On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 3:52 PM, andrzej zaborowski <balr...@gmail.com> wrote: > Also I don't see how CC-By-SA 3.0 explicitly does not apply to > databases more than 2.0. It explicitly applies to things like maps > however (possibly this only means maps as images though)
Well, it explicitly applies to "a compilation of data to the extent it is protected as a copyrightable work". Which means it implicitly doesn't apply to "a compilation of data to the extent it is not protected as a copyrightable work". The argument being made by some is that the OSM database consists completely of the latter. Some have even gone so far as to claim that all databases consist completely of the latter. I guess if you take that position then you could say CC-BY-SA explicitly does not apply to databases. But it's quite a leap from "some databases (e.g. white pages) are non-copyrightable in some jurisdictions" and "databases are non-copyrightable". In fact, I'd say it's quite plainly false. If some databases are copyrightable, then CC-BY-SA 3.0 does apply to some databases. (The very fact that CC-BY-SA 3.0 explicitly covers "a compilation of data to the extent it is protected as a copyrightable work" surely means that the drafters of CC-BY-SA 3.0 thought copyright does apply to some databases.) Whether or not the OSM database is such a database is more arguable. Although I'd still say it most likely is copyrightable *to some extent* (so CC-BY-SA 3.0 would apply *to some extent*). There's a paper on the copyrightability of electronic maps in the United States at (http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~dkarjala/Articles/Jurimetrics1995.html). In the conclusion: [quote]"Confusion" is the best description of the state of post-Feist copyright protection of maps, especially digitized geographic information systems.[/quote] _______________________________________________ legal-talk mailing list legal-t...@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk