Hi legal-talk,
I have a couple of questions about the use of map images, which I
understand to be ODbL "Produced Works", in Wikipedia. I've tried to
find answers on the OSM wiki but I haven't seen anything addressing
them.
1. The attribution requirement. ODbL says:
>4.3 Notice for using output (Contents). Creating and Using a Produced Work
>does not require the notice in Section 4.2. However, 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.
Now the usual way to provide attribution notices on Wikipedia images
is to include them on the File page about the image (for example
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rondebosch_OSM_map_small.svg)
but not in every article where the image is used. A plain reading of
the license text seems to indicate that that would not be enough, as
readers who view the map on the article would not see the notice. Do
we really have to include the full notice "Contains information from
OpenStreetMap, which is made available here under the Open Database
License (ODbL)" in the caption of every use of an OSM-derived map in a
Wikipedia article?
2. Derived databases. I have produced maps like
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Namibia_rail_network_map.svg
from OSM data (in that case the OSM data was only used for the railway
lines, not for the basemap). To do so I downloaded a particular set of
relations from the OSM API, ran a script to convert them to a
shapefile, and then another script to generate the map. By downloading
these relations and then converting them to a shapefile have I created
a "Derivative Database"? And by uploading the map to Wikimedia Commons
have I "Publicly Used" this database? Does this trigger section 4.6,
requiring me to offer the Derivative Database to any recipient of the
map (the "Produced Work")? Thing is, in the past I have generally
deleted these shapefiles when I'm done. If section 4.6 applies, am I
now also obliged to keep these forever in case someone requests a
copy? Or is it sufficient to say "download relations with the
following tags in the following bounding box"?
There seems to be a confusing relationship between section 4.4.c, which says:
>A Derivative Database is Publicly Used and so must comply with Section 4.4.
>if a Produced Work created from the Derivative Database is Publicly Used.
and section 4.5.b:
>Using this Database, a Derivative Database, or this Database as part of a
>Collective Database to create a Produced Work does not create a Derivative
>Database for purposes of Section 4.4
Which of these clauses applies to my scenario?
3. Subsequent reuse. In the above case, if necessary I can still at
least keep a copy of the shapefile and hand it out on request. But,
having uploaded the map to Wikimedia Commons, does section 4.6 apply
to others who reuse the map? They don't have access to the Derived
Database in the first place. If I release the map as CC-BY-SA, are
subsequent users required to abide by anything more than the regular
attribution requirements of that license?
Thanks,
Adrian Frith
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