[OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment and ability to sue
Gervase Markham gerv-gm...@... writes: From the Contributor Terms: You hereby grant to OSMF and any party that receives Your Contents 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. If the OSMF has the right to do any act that is restricted by copyright then they effectively have a joint copyright ownership. Except perhaps that they can't sue for copyright violation, although (as the article notes) that's not usually a big factor. That is an interesting point. If map data is covered by copyright, then without copyright assignment the ability of the OSMF to enforce share-alike is weakened. On the other hand, if map data is not covered by copyright, then the assignment of copyright licence to the OSMF is not necessary. Either way, having a blanket grant-of-licence in the contributor terms without actually assigning the copyright seems a suboptimal choice. -- Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment and ability to sue
2010/1/12 Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com: That is an interesting point. If map data is covered by copyright, then without copyright assignment the ability of the OSMF to enforce share-alike is weakened. As I've observed OSMF cannot enforce share-alike under the existing contributor terms because everyone in the world is granted a non-exclusive licence. An assignment of copyright (to OSMF) would not affect that. Second, in the UK at least - I cannot really speak for other jurisdictions - if the CT were slightly rewritten so as to expressly grant the OSMF a right to sue as a non-exclusive licensee then s.101A of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 would give OSMF that right (provided that the agreement is signed, which should be easily possibly by supply of name of contributor and a button indicating that the assignment is effectively signed) at least as far as enforcing share-alike goes. You could also grant an exclusive licence with grant back of a licence for the contributor on whatever terms. On the other hand, if map data is not covered by copyright, then the assignment of copyright licence to the OSMF is not necessary. Either way, having a blanket grant-of-licence in the contributor terms without actually assigning the copyright seems a suboptimal choice. Not necessarily. -- Francis Davey ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
80n schrieb: CC-BY-SA doesn't require contribution back but it does *permit* contribution back. That's an important distinction. We're currently working on the assuption that you can comply with CC-BY-SA by giving attribution to the OpenStreetMap contributors. That assumption is no longer true when importing CC-BY-SA licensed data from other sources. Then what? ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
On Sat, Jan 9, 2010 at 3:16 PM, Ulf Möller o...@ulfm.de wrote: 80n schrieb: CC-BY-SA doesn't require contribution back but it does *permit* contribution back. That's an important distinction. We're currently working on the assuption that you can comply with CC-BY-SA by giving attribution to the OpenStreetMap contributors. That assumption is no longer true when importing CC-BY-SA licensed data from other sources. Then what? Attribution is dealt with by entries on this page: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Attribution It probably ought to be linked to better, but that's the mechanism that exists at the moment. 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
80n schrieb: Attribution is dealt with by entries on this page: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Attribution I suppose that's ok for OSMF itself. But if someone wants to use an OSM map in a book or a flyer, are they expected to include that wiki page? ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
On Sat, Jan 9, 2010 at 5:36 PM, Ulf Möller o...@ulfm.de wrote: 80n schrieb: Attribution is dealt with by entries on this page: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Attribution I suppose that's ok for OSMF itself. But if someone wants to use an OSM map in a book or a flyer, are they expected to include that wiki page? Users of the data can link to it, in a manner appropriate to the medium, as per the license requirements. This page was created as a result of discussion at the OSMF board meeting on 17th January 2008 about the need to provide a place for people requiring a specific form of attribution ( http://www.osmfoundation.org/images/9/99/20080117_meeting_minutes.pdf). It appears to have been confused with the list of bulk imports and someone has merged it with a page that listed bulk contributors. Oh well. 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
Hi, Simon Ward wrote: On Wed, Jan 06, 2010 at 02:44:53AM +0100, Frederik Ramm wrote: Unless you're willing sign something that says I agree that OSMF will make two attempts to contact me at my registered e-mail address with information on how to vote on an upcoming license change suggestion, and if I don't react then that counts as an abstain vote. Oh, and there should most definitely be more than one attempt at making contact. I assumed it went without saying. I must remember not to make too many of these assumptions. :) Well in the current setup, it is in OSMF's interest to reach you, because if they want to change the license, they need a yes from 50% of active mappers. (It is not sufficient to simply write to all active mappers, and then if 100 of them reply and 51 are in favour, the change goes through.) So that hurdle is rather high; anyone who cannot be reached or who doesn't respond is by default a no vote. That's why I think it is valid to try to keep the pool of