Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright status of OSM map data - publishable memo for USA
On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 9:55 AM, Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com wrote: Anthony wrote: (By the way, to answer Frederick more directly, the laws surrounding joint authorship are *not* relatively universal. In the UK, joint authorship works in almost exactly the *opposite* way. In order to exploit a joint work, you need the permission of *all* the joint authors, not just one.) Yes, I talked with Francis Davey about this and he said the same. The joint work rules are an American pecularity and generate lots of well- paid legal work drafting contracts to get around them. Everywhere except the USA there isn't this problem. Does anyone have insight into how Wikipedia deal with this? Is it even a concern for them, and if not, why not? 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright status of OSM map data - publishable memo for USA
On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 1:20 PM, Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com wrote: I asked two attorneys in the USA to look into the question of whether the OSM map data falls under copyright. Please see earlier messages in this thread for details of how the lawyers were chosen and the question asked. They produced a written report which they asked me not to distribute publicly because of attorney-client privilege. I have sent a copy of that report to the LWG and the OSM board, and I am happy to share a copy with anyone who'd like to see it, but I think it is necessary to have some results which can be fully public. To this end the lawyers have produced a public version which does not mention OSM by name, although the issues addressed are those relevant to our project. You can see the report at http://membled.com/work/osm/Map_Project_Memo_public_FINAL.pdf This is good work Ed. Very clear and seems to address, full-on, most of the issues surrounding the topic. There's a word missing in the last line of section 2 (b). I guessing from the context the missing word is 'enforce'. In case it isn't, could you seek confirmation from the authors? Some of the conclusions I get from this (and others are welcome to draw out other conclusions and loose ends) are: * Maps are copyrightable, even when stored and represented as a database. * Facts are not copyrightable, but the creative bar is very low and if any originality is involved (selection, coordination, or arrangement, no matter how crude humble or obvious) then anything except the raw facts is copyrightable. * Tracing from maps, and from GPS tracks, is most likely copyrightable. Although the GPS tracks are unlikely to be copyrightable. * Individuals contributions will have copyright status if they pass the orginality test (selection, coordination, or arrangement, no matter how crude humble or obvious). * If the map is considered to be a compilation then all contributors, as joint authors, have joint copyright ownership. The hanging question in my mind is, if we assume, for the moment, that every contributor has joint copyright ownership, what rights would they actually have? Do they have full and unrestricted copyright in the whole compilation? Are they bound, or limited, by any of the terms or conditions that they agreed to when signing up? Are they in any way limited by the CC-BY-SA license grant? Would the Contributor Terms deny them any of their joint ownership rights? 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright status of OSM map data - publishable memo for USA
On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 2:30 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: * Tracing from maps, and from GPS tracks, is most likely copyrightable. Although the GPS tracks are unlikely to be copyrightable. Oops, I meant to say: * Tracing from imagery, and from GPS tracks, is most likely copyrightable. Although the GPS tracks are unlikely to be copyrightable. * If the map is considered to be a compilation then all contributors, as joint authors, have joint copyright ownership. And this point is specifically applicable in the US. Does this joint authorship doctrine apply in other jurisdictions? 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL and publishing source data
On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 11:54 PM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Whatever you publish could have other ingredients than just data; perhaps, a few hundred hours' worth of a cartographer's editing in Illustrator. *That* you don't have to release; it is yours to keep. That can't be right. If I take a produced work and spend a few hundred hours adding hundreds of facts to it then it doesn't count as a derived databse? How do you judge whether a cartographer's efforts are just worthless prettifying or the introduction of new information? If you cannot reproduce the Produced Work 100% faithfully from the Derived Database in what sense does the Derived Database contain all of the information required to create the Produced Work? 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL and publishing source data
On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 9:53 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Hi, On 11/28/11 10:43, 80n wrote: If you cannot reproduce the Produced Work 100% faithfully from the Derived Database in what sense does the Derived Database contain all of the information required to create the Produced Work? It doesn't, and it doesn't have to. Only in so far as the *database* has been augmented to make the produced work does such information have to be released. Any other, non-database input (what you seem to call worthless prettyfing - I guess that members of the trade might disagree!) that becomes part of the Produced Work is not affected by the ODbL. If new information is added at the non-database stage - let's say someone prints out a map, paints something over it making the whole thing a work of art, then notices a missing road and pencils it in - then that is not the making of a derived database and does not have to be shared. If the same guy, however, goes back the the data, adds the road, and makes a new rendering from it, then it is. That's a very fine line you are trying to draw. What you are saying is that I can create a map, publish it as a produced work and then update that map as much as I like with impunity. Technically I can do that using a pencil as you suggest, or I can do the same thing by processing the produced work into a digital form and applying pencil marks using an automated process. But if you allow the latter then you effectively allow reverse engineering of the produced work. Why should a lead pencil be considered ok, but an electronic pencil not be permitted? 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL and publishing source data
On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 11:25 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Hi, On 11/28/11 11:58, 80n wrote: That's a very fine line you are trying to draw. Yes, I agree it is difficult. I think that it is entirely possible to arrive at an identical end product through different processes, where one process has different license implications than the other. For example: I could render a map from OSM and then render something else on top of it, say a commercially acquired set of hotel POIs. That would clearly be a Produced Work; I could point anyone asking for the source data to the planet file and the rendering rule, and keep the hotel POIs to myself. This is an overlay on top of a Produced Work. Whether it's produced by layers at the browser end or by compositing two separate images doesn't seem to be materially different. I could also remove all hotels from my OSM copy and add in the commercial hotels instead, then render a map from it. Unless the commercial dataset is missing data, the resulting map could look 100% identical to the map from the first process, but this time I would be required to release the hotel dataset because it is part of the derived database used to create the