the ported license strong. the non-ported less so, but the fundamental protections are still there. ODbL in NL, BE: EU database directive makes the license strong. CC BY-SA in wider EU: copyright provisions vary - some countries would follow the creativity model, others would respect the sweat of the brow and give some protection. ODbL in wider EU: database directive makes the license strong. CC BY-SA in other countries: copyright provisions vary - some
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODBL enforcement: contract law and remedies
On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 1:47 PM, Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com wrote: Remember, though, that there are huge transaction costs associated with any licence switch. Even if you agree that CC-BY-SA is less than ideal, it might be better than deleting big chunks out of the database and alienating parts of the contributor base. It might also undermine expectations of the project's stability. After all if we go through one big data deletion and relicensing, what's to stop it happening again later? CC BY-SA is certainly less than ideal - it doesn't protect those copyleft principles in large parts of the world. there has been some FUD about these deletions of data. let me say it here: no data will be deleted. if the re-licensing goes ahead then all of the data that everyone has contributed would be made available through dumps. we could not retrospectively re-license old planet files and dumps, so these would continue to be available. the CC-licensed data would not be deleted. but, of course, it couldn't appear in the ODbL-licensed dumps. 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. Agreed. There is certainly a risk of the project being captured by lawyers or, worse, overenthusiastic amateurs, and getting sidetracked into enforcing rights rather than forwarding its goal of free map data. That is one reason why I think a simpler, less armed-to-the-teeth licence may in the end be a good thing. agreed. we at the LWG have been working very hard to produce the license that we think the majority of OSM contributors want. a large amount of previous discussion on this and the talk MLs has suggested that share-alike is a much-requested feature*, so we've been working to that goal as best we can. your suggestion that we're overenthusiastic amateurs, sidetracking the project is deeply insulting. let's say, for a moment, that CC BY-SA definitely doesn't work and isn't an option. what would you do? if you'd move to a new license, which license? cheers, matt *: it may be that it's only requested by the vociferous minority, but until someone does a rigorous poll of a significant portion of the OSM contributors, it's the only evidence we have. ___ 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 Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 2:54 PM, Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com wrote: Matt Amos zerebub...@... writes: we at the LWG have been working very hard to produce the license that we think the majority of OSM contributors want. a large amount of previous discussion on this and the talk MLs has suggested that share-alike is a much-requested feature*, so we've been working to that goal as best we can. your suggestion that we're overenthusiastic amateurs, sidetracking the project is deeply insulting. Sorry. I would like to withdraw that remark. It is clear that everyone working on licence issues has the best interests of the project at heart. thank you. we all want a license which is clear, elegant, understandable and bulletproof. of course, this isn't possible, but we want to get as close as we can to that ideal. let's say, for a moment, that CC BY-SA definitely doesn't work and isn't an option. what would you do? if you'd move to a new license, which license? Assuming, then, that a licence change is required (along with 'deleting' data from people who don't agree, etc). I would prefer one which is CC-compatible, so public domain would work, or some permissive licence such as CC0. which bits need to be CC-compatible? any produced work, i.e: tiles, can be released under CC BY-SA with the ODbL, allowing maps to be included in any CC-licensed work or site. does the database itself need to be CC-compatible? However, if it is not possible to have both CC-compatible and share-alike properties at the same time, which is what you are suggesting, and if share-alike is considered the more important of the two, then I would choose a licence which tries to enforce share-alike through copyright and database right. the ODbL does this. In a country where neither copyright nor database right exists for map data, good luck to them - obviously they've realized the value of free map data, which is what OSM has been promoting all along. I would not choose a licence which purports to make a contract, or which would require click-through agreement before downloading planet files. actually, there's no reason for a click-through to download data. we've discussed this with lawyers and, although it further reduces the enforceability of the license, we don't want to put barriers in the way of people using the data. the current suggestion is to put the license as a link in the header of the file and display the license prominently anywhere that data can be downloaded, just as is the case with CC BY-SA. anyone reading the file, or writing software to manipulate it, would have to be aware of the existence of this link (and of the format of the file) and therefore be aware of the license and their obligations with respect to it. i totally agree it's weaker than a click-through, but it's more practical and better than not having anything. 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. indeed. but until there's a near-global consensus on database rights (as the Berne convention does for copyrights) we don't have that option. 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 Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 3:24 PM, Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com wrote:
Matt Amos zerebub...@... writes:
let's say, for a moment, that CC BY-SA definitely doesn't work and
isn't an option. what would you do? if you'd move to a new license,
which license?
I would prefer one which is CC-compatible,
which bits need to be CC-compatible? any produced work, i.e: tiles,
can be released under CC BY-SA with the ODbL, allowing maps to be
included in any CC-licensed work or site. does the database itself
need to be CC-compatible?
In my ideal ponies world the database itself would be CC-compatible, so
people could generate excerpts ('list of all pubs in Swindon') and include
that in CC works.
would the list of all pubs in Swindon be a database, or a produced
work? if it's included, formatted as a table perhaps, in a web page it
might be more appropriate to consider it a produced work. although, if
alphabetically ordered, it might meet the definition of a database...
for reference, the definition of a database in ODbL is:
A collection of material (the Contents) arranged in a systematic or
methodical way and individually accessible by electronic or other
means offered under the terms of this License.