people smaller by saying active contributor with the definition behind it. If we were to say we want to poll every single contributor past and present, then it would be absolutely impossible to even get 50% of them to respond, much less to understand the proposal or be bothered to vote. In such a scenario, you could not possibly put the hurdle at 50% of the electorate but you would have to say 50% of people who respond. And this then requires some sort of definition of how much time and money must be spent on OSMF side to reach the person (what, my email address was invalid, if you had just googled my name you would have found my new address... etc.) So: EITHER we do 50% of all active contributors (with no reply being a no vote), or we do 50% of all those who have ever contributed *and* bother to reply. Bye Frederik ___ 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 5:08 AM, Anthony o...@inbox.org wrote: Although, for the most part, CC-BY-SA does have roughly the same effect in all jurisdictions. You can do whatever you want with the geodata, so long as you don't legally restrict others from using the geodata you add. In jurisdictions where geodata is protected, CC-BY-SA ensures that any derivative works are under CC-BY-SA. In jurisdictions where geodata isn't protected, any geodata which is added to the work can't be legally restricted from reuse anyway. This seems to me to be quite a crucial point. The purpose of the share-alike principle is to enable derived work to be fed back into the main body. It's this feedback mechanism that makes the whole project work so well. In strong copyright jurisdictions then the law facilitates this. In weak copyright jurisdictions the law won't prevent us from taking back. SA is just strong enough to do the job it needs to do. By comparison, ODbL+Contributor Terms has properties that break this principle. A derived work can not be fed back into OSM unless the author agrees to the contributor terms. If the author deliberately doesn't do this, or just can't be bothered to, then the feedback mechanism breaks. 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
On Tue, Jan 05, 2010 at 07:24:47PM +, 80n wrote: Any share-however-you-like license has the properties you describe. We're talking about share-alike here. 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. Share-alike is really about the next user, anyone who receives the work, having the same freedoms. The next user is not necessarily the original project (e.g. OpenStreetMap), but the original project can still benefit. Any licence that would require contribution back to the original project fails to give those freedoms to people with limited connectivity, sometimes even completely segregated from the Internet as we know it. Simon -- A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.—John Gall signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
On Tue, Jan 05, 2010 at 07:33:44PM +, Rob Myers wrote: back, and that having changed licences once it's important that OSM be able to change/upgrade/whatever the licence in the future I believe the contributor terms are too broad. I answered the poll in favour of moving to the ODbL, but failed to take into account the contributor terms. 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. Simon -- A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.—John Gall signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ 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 06, 2010 at 12:03:51AM +, Matt Amos wrote: 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. I’m a member of OSMF. I think the terms are still too broad. Why is it mega opt in to effectively giving OSMF complete control? It doesn’t need to be, and We already say “you can use our stuff under X licence”. Simon -- A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.—John Gall signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
On Wed, Jan 06, 2010 at 12:03:51AM +, Matt Amos wrote: 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. I also think the definition of an active contributor is too narrow. I actually think it should be scrapped completely, because it doesn’t matter whether somebody isn’t active any more. If I let OSM have my data to be used under a particular licence (or variant of), then that’s what I do. If I believe in share-alike type stuff (which I do), I do not generally wish to exempt an organisation from it (I may exempt someone, but there have to be special circumstances that I feel warrant this). I will not contribute further to OSM (directly) under such broad terms, because I do not believe it is right. Simon -- A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.—John Gall signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ 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
Hi, Simon Ward wrote: I also think the definition of an active contributor is too narrow. I actually think it should be scrapped completely, because it doesn’t matter whether somebody isn’t active any more. Oh yes it does, because if someone isn't active any more it will become harder and harder to get an opinion out of him. Someone who is not active any more will often have lost interest or lost his life, that's why, while desirable, it is not practical to give them a say. Unless you're willing sign something that says I agree that OSMF will make two attempts to contact me at my registered e-mail address with information on how to vote on an upcoming license change suggestion, and if I don't react then that counts as an abstain vote. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09 E008°23'33 ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
On Wed, Jan 06, 2010 at 02:44:53AM +0100, Frederik Ramm wrote: Oh yes it does, because if someone isn't active any more it will become harder and harder to get an opinion out of him. Someone who is not active any more will often have lost interest or lost his life, that's why, while desirable, it is not practical to give them a say. Unless you're willing sign something that says I agree that OSMF will make two attempts to contact me at my registered e-mail address with information on how to vote on an upcoming license change suggestion, and if I don't react then that counts as an abstain vote. At the very least, I expect the period to be much longer than 6 months. My arbitrary acceptable number data just suggested 18 months. Simon -- A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.—John Gall signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
On Wed, Jan 06, 2010 at 02:44:53AM +0100, Frederik Ramm wrote: Oh yes it does, because if someone isn't active any more it will become harder and harder to get an opinion out of him. Someone who is not active any more will often have lost interest or lost his life, that's why, while desirable, it is not practical to give them a say. No one organisation should need to have the advantage of effectively all rights to the data. Simon -- A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.—John Gall signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
On Wed, Jan 06, 2010 at 02:44:53AM +0100, Frederik Ramm wrote: Unless you're willing sign something that says I agree that OSMF will make two attempts to contact me at my registered e-mail address with information on how to vote on an upcoming license change suggestion, and if I don't react then that counts as an abstain vote. Oh, and there should most definitely be more than one attempt at making contact. I assumed it went without saying. I must remember not to make too many of these assumptions. :) Simon -- A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.—John Gall signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
Anthony schreef: You grant everyone the right to do anything. You're effectively releasing your content into the public domain. And since OSMF are using a broad non-exclusive licence on the database, and you are arguign that for an individual to do this effectively gives up their rights altogether, surely OSMF are effectively giving up *their* rights on the database altogether? No, the ODbL is much more restrictive than 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 The concept of the ODbL is that there is a distinction between data and database (the collection of data). Consider this as a box with stuff. The OSMF is the owner of the database (box) but not the contents. The OSMF is publishing the box with its contents under the ODbL. It can only do that if the owners of the stuff that's put into the box has given OSMF the right to distribute their stuff freely. Since ODbL is an open and free license, the OSMF needs to be sure that the data that is put into the database is also free. To make the legally sure, the text you quote has been drafted by legal experts. But you as contributor will still be the sole owner of the data you've contributed. Which licence, and what are the advantages to suing in a personal capacity rather than having OSMF do so? Any license. And the advantage is that who you want to sue might be different from who the OSMF wants to sue. For example, let's say you want to sue Cloudmade... ... or you want to sue GeoFabrik or ITO or AND (to name some other sponsors of OpenStreetMap) ... If there is a need to sue, we (the Foundation) will sue. Otherwise it will work as a precedence towards other parties. Cheers, Henk Hoff ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
2010/1/4 Anthony o...@inbox.org: Hence not copyright assignment, but basically the same thing. You give up the right to sue, and the OSMF gets the right to sue. I hope its OK if I butt in here. I'm not a proper OSMF person, just an interested lawyer who reads your list. However I think your understanding of the Contributor Terms is wrong. Here I confess that I am not quite sure what we are talking about, since no-one has posted a link. I am assuming that we are all working from: http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/License/Contributor_Terms Now *that* is very much not an assignment of copyright. The difference (and the reason why its not basically the same thing) is if you assigned copyright in your contribution, OSMF would be able to sue someone for violating that copyright. The Contributor Terms do not give them that right. What the Contributor Terms do is (i) give OSMF the usual royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable licence with a right to sub-licence; and (ii) grants the same licence to anyone that receives Your Contribution. (i) is relatively normal (which isn't to say its the right thing to do or doesn't have its problems). Its the kind of thing you see on google for instance and its the kind of clause I'd use as a starting point (perhaps for negotiation) when designing TC's for a crowd-sourcing site (which is something I do from time to time). It means the licensee can get on and use the content without worrying too much about it. (ii) is a bit odd - its effect appears to be to nullify any copyright in Your Contribution since anyone who copies it is surely someone who receives it. It would appear to prevent anyone suing for breach of copyright. But nothing gives OSMF a right to sue for any copyright in anything you contribute. If you had a database right in it, then OSMF are in difficulty (I'm not sure why its drafted like that - but there's probably a good reason). What OSMF _may_ get is a database right in all the bits of