On Sat, 27 Jun 2015 17:55:08 +0200, Simon Poole si...@poole.ch wrote:
A condition of having a valid licence to use OSM data is providing a suitable
way of pointing out the conditions of use of said data to your
users/customers/etc (which is relaxed a bit for produced works). Don't
provide that, you don't have a valid licence with all the related
consequences. If you have information that this obligation is not being
fulfilled by distributors of OSM based products, please report it to the
OSMF/LWG.
The problem being, of course, assuming there is no property right, there's only
a contract, not a license. Contracts are not enforceable against third parties.
A person who makes OSM data available without conditioning it on acceptance of
the same contract, may indeed be in violation of *his* contract. But the people
who take that data aren't bound by anything. If someone obtains a stash of OSM
data, stripped of all attribution and legalese, then, upstream, someone may
have violated a contract. But unless there's some sort of intellectual property
right, people who obtain OSM data in this way aren't bound by anything.
This is why IP rights are so valuable! You don’t require a continuous chain of
legal documents. If there is an IP right, then if the licensing info is
stripped off, then a user has no right to the data to begin with.
On the other hand, if everyone is being a good actor and, when they are further
distributing OSM data, attaching the ODbL, there is a contract. But I’m not
sure who the contract is between—a third party can’t enter into a contract on
behalf of OSM. So the contract would probably be between the third-party
distributor and whoever takes the data from it. However, OSM might be able to
enforce that contract, as a third-party beneficiary. (Third parties who are
the intended beneficiaries of a contract can sometimes enforce contracts they
are not parties to—this is very different than third parties being bound by
someone else’s contract.)
[I’m a new subscriber to this list, so apologies if this message isn’t
formatted or threaded properly. Also, this is just based on US law and common
law generally. Details might be different in civil law jurisdictions. Finally,
while IAAL, this is not legal advice, and no one reading this is my client. ]
—
john
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