That is good. To return to ponies for a moment, my licence would also
be quite clear that 'You do not have to accept this licence, since you
have not signed it.' So if there is no underlying legal reason why you
can't distribute the data, you are not required to accept any contract.
that would basically mean the license would be equivalent to PD/CC0 in
the US (where there are no database rights or copyrights on factual
data), wouldn't it? which would mean the share-alike parts only apply
in the EU?
cheers,
matt
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODBL enforcement: contract law and remedies
On 10/28/09, Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com wrote: Matt Amos zerebub...@... writes: let's assume some data are taken and modified and used to generate tiles. the ODbL would require that the modified data are made available, regardless of the license of the tiles. if the data were effectively-PD then there would be no requirement to make the modified data available (although i guess it would be allowable to trace the tiles, subject to the ToS of the site). likewise, CC BY-SA requires that the tiles are CC BY-SA, but requires nothing regarding the redistribution of the data. You're right. In a way this is like the source code requirement of copyleft licences for computer software. So it's one case where the ODBL gives a stronger share-alike than CC-BY-SA. (I would check, however, that this isn't going to slow the uptake of OSM by sites which want to draw their own maps showing houses for sale, etc. They would not be happy having to publish that additional data because it could be considered a Derived Database under the ODBL.) we had a long thread on this a couple of weeks ago (ODbL virality questions) from which i think the consensus was that linking OSM data with data from independent sources creates a collective database, rather than a single derivative database. this is permissive enough to allow 3rd parties to use OSM data in their sites whilst still protecting the OSM data. in this respect it's like the LGPL more than the GPL. 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 10/28/09, Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com wrote: Matt Amos zerebub...@... writes: these sites are in non-compliance with the license http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Lacking_proper_attribution Would switching to ODBL (or any licence) solve this particular problem? quite possibly, since ODbL or PD would allow the tiles to be licensed in whichever way the renderer / cartographer sees fit. but certainly the ODbL makes the discussions of data licensing and produced work licensing orthogonal. as a thought experiment, what would happen if i took the latest planet and put it up on my server (let's assume that both i and my server are in the US) with a PD license? So what then? One of the copyright holders would have to sue. [...] Even if the case is not cut and dried, there is certainly enough here to keep the lawyers busy for a while. Which, IMHO, is a strong enough deterrent for anyone thinking of misusing the data. Consider how much time and money the SCO - Linux case has taken up so far, on a far flimsier basis. One thing which weakens the case is that there is not a single copyright holder. Certainly copyright assignment to a single entity such as the OSMF would make it easier to sue. which of the contributors out there has the funds to hire a lawyer in the US? copyright assignment has been discussed before, but i remember there were a lot of objections. it seems that copyright assignment wasn't very popular, despite that being the solution that the FSF have chosen for their software. (As discussed earlier, even if the USA declines to recognize any copyright interest in OSM data, there are other jurisdictions, and few US companies would want to use data they had to keep strictly within the USA's borders or risk a lawsuit. I just don't believe it would happen.) if you're suing an individual then you pretty much have to sue in the jurisdiction where that individual lives. large companies are easier, because they operate in several jurisdictions. i agree it's unlikely to happen, but it's better to have a more defensible legal position in case it does. i think we're agreed that all licenses have flaws. the sticking point seems to be that i'm of the opinion that CC's flaws are so great that the hassle of moving to a better license is the lesser evil. you appear to be of the opinion that the hassle is greater than any potential benefits. is that an accurate statement? That is fair; I might even go so far to say that with 50k contributors, a licence change is 'totally unworkable' and 'not an option', to borrow some of the phrases used earlier. However I would like to be pleasantly surprised about this. yep. i'd say that a license change is difficult, but that the alternative is worse; continuing with a license which can be described using those same phrases ;-) cheers, matt ___ 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] What should be considered legal?
On 10/24/09, Martin Koppenhoefer dieterdre...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/10/21 rhn opstmaac@porcupinefactory.org: I'm a mapper for more than a year, and I know a little bit about intellectual property, but some questions have been puzzling me for quite some time. First of them - how much is allowed when referring to proprietary maps? Is it right to look at the street names to see whether I got them right? Or can I compare topology of the streets with the external map? See if I got the village placement right and adjust it? IMHO (IANAL) you can always compare your map to others, but if the don't match, you will not know, who's right, unless you recontroll. i'd agree - it's OK to compare OSM to proprietary maps and use that to figure out where needs surveying. but it's not OK to take information from that proprietary map - if there is a difference then you'll have to go out and survey the difference. so (imho) it wouldn't be OK to adjust village placement based on proprietary maps; if there's a difference you'd have to look at other allowable sources like Y! aerial imagery or out-of-copyright maps, or go out and survey it with a GPS. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL virality questions
On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 12:21 AM, Dan Karran d...@karran.net wrote: What would happen if the beerintheOSM site encouraged their users to add new pubs to their site, would that data - the equivalent of what would have come from OSM, had they come from there - need to be released as well, or again something we should just encourage the site to release? good question. even if OSM IDs or lat/lons are OK for linking purposes, where do we draw the line on what is attached data, like reviews, and what is new data added to the ODbL extract, requiring it to be available? cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] reciprocal data agreements
On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 6:50 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: 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. if they've got balls of steel, they could just claim that CC BY-SA doesn't apply to factual data and just take the current OSM data ;-) on a more serious note, this is very much like the Biba model. if we order licenses by property: BY-SA, BY, 0, then it follows a write-down, read-up model. in other words, even if we had a BSD type license, our data could be incorporated into BY-SA projects, but not into PD projects. the only way to become a universal donor also means rejecting non-PD imports. personally, i think that imports are bad, m'kay? so i'm not that bothered ;-) cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL virality questions