contribution that they get from contributors. I say _may_ because database right is not a straightforward. Its quite possible they won't have such a right, but that's another question. Database right is infringed in different ways from copyright, but if OSMF get such a right and it is infringed then they can sue, but that's because its their right, not because you assigned a right to them. Or, as Michael Meeks said: Various other methods are used to achieve the same effect [as copyright assignment]. Some common ones - are asking for a very liberal license: BSD-new, MIT/X11, or even Public Domain on the contribution, and then including it into the existing, more restrictively licensed work. The Contributor Terms appear to be just that, a very liberal licence. If some corporation makes a large donation to OSMF, and OSMF decides not to sue them for something that I consider to be unacceptable use of data I have contributed, there's nothing I can do. I've given them (and everyone else Absolutely right, although OSMF might not be able to sue either. You can't sue. in the world) a perpetual, irrevocable license to do anything. In the mean time, if that corporation wants to sue *me*, for using its data plus some copyrightable improvements, it's free to do so. I can't even counter-sue as a defense. That's right. If you give away something you can't complain how other people use it. That's completely unacceptable to me. YMMV. What would be acceptable? It looks to me like the intention of the Contributor Terms is much nearer to what you want because clause 3 restricts what kinds of things OSMF is allowed to do when it sub-licenses your data to other organisations. In particular OSMF would not be able to sublicence to %evil_organisation unless it was covered by one of the open source licenses listed (or one selected by members - which would have to be free and open) which would probably prevent them suing you. But of course as it stands that organisation doesn't need OSMF's licence for your data, since you have already given that to everyone. -- Francis Davey ___ 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 6:07 PM, Francis Davey fjm...@gmail.com wrote: What OSMF _may_ get is a database right in all the bits of contribution that they get from contributors. I say _may_ because database right is not a straightforward. Its quite possible they won't have such a right, but that's another question. They also may get contract rights under the ODbL. I say may because the enforceability of a browse-wrap license is not straightforward. That's completely unacceptable to me. YMMV. What would be acceptable? The current situation is acceptable. We all grant a license to everyone under CC-BY-SA. ___ 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] Copyright Assignment
On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 11:45 PM, Matt Amos zerebub...@gmail.com wrote: 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? If by internationally applicable you mean having roughly the same effect in all jurisdictions, the only thing I can think of that would be internationally applicable would be CC0. Even that would have some differences in different jurisdictions, though, as some jurisdictions outright contradict each other (in some jurisdictions you can't enforce moral rights, in other jurisdictions you can't waive them). I suppose CC0 would be acceptable, if everyone had to agree to it, including the OSMF itself. But I'd prefer copyleft. I really don't want people taking my contributions, adding to them, and then legally restricting me from being able to use them. ___ 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 12:02 AM, Anthony o...@inbox.org wrote: On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 11:45 PM, Matt Amos zerebub...@gmail.com wrote: 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? If by internationally applicable you mean having roughly the same effect in all jurisdictions, the only thing I can think of that would be internationally applicable would be CC0. Although, for the most part, CC-BY-SA does have roughly the same effect in all jurisdictions. You can do whatever you want with the geodata, so long as you don't legally restrict others from using the geodata you add. In jurisdictions where geodata is protected, CC-BY-SA ensures that any derivative works are under CC-BY-SA. In jurisdictions where geodata isn't protected, any geodata which is added to the work can't be legally restricted from reuse anyway. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
2010/1/5 Francis Davey fjm...@gmail.com: 2010/1/4 Anthony o...@inbox.org: Hence not copyright assignment, but basically the same thing. You give up the right to sue, and the OSMF gets the right to sue. ... Now *that* is very much not an assignment of copyright. The difference (and the reason why its not basically the same thing) is if you assigned copyright in your contribution, OSMF would be able to sue someone for violating that copyright. Yes, it's not an assignment of copyright and OSMF won't be able to sue for violation of copyright, it will only be able to sue for violation of its database rights -- the situation is still analogous to copyright assignment. Let's for simplicity assume there is no copyright on our data at all an all references to copyright in this thread are a shorthand to whatever rights the licensor has to the database and / or the data, and maybe we can stop arguing about this, I think we have agreed in a different thread that the new license + contributor terms is much the spirit of the CC-by-SA + copyright assignment, taken and applied to data. As such the Michael Meeks' text is very relevant. Personally I prefer individual contributors to be able to proect the database's license against violators, I'm only not sure if that can be implemented really. Beside the reasons, against that copyright assignment, that others have mentioned (take overs of the OSMF, etc), this model has worked really well for software for many years, companies were apparently not afraid to switch to free software and at the same time infringements have been successfully fought in court, by the individual authors (programmers) with help of organisations. Cheers ___ 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 1:02 AM, andrzej zaborowski balr...