On Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 03:37:26PM +0000, Richard Fairhurst wrote:
> Christopher Schmidt wrote:
>> I think that the public-domain only data will be a 'small cool skin'
>> of imagery, but it should still be there and usable. In addition, if
>> you can deal with other licenses -- for print works, and many others,
>> Attribution
>> probably works relatively well -- then you can have access to more imagery.
>
> Really, there's two different licensing issues here:
> - licensing of the imagery
> - licensing of derived vector works ("tracings")
>
> I can see the merit in OAM offering variously-licensed imagery. As you
> say, lots of providers will insist on attribution, and solving that is a
> fairly trivial technical issue with few ramifications for the end-user.
>
> But I don't feel that we should accept any restrictions on the latter.
> Preventing people from tracing is a Bad Thing that requires
> hard-to-understand contracts over and above the clear intent of
> copyright law.
That depends entirely on whether your interpretation is that tracing is
a derivative work. I think it would be fair to state clearly that the
OAM project considers tracing of aerial imagery to be a transformative
work, not derivative, and therefore no longer attached to the copyright
of the imagery. I believe this is something that (limited) existing case law
seems to support. (I'd be interested in anyone who has any evidence to the
contrary.)
If we make this statement clear when people are uploading data, that would
essentially be informing people ahead of time "If you disagree with this
legal interpretation, OAM probably isn't for you; scoot"; by doing so,
hopefully we would prevent people who feel differently from uploading their
imagery (and then suing tracers later).
I'm supportive of this approach.
Best Regards,
--
Christopher Schmidt
MetaCarta
_______________________________________________
talk mailing list
[email protected]
http://openaerialmap.org/mailman/listinfo/talk_openaerialmap.org