On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 3:59 PM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: 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.) /me adjusts headgear also. 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?) no, but a time code pointer into a copyrighted work isn't necessarily a good analogy for an ID extracted from a database rights-protected database. 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? i think i can hear lawyers having heart attacks over the word useful ;-) 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. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL virality questions
On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 1:42 PM, Andrew Turner ajtur...@highearthorbit.com wrote: On 2 Oct 2009, at 18:06, Matt Amos wrote: hi legals, i've come across a couple of interesting questions / use-cases for the ODbL and wider discussion. it basically reduces to whether we want the ODbL to have viral (GPL-like) behaviour, or whether it should be less viral (LGPL-like). we've discussed this at an LWG meeting and the general feeling was that the LGPL-like behaviour would be more desirable, as it would allow wider use of OSM by third parties. however, it was felt that a wider discussion is necessary. first case: a site wishes to use OSM data as a basis for non-geographic data. the example used is a review side, like beerintheevening.com or tripadvisor.com. they might want to use OSM as the source of geographic data by linking its reviews to OSM node IDs (or lat/lons taken from the OSM data). under a GPL-like interpretation of the ODbL, this would taint the database, requiring its release. considering that the records in the database may contain private information (IP/email address of the reviewer) this may mean that the site decides not to use OSM, because releasing the DB would violate their own privacy policy. second case: OSM data is downloaded to a handheld device (e.g: iphone). this is likely (given the screen size of the device) to be an insubstantial amount. the data is locally used for reference when entering other information (e.g: abovesaid reviews). the reviews are uploaded to a non-OSM site, linked to the OSM-derived node ID or lat/lon. if many people do this, does that constitute repeated extraction and therefore require release of the non-OSM DB under the ODbL? i.e: can 3rd party sites use OSM IDs or lat/lons from OSM as keys into their database? I've had these very same questions. The in-person responses have typically been of course that's ok to do without releasing the review data but never in any way that I thought would make a large company feel comfortable. I understand that typically copyright law like this is at the behest of 'best practices' and prior cases - but obviously this is not the model OSM follows in general and is in fact trying to break out of. Really, it is akin to linking to a URL (if you consider any node in OSM is a Resource and could have a URI). My linking to a Wikipedia definition of Map does not change the copyright of my material. What can we do to make it very clear if this is acceptable use of OSM? Can we make it very clear that the equivalent of 'linking' to OSM data that doesn't alter it (or effectively replace primary data within OSM) does not virally release all data linked to it? we can make this very clear by: 1) discussing it here, 2) forming a consensus, 3) documenting the results (e.g: on the license FAQ on the wiki) when i have discussed the question of grey areas with lawyers the answer has always been that we can make up our own rules in those areas. the prerequisites for it having a good chance of standing up in court are that it is easy to find these guidelines in association with the license and that it represents a consensus view of the community. so far, all the responses seem to indicate that everyone thinks linking to OSM data by ID is OK. what about Andy's idea, though? is it OK to take a location, name and possibly an ID as well to perform fuzzy linking? my view is that all the linked-to OSM information would have to be released; the list of (location, name, ID) tuples. but that it would still be OK to not release the linked-by proprietary information. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL virality questions
On 10/5/09, Laurence Penney l...@lorp.org wrote: It seemed clear that such data extractions would not be considered public domain, simply by virtue of having no grid reference or lat- long. They were part of MasterMap, hence regarded as chargeable data. that's the suck-'em-dry licensing model ;-) So even if they had responded with the data, I probably wouldn't have been able to anything with it. (A local authority might well respond positively to an FOIA request of, say, a list of all the footbridges in its jurisdiction, yet I'd not necessarily be allowed to republish that data, or use the TOIDs in my database.) FOIA, for some values of free... It’s good that OSM is asking the same questions of itself! FWIW, I very much hope that OSM would be freer with its IDs than Ordnance Survey seems to be with its TOIDs. However, since Vanessa had “no idea” about the OS's policy on TOID reuse, perhaps there isn’t one. 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. we have the opportunity here to decide whether or not we, as a community, feel that this use of OSM data is OK. from my reading of the ODbL (insert standard disclaimers here) it's a grey area which we can strongly influence by public discussion. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] distribution
On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 2:33 PM, Greg Holloway peanutzkingpeng...@hotmail.com wrote: Date: Fri, 2 Oct 2009 10:19:01 + From: ava...@gmail.com To: legal-talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-legal-talk] distribution On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Greg Holloway peanutzkingpeng...@hotmail.com wrote: I hope i have picked the right list to ask these questions, please alow me to explain myself; I am a 4x4 off-roader and i have a laptop on the dash of my vehicle running memory map. I have been searching the internet for cheap detailed maps. I have had little success. I took the decision to make my own maps. I have began compiling DVDs/CDs with map data taken from the US Gov GeoCover website https://zulu.ssc.nasa.gov/mrsid/mrsid.pl and openstreetmap xml data. i have then encoded it into geotiff tiles for use with memory map and other gps based software. i have the intention of selling the dvds at cost, around £10. this will include a donation of £2.50 to openstreetmap. the remainder of the money will cover the free postage,ebay fees and the cost of a dvd with a case. I have been trying to find someone at openstreetmap that can help me with the legalities of putting openstreetmap onto a dvd which i then sell. I don't want to step on anyone toes as it were. for an idea of what i am doing point your browsers to http://maps.sj410.co.uk on there i have the html which autorun when the dvd/cd is inserted into the users pc. i have only started work on iceland for the moment but i hope to include other contries if what i am doing is acceptable. What you're doing is just fine by the CC-BY-SA license. You're also not modifying the map data so all you have to worry about is making it clear when you distribute it that it's from OpenStreetMap See this text for more information: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Legal_FAQ#I_would_like_to_use_OpenStreetMap_maps._How_should_I_credit_you.3F The attribution appropriate to your medium I think would be: * If you're printing something on the DVD itself or its casing it should include (c) OpenStreetMap (and) contributors, CC-BY-SA somewhere or a similar text you can reasonably fit. * In your autorun HTML you should not refer to the OSM license as OpenStreetMap.Org Creative Commons License but rather something like OpenStreetMap data available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license with a link to the license How will users view your maps? Are you just distributing GeoTIFF files or do you bundle some sort of map viewer as well? i will just be including the tiles, no software. i will be writting details to the dvd not the casing and i shall mention openstreepmap copyright and any others related., i'll change the text on the autorun html to include your suggestion. should i include the raw data on the dvd, ie before i have encoded the geotiff? there's no need to include the raw data on the dvd. and you're already showing the openstreetmap attribution, so people will know where to go if they want the raw data. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] ODbL virality questions