@gmail.comwrote: 2010/1/5 Francis Davey fjm...@gmail.com: 2010/1/4 Anthony o...@inbox.org: Hence not copyright assignment, but basically the same thing. You give up the right to sue, and the OSMF gets the right to sue. ... Now *that* is very much not an assignment of copyright. The difference (and the reason why its not basically the same thing) is if you assigned copyright in your contribution, OSMF would be able to sue someone for violating that copyright. Yes, it's not an assignment of copyright and OSMF won't be able to sue for violation of copyright, it will only be able to sue for violation of its database rights -- the situation is still analogous to copyright assignment. Let's for simplicity assume there is no copyright on our data at all an all references to copyright in this thread are a shorthand to whatever rights the licensor has to the database and / or the data, and maybe we can stop arguing about this, Thank you. That's exactly what I was getting at. Obviously the OSMF can't sue someone else for violating my copyright. That's the not copyright assignment. As for the basically the same thing, that's the part where I said you give up the right to sue, and the OSMF gets the right to sue. You'll notice I didn't say sue for copyright infringment, I said sue. That was very much intentional. I also followed it up with a quote from Meeks, which I'll annotate in case someone didn't get it the first time: Various other methods are used to achieve the same effect [as copyright assignment]. Some common ones - are asking for a very liberal license: BSD-new, MIT/X11, or even Public Domain [You hereby grant...any party...a...license to do any act that is restricted by copyright] on the contribution, and then including it into the existing, more restrictively licensed work [the ODbL]. I think we have agreed in a different thread that the new license + contributor terms is much the spirit of the CC-by-SA + copyright assignment, taken and applied to data. I'd say it's more like the LGPL than CC-BY-SA. It has the equivalent of a requirement to distribute source along with binaries (something in the LGPL but not in CC-BY-SA), and the copyleft does not apply to produced works (roughly analogous to the Lesser in the Lesser GPL, and not something present in CC-BY-SA). At least in spirit/intent. Legally speaking, the LGPL, and to a lesser extent, CC-BY-SA, have been much more heavily scrutinized by the legal community, have withstood the test of time, are from a well-respected and well-known organization, and have a fairly well-accepted interpretation. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
On Fri, Jan 1, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Rob Myers r...@robmyers.org wrote: But OSM does not require copyright assignment, so it is not *directly* relevant. What OSMF requires in the current draft is for you to effectively give up your copyright altogether. OSMF then copyrights the database as a whole, asserts database rights on the database as a whole, and tries to get people to enter into a contractual agreement on the database as a whole. No, it's not copyright assignment, but it's basically the same thing. If you agree to the contributor terms, you can't sue anyone for a license violation, but the OSMF can. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
On 01/01/10 17:40, Anthony wrote: On Fri, Jan 1, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Rob Myers r...@robmyers.org wrote: But OSM does not require copyright assignment, so it is not *directly* relevant. What OSMF requires in the current draft is for you to effectively give up your copyright altogether. That is simply untrue. OSMF requires a broad copyright licence but not an exclusive one. OSMF then copyrights the database as a whole, asserts database rights on the database as a whole, and tries to get people to enter into a contractual agreement on the database as a whole. No contributor has produced the entire database, and OSMF has assembled the database. And since OSMF are using a broad non-exclusive licence on the database, and you are arguign that for an individual to do this effectively gives up their rights altogether, surely OSMF are effectively giving up *their* rights on the database altogether? No, it's not copyright assignment, but it's basically the same thing. It is not. I've signed copyright assignments, and this ain't basically the same. Unlike with a copyright assignment, when you contribute to OSM you retain your (probably imaginary) copyright and you can licence it to anyone else you like on whatever terms you like. If the salient point of comparison is meant to be that a third party gets to licence work that you've produced in-keeping with the principles that people have agreed to contribute to the project under, then I think it would be more constructive to try and discuss why that is felt to be bad in itself. If you agree to the contributor terms, you can't sue anyone for a license violation, but the OSMF can. Which licence, and what are the advantages to suing in a personal capacity rather than having OSMF do so? - Rob. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