hi legals, i've come across a couple of interesting questions / use-cases for the ODbL and wider discussion. it basically reduces to whether we want the ODbL to have viral (GPL-like) behaviour, or whether it should be less viral (LGPL-like). we've discussed this at an LWG meeting and the general feeling was that the LGPL-like behaviour would be more desirable, as it would allow wider use of OSM by third parties. however, it was felt that a wider discussion is necessary. first case: a site wishes to use OSM data as a basis for non-geographic data. the example used is a review side, like beerintheevening.com or tripadvisor.com. they might want to use OSM as the source of geographic data by linking its reviews to OSM node IDs (or lat/lons taken from the OSM data). under a GPL-like interpretation of the ODbL, this would taint the database, requiring its release. considering that the records in the database may contain private information (IP/email address of the reviewer) this may mean that the site decides not to use OSM, because releasing the DB would violate their own privacy policy. second case: OSM data is downloaded to a handheld device (e.g: iphone). this is likely (given the screen size of the device) to be an insubstantial amount. the data is locally used for reference when entering other information (e.g: abovesaid reviews). the reviews are uploaded to a non-OSM site, linked to the OSM-derived node ID or lat/lon. if many people do this, does that constitute repeated extraction and therefore require release of the non-OSM DB under the ODbL? i.e: can 3rd party sites use OSM IDs or lat/lons from OSM as keys into their database? the discussion at the LWG meeting centered around whether the database linking to OSM data could be considered stand-alone. using the similarity with the LGPL; whether the reviews database could be re-linked against another source of geographic data while continuing to work. this would imply that the list of (e.g: pubs or hotels) would need to be released as an extract of OSM as a list of OSM IDs or lat/lons, but that the reviews themselves and auxillary tables (such as the users' information) wouldn't constitute a derivative work of the OSM database. what are your thoughts? cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Protection time of ODbL
On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 8:45 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: 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: snip Clearer now? i understood that part of your point the first time around, but i was correcting your claim that the ODbL tries ... to assert rights over the collection even in jurisdictions where there are none. i was pointing out that ODbL doesn't (and, as you say, can't) claim any *rights*, so it has to try to emulate them using contract law instead. maybe this is why lawyers use capitalised terms, like Rights, with a defined meaning :-) but i take your point about the variable length of the protection in different jurisdictions. maybe it's cold comfort that any copyright-based license has exactly the same problem. i can't find anywhere in the GPL, for example, which states the length of the term and countries have wildly varying copyright terms according to [1] (from life+100 years in mexico down to life+25 in the seychelles or even 0 in the marshall islands, where copyright law doesn't exist) 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? well, in some jurisdictions there might be copyright over the data arrangement, but - you're right - that's not what i meant. i should have said database rights. 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? the contributor terms covers the copyright in individual elements, granting a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable license to do any act that is restricted by copyright over anything within the Contents, whether in the original medium or any other. so, yes; individual data items come with a very liberal license. this doesn't mean that certain aspects of copyright don't still exist (e.g: in some jurisdictions an author's moral rights are non-waivable), but then we can start arguing over whether any copyright is valid over factual data, etc... etc... cheers, matt [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries%27_copyright_length ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] New license status
On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 2:04 PM, James Livingston doc...@mac.com 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 see the qualification that substantial is in terms of quality, quantity or a combination of both - but out of interest, is it supposed to mean basically what it means in terms of the underlying copyright/database rights? yes. but since there hasn't been any case law on what substantial means (at least in europe, yet), we were advised to create guidelines on what we, as a community, consider substantial. apparently this would likely be taken into account, in the absence of case law, if anything goes in front of a judge. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] New license status
On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 4:09 PM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: 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. interesting. we should make sure that ODC are aware of this for the next version of ODbL. (note that the contents license != database license, though. individual contents and substantial extracts of the database are licensed separately). 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.) hi, i'm matt and i'm a PD heretic ;-) cheers, matt ___ 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
On 9/19/09, Peter Miller peter.mil...@itoworld.com wrote: On 19 Sep 2009, at 04:38, Paul Johnson wrote: On Wed, 2009-09-16 at 23:19 -0500, tele...@hushmail.com wrote: My question is what type of attribution is appropriate? I have no problem informing my end-users where I get the data. More than happy to do that. However, do I need to attribute while the application is used on-air? Screen real estate is precious on a TV screen. Plus, some clients are un-easy about attribution during the broadcast. Attributing during the credits roll at the end of the broadcast would be doable I suppose. 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. I've noticed almost all the local broadcasters use Google Earth for this, and display a small, translucent Google logo in the corner of the map view. I imagine a little osm.org in the corner similar to Google's attribution would work for that format. That seems to be a good idea. We have a trade-marked logo - possibly that would be useful. I know it isn't a URL but might be more identifiable and 'reasonable' for the medium. Mention on the website associated with a program is another option that has been proposed. We do have this situation described as a 'use case' for the new license and the recommendation against the use case is to create a community guideline for it - possibly we have just done so! http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_Licence/Use_Cases I certainly don't see anyone who makes and effort and does something reasonable in the circumstances getting criticised. i agree - if the ODbL is accepted as the new license, that could clear up a lot of the worries about what the correct attribution is. cheers, matt ___ 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
On 9/17/09, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Hi, tele...@hushmail.com wrote: My question is what type of attribution is appropriate? 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. +1 i agree - the method of attribution can be whatever the standard method of attribution is for the medium. of course, we'd all like to see the OSM logo displayed prominently on the screen, but it should be an advantage of using OSM data that you don't have to give free advertising to TA/NT/MS/GG ;-) cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Monopoly City Streets
On 9/9/09, Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com wrote: Iván Sánchez Ortega i...@... writes: By the sound of that, it seems that they're joining up the GMaps data and the OSM data, and filtering out the street names in common. I think that their DB is a derivative work of the OSM data and that share-alike should apply. Even if that is true, they are not distributing their database to anyone else. indeed. one of the myriad flaws (as i see it, anyway) of the CC license is that only the end-product needs to be shared-alike. if they're only distributing tiles derived from the OSM database, but not a merged database... well, the tiles are required to be CC BY-SA, but not their merged database*. cheers, matt *: as i understand it, anyway. ___ 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
On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 9:56 AM, Dave Stubbsosm.l...@randomjunk.co.uk wrote: On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 2:54 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: 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? Do you even have to go that far? The Navteq multipolygon isn't actually part of the resulting derivative database, it's just part of the algorithm to get there. Assuming the result is just a shrunk version of the OSM DB I'd have thought the only thing you had to release in this case was the alterations made to the OSM DB -- ie: a list of the bits you deleted. We'd be within our rights to try and reconstruct the multipolygon from those deletions, but you wouldn't have to actually release it? or put another way: if I do o...@navteq = DD (where @ is some function that combines the datasets), there's no circumstance in which I have to release Navteq. My obligation is to release DD under ODbL (I can hand out the DD-OSM diff). This happens to entitle anybody else to attempt to reconstruct as much of Navteq as possible. The ODbL says I have to release changes, it doesn't say I have to tell you why I'm making them. Is that remotely the right reading? hmm... i think you may be right. i guess it depends on how it's done. if the merging is done by clipping out OSM data then maybe at most the polygon would need to be released, but maybe not even that. if the merging is done by matching (e.g: roadmatcher) then there's an argument that the database of matches is also a derivative database (which gets used to make the final derivative database) and would require the release of (maybe only some) navteq data... a very specific example may help: if i wanted to take navteq's list of petrol stations and merge it with OSM's - always preferring navteq's then i guess it would be simple to delete those in OSM which are close (fsvo close) to navteq's and then render the two superimposed by method #1. i think this fits your argument above - i can't see any reason why ODbL wouldn't be satisfied by the release of just the deleted items. taking it further, if i wanted to join those petrol stations to a routable network, or put them into a geocoding database... i think you might get away with the geocoding example if, like rendering, your geocoding search was independently performed on both the navteq and OSM lists of points and composited. routing... may be different. i can't, off the top of my head, think of any sensible way to keep the two datasets separate and still useful for those purposes... my head hurts now. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Privacy and Terms
On Sat, Jul 4, 2009 at 2:11 PM, Frederik Rammfrede...@remote.org wrote: 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? i'll suggest that to our lawyer, but this might mean having more than two sets - apparently Canada and Australia have their own versions of COPPA. and i guess the EU has something similar. it may end requiring us to to have a different set of TsCs for each jurisdiction. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Contributor Terms
On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 3:26 PM, Frederik Rammfrede...@remote.org wrote: 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), everyone has the super cow powers, but they're cascaded. e.g: if OSMF is the original licensor and i want to license some derived database under a different license i have to ask OSMF. if you license it from me and want to distribute your derived version, then you have to ask me *and* OSMF. however, i can delegate my super cow powers to a 3rd party (e.g: OSMF) to make my life easier. 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.) indeed. this is why the upstream compatibility decision is necessary. much as i'd *love* to have a PD-OSM (not the one with specially named zip files on an FTP server, but just OSM in the public domain), there were many in the community who were against PD/BSD style licenses. hence, why ODbL is an SA/GPL style license. 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! no, that's not what it says at all. it says OSMF can grant any license they want as long as it is free and open **and approved by a vote of active contributors**. if you really want PD, or you really don't want PD: join OSMF, keep your email up-to-date and continue mapping! then your voice will be heard (twice). cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Privacy and Terms
On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 4:42 PM, Ed Avise...@waniasset.com wrote: Francis Davey fjm...