On Fri, Jan 1, 2010 at 12:59 PM, Rob Myers r...@robmyers.org wrote: On 01/01/10 17:40, Anthony wrote: On Fri, Jan 1, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Rob Myers r...@robmyers.org wrote: But OSM does not require copyright assignment, so it is not *directly* relevant. What OSMF requires in the current draft is for you to effectively give up your copyright altogether. That is simply untrue. OSMF requires a broad copyright licence but not an exclusive one. I didn't say it was exclusive. You hereby grant to OSMF and any party that receives Your Contents 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. You grant everyone the right to do anything. You're effectively releasing your content into the public domain. And since OSMF are using a broad non-exclusive licence on the database, and you are arguign that for an individual to do this effectively gives up their rights altogether, surely OSMF are effectively giving up *their* rights on the database altogether? No, the ODbL is much more restrictive than 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 If you agree to the contributor terms, you can't sue anyone for a license violation, but the OSMF can. Which licence, and what are the advantages to suing in a personal capacity rather than having OSMF do so? Any license. And the advantage is that who you want to sue might be different from who the OSMF wants to sue. For example, let's say you want to sue Cloudmade... ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
On Sun, 27 Dec 2009, Gervase Markham wrote: The new Contributor Terms contain the equivalent of a joint copyright assignment to the OSMF. That makes this recent article by Michael Meeks on copyright assignment in free software very relevant: http://www.gnome.org/~michael/blog/copyright-assignment.html Of course, not all of the pros and cons he raises are relevant to data rather than software. But the following sentence struck me: It appears (to me) that choosing a license that can be upgraded and bug-fixed in-flight by a responsible steward or proxy substantially removes the requirement of assignment for re-licensing. I would recommend reading the whole article. Gerv Thanks Gerv, the article does warrant spending half an hour reading and thinking about. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
The new Contributor Terms contain the equivalent of a joint copyright assignment to the OSMF. That makes this recent article by Michael Meeks on copyright assignment in free software very relevant: http://www.gnome.org/~michael/blog/copyright-assignment.html Of course, not all of the pros and cons he raises are relevant to data rather than software. But the following sentence struck me: It appears (to me) that choosing a license that can be upgraded and bug-fixed in-flight by a responsible steward or proxy substantially removes the requirement of assignment for re-licensing. I would recommend reading the whole article. Gerv ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
One issue is that copyright assignment does not work in europe, the fsfe has worked on some of these issues. http://www.fsfe.org/projects/ftf/fla.en.html see also : http://lwn.net/Articles/359013/ This is how coding/etc. for money works in Europe too -- you retain your moral rights, but your employer gets _all_ usage rights, which typically includes taking those right away from you so that while you can still claim authorship of the code, you cannot use it in any way. Merry Christmas! mike On Sat, Dec 26, 2009 at 2:19 PM, Gervase Markham gerv-gm...@gerv.net wrote: The new Contributor Terms contain the equivalent of a joint copyright assignment to the OSMF. That makes this recent article by Michael Meeks on copyright assignment in free software very relevant: http://www.gnome.org/~michael/blog/copyright-assignment.html Of course, not all of the pros and cons he raises are relevant to data rather than software. But the following sentence struck me: It appears (to me) that choosing a license that can be upgraded and bug-fixed in-flight by a responsible steward or proxy substantially removes the requirement of assignment for re-licensing. I would recommend reading the whole article. Gerv ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
Hi, Gervase Markham wrote: The new Contributor Terms contain the equivalent of a joint copyright assignment to the OSMF. You have said that multiple times already, but I - and, it seems, others - don't view it that way. You do not assign copyright to OSMF; you only grant them a license to sublicense. That makes this recent article by Michael Meeks on copyright assignment in free software very relevant: If the article is only relevant to copyright assignment situations, then I don't think it is relevant for us. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09 E008°23'33 ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
On Sat, Dec 26, 2009 at 1:30 PM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Gervase Markham wrote: The new Contributor Terms contain the equivalent of a joint copyright assignment to the OSMF. You have said that multiple times already, but I - and, it seems, others - don't view it that way. You do not assign copyright to OSMF; you only grant them a license to sublicense. Where is the actual legal phrasing of this license to sublicense? ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright Assignment
Hi, Anthony wrote: Where is the actual legal phrasing of this license to sublicense? In the paragraph just below the actual legal phrasing of the copyright assignment! Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09 E008°23'33 ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