@... writes: Therefore, granting permission on the data can only be a real consideration when there is some pre-existing law which means the other party needs such permission. That can be copyright law, database right or whatever. Sure. That's exactly right. But that assumes that the other contracting party has the data already. Having a contract that only permits you to download it from my site (or whatever) will have consideration because I don't have to let you do that Good point. So if there is a contract you must agree to before downloading the data, the consideration can be that you received a copy of the data. not really. the ODbL is enforceable through IPR alone. there is no need to have people agree to *view* the data. the license (or more probably a link to it) will be present in all downloaded data, similar to the LICENSE file in GPL software. Much better IMHO to rely on copyright law and other laws such as database right, which apply whether you have signed a contract or not. If these laws do not exist in a particular country, well, that's a choice for the citizens of that country. the ODbL does. perhaps you should read it? The idea behind the ODbL is, as I understand it, precisely to try to impose wider controls than would be possible by merely using intellectual property law. Yes, that's exactly why I for one dislike it. And the side-effects, such as banning anonymous downloads of the data set (or indeed downloads by minors, who might not be bound by any purported contract) are unpleasant too. it doesn't ban anonymouse downloads. But you are mixing up more than one issue. The lack of negotiation and standard form is a wholly different question. Such a contract (a contract of adhesion as my US colleagues would call it) may well bring in other legal considerations. Yes... I think the proposed ODbL has all three question marks over its validity as a contract. You have dealt with one of them, consideration, by pointing out that merely getting a copy of the data can be consideration - which is fine, as long as nobody somehow gets a copy other than from the OSM website... all forms of license suffer from this, including common opensource licenses like GPL, etc... even CC-BY-SA. and, as we all know, GPL and CC-BY-SA are ineffectual for databases. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Privacy and Terms
On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 1:20 PM, Ed Avise...@waniasset.com wrote: As far as I can tell Wikipedia doesn't have 'terms and conditions' on the website, despite being equally dependent on user contributions and with more scope for legal risk from libel, offensive content and so on. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy see also the terms at the bottom of every edit box. There is no reason anyone should have to 'agree' to anything in order to browse the website and look at the map, and if they wish to upload data to OSM, they only need agree to license it under the correct terms. i think you have misunderstood; i don't see anyone suggesting that you'd need to explicitly agree to anything to browse the map. if they wish to upload something, they'll need an account. when they register for an account they will be presented with the contributor terms which include licensing. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Privacy and Terms
On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 10:20 PM, Ed Avise...@waniasset.com wrote: Matt Amos zerebub...@... writes: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy see also the terms at the bottom of every edit box. These terms and conditions don't try to impose an EULA on people reading the site but give guidelines on uploading data, on copying text (which is normally restricted by copyright law, and so you need to read the licence), and the privacy policy is something that sets standards for the Wikimedia Foundation to follow, not a set of restrictions or disclaimers that users must agree to. i think you're still misunderstanding: the privacy policy and terms of service are not EULAs - they don't need to be agreed to. as you say, the privacy policy is simply a declaration by OSMF about the conditions under which it collects and retains data. the terms of service are the conditions under which you may use the site - again, they don't need to be agreed to. i think you have misunderstood; i don't see anyone suggesting that you'd need to explicitly agree to anything to browse the map. if they wish to upload something, they'll need an account. when they register for an account they will be presented with the contributor terms which include licensing. I think that's fine. In that case the 'terms and conditions' should not purport to apply to people just using the website or the OSM data (which has its own licence), but only be something you explicitly agree to on uploading data. That means any stuff about 'personal use only' and so on doesn't belong. what you're referring to are the contributor terms, which is a contract between OSMF and the contributor regularing each party's rights and obligations. wikipedia has something very similar. the personal use only stuff comes into the terms of service. you don't need to agree - it's simply a statement by OSMF that the site is intended for personal use and that any non-personal use of the site may result in service being withdrawn. to make this very, very clear: we're not proposing the privacy policy and terms of service because we're evil, or we're excited by long and boring legal documents or even that we're anticipating a clear threat. we're doing it **because our lawyer is recommending it**. wikipedia's documents are much, much shorter. why they make no explicit reference to COPPA, i don't know. how they get away with that, i don't know. all i know is that our lawyer has said that having these documents is A Good Idea. your lawyer may disagree. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Privacy and Terms
On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 3:20 AM, Matt Amoszerebub...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 10:20 PM, Ed Avise...@waniasset.com wrote: Matt Amos zerebub...@... writes: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy see also the terms at the bottom of every edit box. These terms and conditions don't try to impose an EULA on people reading the site but give guidelines on uploading data, on copying text (which is normally restricted by copyright law, and so you need to read the licence), and the privacy policy is something that sets standards for the Wikimedia Foundation to follow, not a set of restrictions or disclaimers that users must agree to. i think you're still misunderstanding: the privacy policy and terms of service are not EULAs - they don't need to be agreed to. as you say, the privacy policy is simply a declaration by OSMF about the conditions under which it collects and retains data. the terms of service are the conditions under which you may use the site - again, they don't need to be agreed to. i think you have misunderstood; i don't see anyone suggesting that you'd need to explicitly agree to anything to browse the map. if they wish to upload something, they'll need an account. when they register for an account they will be presented with the contributor terms which include licensing. I think that's fine. In that case the 'terms and conditions' should not purport to apply to people just using the website or the OSM data (which has its own licence), but only be something you explicitly agree to on uploading data. That means any stuff about 'personal use only' and so on doesn't belong. what you're referring to are the contributor terms, which is a contract between OSMF and the contributor regularing each party's rights and obligations. wikipedia has something very similar. i should have linked to http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Contributor_Terms bear in mind that it still isn't a finished document - it's under discussion in LWG meetings and being reviewed by our lawyer. we think it sets out, with the minimum of legalese, a fair contract with the balance rights and obligations that the community wants. of course, we could be mistaken. so please let's continue discussing it. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Translations of osm.org
On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 10:17 PM, Frederik Rammfrede...@remote.org wrote: Jonas Krückel wrote: And the second question is, if it is allowed to translate the agreement for the user at the sign up process (a word was ported about the license, I don't really now what this means here)? If we take all this seriously (and I don't necessarily want to say we have to), then, since the body responsible for the legal side of all this is OSMF and OSMF cannot possibly check every language all the time, I guess that there would have to be some disclaimer at the end of all legal-related translations saying that the translation is given on a best-effort basis but where uncertainties arise, the English version is the binding one. Then again I don't know if that's legal, ouch. as i understand it (and i'm not a lawyer, etc...) the ported license goes beyond a simple translation and uses laws specific to the jurisdiction. in that case it isn't appropriate to use the ported license and specify that the english one is binding, as the english one may have differences in interpretation. from the Licensing Working Group discussions with OSMF's counsel, our best option might be to not translate the license itself but translate the extra-legal text (i.e: FAQs and do's and don'ts). these often have legal weight - in case of dispute the court may take them into account - but then the english text can unambiguously be used as the binding version. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL RC and share-alike licensing of Produced Works
On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 9:07 AM, Frederik Rammfrede...@remote.org wrote: Matt Amos wrote: my understanding is that, because we have database rights (and possibly other IP rights) in the original database, the re-created database is still (a substantial extract of) an ODbL licensed database. So you can create a substantial extract of a database without ever having had access to the database in any form; in fact, without even knowing that it exists? oh yes indeed. an analogy would be if i were handed a sheet of handwritten script and i photocopied it - i might be reproducing a copyrighted poem/short story/haiku without ever knowing that it was copyrighted. of course, it would be difficult to sue me, as i was not aware of the infringement, but it would be easy to prevent me distributing any more photocopies. and it wouldn't make the photocopies i had already distributed free in any way. also, because ODbL requires attribution which states that the original data was ODbL licensed, it would be harder to claim that i didn't know the database even exists. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL RC and share-alike licensing of Produced Works
On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 12:12 AM, Frederik Rammfrede...@remote.org wrote: Before, the reverse engineering clause would have kicked in and forced FSM to be under ODBL. In the future, the above will be fully legal, and the resulting FSM database, which contains facts derived from OSM data but which were not in database form, can be distributed as a BSD product. This has been earned by FSM through the manual work involved in re-creating a database from a non-database. Ist that correct? my understanding is that, because we have database rights (and possibly other IP rights) in the original database, the re-created database is still (a substantial extract of) an ODbL licensed database. RichardF's findings on tracing over photographs make me wonder whether similar arguments can be made for tracing over rendered images. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Produced Work guideline working
On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 11:01 PM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Mike Collinson wrote: If it was intended for the extraction of the original data, then it is a database and not a Produced Work. Otherwise it is a Produced Work. We can clearly define things that are USUALLY Produced Works: .PNG, JPG, .PDF, SVG images and any raster image; a map in a physically printed work. Database dumps are usually not Produced Works, e.g a Planet dump. I think it was 80n who, in an older discussion about this, pointed out that it may not be helpful to focus on the *intent* of someone doing something. Someone might make an SVG file that contains the full original OSM data, but without the intent of extracting data, and someone else then uses that as a database. But I guess we don't need to get all upset about this because if a database is made from the Produced Work then ODbL again applies through the reverse engineering clause... exactly - this is really only about whether someone has a choice of license for their files or not. i think its helpful to build up a set of things we think are produced works and a set of things we think are not. it doesn't have to be an exhaustive set, since we can build inwards to the grey area based on common sense (maybe...) it might be helpful to consider these examples: 1) is the planet dump a database? we've suggested it is, but it would be interesting to hear any dissenting views. 2) are SVG files produced works? we've suggested they are, but SVG files are one XSLT transform away from planet files and could be reversible given some extra custom attributes. 3) are osmChange diffs databases? 4) are routes (i.e: from YOURS, ORS, CM) produced works or DB extracts? 5) are garmin (or other vendor) device images databases? 6) are KML files extracted from OSM databases? my opinion is that none of the above are databases - but i think i'm in the minority holding that opinion ;-) cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] QA with a lawyer
On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 7:36 AM, Peter Miller peter.mil...@itoworld.com wrote: There is both the situation were OSM bulk-imports some data from another source into OSM that is published as ODbL where the original data owner can not be contacted which I would hope would be possible, under the ODbL as proposed, i don't think it is possible. the contributor uploading the data would have to contact the source to obtain permission for OSMF to sub-license it. Removing the right for anyone else to migrate to a new license in the situation that ODC is not able to do so would clearly be inappropriate, especially as we can't be sure that OSMF will still exist in 50 years! these are the choices, as i see them: 1) licensees can use other licenses and may choose the meaning of compatible, in which case the loophole of re-licensing BSD appears. 2) licensees can use other licenses, but only those approved by the original Licensor (OSMF), in which case the data is non-forkable and arguably non-free. 3) licensees must use ODbL. like the GPL, once it is GPL-licensed only the original source may re-license it. How do other organisations deal with this situation and can we learn from them? the only similar situation i can think of is trolltech's licensing of Qt. but even then it was the GPL - they weren't allowing licensees to migrate to a new license. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] QA with a lawyer
On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 10:13 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: the OSMF LWG recently had a couple of calls with Clark Asay, who has generously agreed to give OSMF legal advice concerning the new license. i've attached the write up of the first of the calls Was that based on the 0.9 or 1.0 license? I am concerned because of Q: Is the process of creating a Produced Work restricted or affected by the ODbL in any way? Do any details of the process of creating a Produced Work need to be made Public? A: No. The process of creating a Produced Work does not need to be revealed, so any artistic interpretation involved does not have to be made available. The only requirement of the ODbL is the notice from section 4.3. the question here needs to be clarified - my bad. the intent of the question is whether anyone producing works would have to reveal their creative inputs, e.g: their mapnik/osmarender/kosmos style rules or ITOworld's custom renderer for OSM mapper. Q: How often does a Derived Database have to be made available? Must this be as often as my produced work or can I do this on a less frequent basis? How soon after the Produced Work is published must I make it available? A: Under the current version of the license, it isn't necessary to make the derived database available. It was my understanding that the above would have been true for 0.9, while the April 2008 ODbL draft and 1.0 would require making available the derivative database on which a produced work is built. this is a question we have open with Jordan/Rufus and we're very actively trying to get it resolved. it seems that there was some text dropped between the response of ODC on their wiki to the co-ment comments and the released version of 1.0-rc1. it is everyone's intent to have the SA requirements triggered when a produced work is publicly used, but clearly its unfair on Clark to ask him to answer a question based on the assumption of some text which isn't in the license in front of him. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] QA with a lawyer
On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 1:15 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: ...and Peter Miller's concerns are legit: If you are the licensor, then, under 4.4.d... Licensors may authorise a proxy to determine compatible licences under Section 4.4 a iii. If they do so, the authorised proxy's public statement of acceptance of a compatible licence grants You permission to use the compatible licence. ... you get to choose what the compatible licenses are, don't you? So I can take the planet file, add a node thereby creating a derivative database, publish it with me as the licensor, and under 4.4 d declare that I am myself the proxy who determines license compatibility, and one second later proclaim that the BSD style license is compatible with ODbL. Yay! Where can I sign up ;-) hmm... that does seem to be a problem. would it solve the problem if 4.4a iii were removed? would that prevent any reasonable use case, to not be able to distribute a derived database under anything other than ODbL or later versions similar in spirit? given that OSMF is the original licensor, holding the database rights, it wouldn't prevent OSMF choosing a new license. assuming, of course, that the terms of the contributor agreement are upheld regarding voting, etc... cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] QA with a lawyer
the OSMF LWG recently had a couple of calls with Clark Asay, who has generously agreed to give OSMF legal advice concerning the new license. i've attached the write up of the first of the calls, in which we went over a series of short questions that grant and i had previously extracted from ulf's compendium of use cases and open issues. clark had lots of useful thoughts which are well worth reading and discussing here. the most important issues are highlighted in yellow, some of which require community input to resolve. we had the second call earlier today and we'll be writing up the results of that real soon now. cheers, matt Q_A_Session_with_Clark_Asay.pdf Description: Adobe PDF document ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] QA with a lawyer
On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 3:17 AM, Peter Miller peter.mil...@itoworld.com wrote: I have just concluded an email discussion with Jordan following our lawyers review of 1.0 who has answered some points but is now saying that he would need someone to pay him to answer more of them which leaves things in a rather unsatisfactory state given that I am not prepared to pay two lawyers to talk to each other! We have not had any response to the review from the OSMF council to date. i guess its hard for him when he's volunteering so much of his own time to answer all the questions put to him. So... could you help me with a couple of the points raised by our lawyer at your next Q and A? The review of 0.9 is here: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/ITO_World/ODbL_Licence_0.9_legal_review_for_ITO we'd be happy to. lets discuss them now, so we've got a full understanding. I am particularly interested in a view of the following: Regarding point 3 could someone confirm that the Factual Information License has now been dumped in favour of the 'Database Contents License'? This is implied by the latest release candidate but hasn't been discussed on the list to my knowledge. It seems a lot more applicable but our lawyer hasn't reviewed it. my understanding is that the FIL has been renamed to the DbCL and has been considerably simplified. in our discussions we are no longer talking about the FIL. Point 9 - Governing Law - Lets assume someone in China creates a new work based on OSM and claims from Chinese law that it is not a substantial extract. That is then used by someone in Vietnam to combine it would something else and manipulate it which makes it more like the original OSM DB and then someone in the UK uses that DB. Can one procecute the final UK company using UK law or would one need to travel to Vietnam and China to do this given that some of the interpretations happened under their law? Clark agreed with your lawyer that having a choice of law is the normal done thing in contracts, and suggested that we would want to consider either US or UK law. apparently this choice of law doesn't have an effect on the IP rights and is mainly for interpreting the contractual parts of the license. in the situation you describe, it is my understanding that we would have a better chance prosecuting the final UK company under IP laws (e.g: copyright, database rights) on the original database. given the difference in IP laws in vietnam or china (i'm guessing) it would be easier to go after them based on the contractual parts of the license. one of the things i'm gaining a better understanding of, having spoken with Clark, is that no license is ever fully watertight and we are highly unlikely to be able to defend all of our rights in all possible jurisdictions. in this regard i think we will have to strike a balance with practicality and license brevity. Point 13. Our lawyer states that the OSMF could change the license as they see fit at any time, and of they can then so can anyone else who publishes a derivative DB as far as I can see which would be alarming. Can you ask who can change the license and by how much. Our lawyer writes: Clauses 3.3 9.3 – The OSMF reserves the right to release the Database under different terms. It is not the current intention of the parties to permit exclusive use of the Database to any single person. However, this provision would permit the OSMF to withdraw the share alike and free access nature of the Database and even to sell it on commercial and exclusive terms. Likewise the OSMF expressly reserves the right to “stop distributing or making available the Database.” this was one of the questions in the write-up and was discussed again in the second call. my feeling is that this isn't an issue for the license, but instead forms part of the contribution agreement between contributors and the OSMF. Ulf did some work putting a three-point contribution agreement together and, as soon as its ready, i'm sure it will be posted here. the contribution agreement is something that we'll be working on in the LWG and we'd like to have your input. discussions up to now have focussed on the idea of the OSMF being required to hold a membership vote before being able to change the license, although we haven't yet gone into details of the mechanics (i.e: majorities, etc...) i'm sure you understand the need for the OSMF to reserve the right to discontinue hosting the database, since hosting and distributing the database requires a great deal of resources. while these resources are currently available, it seems unwise for OSMF to legally commit to providing them forever. cheers, matt ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