produced work. Leaving aside the step about removing content for the moment, I don't see how this is materially different from the first example. You've simply overlaid your hotels on top of the OSM data. I don't think the mechanics of how you achieved this are, from a legal perspective, important. Any process can be considered as a series of inputs to a black box and some outputs. If the inputs are the same (an OSM database and a set of POIs) and the output is the same (a map with an overlay of the POIs) then it shouldn't matter whether it was achieved using a complex machine or monkeys with typewriters. Same thing with your reply to my pencil example - depending on how exactly you update your produced work, you might or might not have to release a database. If this were to be possible then it would be a very undesirable flaw. The intent of ODbL was to protect OSMs database and ensure share-alike. If it can be circumvented then it fails one of its main purposes. I am interested in exploring this further with the aim of finding good community norms, nailing down the problem cases, and making the introduction of ODbL for OSM a success. I'm interested in finding out where the weaknesses in ODbL are and ensuring that they are understood. Version 1 of anything is likely to have imperfections and it would be better to find them sooner rather than later. A working version of ODbL is the goal I would aim for. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL and publishing source data
On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 4:17 PM, Eugene Alvin Villar sea...@gmail.comwrote: On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 6:00 AM, Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com wrote: I see that you and Frederik disagreed here. (FWIW I think he is right - a PNG file can clearly be seen as a database of pixel values. It is an image too, and perhaps even a map or a photograph, but legally it would be hard to argue that it *not* a database.) Taking this argument to its logical conclusion, every digital file is a database of bytes and thus everything you create digitally from any ODbL database is a derived database and not a produced work. This seems silly. The European definition of a database is a collection of independent works, data or other materials arranged in a systematic or methodical way and individually accessible by electronic or other means. Individual pixels comprising a typical image (say a PNG map tile) are not independent works. Each pixel cannot stand on its own and aren't useful unless considered together with its neighboring pixels to form an image. Pixels may not be independent works but I think they might be data or other materials, in which case they are covered by that definition. The nearest thing we've got to a good definition of this is that if you use it like a database then it is a database. Whether the courts would agree with that definition remains to be tested, but much discussion here has not yet arrived at anything better. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL and publishing source data
On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 10:00 PM, Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com wrote: Right, so I guess what Kai Kruger wrote you only have to share the last in a chain of derived databases that leads to a produced work, right? is not so? As far as I can see there is no requirement to show your workings as long as you make the Derived Database available under ODbL. Suppose you transform the OSM database, adding in some non-OSM-content along the way and produce a table containing three columns: x, y and colour, where x and y are pixel coordinates for an image and the colour column specifies the colour value for the pixel. The result is that you can publish a table and an image that contain identical information. The table has to be licensed as ODbL and the image, being a Produced Work, can be published under any license whatsoever. So far so good. Assuming the Produced Work was not published under a friendly license it can't be used so we can forget about that. The Derived Database can, however, be transformed into the same (or a similar) image which can be reincorporated. How? By making your own Produced Work you can license it under an OSM friendly license[1]. You would, of course, need to hand trace from it to recover the non-OSM-content but that's easy to do and there's a large army of OSMers who are very skilled at this task, so that's not a problem. For any Derived Database it will always be possible to recover the content by making a liberally licensed Produced Work from it and tracing. 80n [1] You have to do this step because any unfriendly publisher would block the use of the ODbL content directly by simply refusing to agree to the Contributor Terms. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Adopt a PD-Mapper ....... was Re: Refusing CT but declaring contributions as PD
On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 11:07 AM, Simon Poole si...@poole.ch wrote: Would the LWG support assigning the change sets of mappers that have made some kind of PD/CC0 declaration, to mappers that are willing to vouch for the data and accept the CTs? This seems simple. All you need to do is contact a mapper and ask him to give you his username and password. You can then accept the CTs on that account, change the email address and proceed as normal. Don't really see any need to involve the LWG. They would need to go through a similar process of contacting the mapper anyway I expect, so you might as well just get on with it. At least for mappers that have not explicitly declined the CTs this would seem to be doable without creating a conflict. Simon __**_ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.**org/listinfo/legal-talkhttp://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] I want my access back
On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 7:38 AM, Stephan Knauss o...@stephans-server.dewrote: Hi, On 09.08.2011 22:43, 80n wrote: Expecting the crowd to go and re-map stuff wholesale, for somebody else's benefit is just absurd, it's never going to happen. You're wrong with this. At least in the country I'm most active the transition to ODbL ready data is making huge progress. And it's not someone else's benefit, but a benefit for the whole community. The data is not simply replaced, but mostly improved by having more high-resolution imagery available. You can read the whole success story in the forum. What's your estimate for how long it is going to take? ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] I want my access back
On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 8:15 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Hi, On 08/10/11 08:38, Stephan Knauss wrote: You're wrong with this. At least in the country I'm most active the transition to ODbL ready data is making huge progress. And it's not someone else's benefit, but a benefit for the whole community. I, too, am positively surprised by the speed and diligence with which mappers all over the place are working towards getting ready for the big switch. What are you looking at that provides this information? Or is it just anecdotal? Most had held back initially to give people a chance to reconsider, but now things are really moving, and with a very positive attitude at that - it's not grumble grumble grumble why do we have to do this but we're doing our part to put OSM on a solid legal footing, cleaning up behind those whom we couldn't persuade. For this, it is obviously very important *not* to allow any further CC-BY-SA contributions as those would give people a sense of fighting against windmills. Everyone is working to bring the amount of non-relicensable contributions down to zero; adding more non-relicensable contributions would not only pull the rope in the other direction, it would also ruin the spirits of everyone working to fix things. Agreed. fosm.org is the place for CC-BY-SA contributions. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] I want my access back
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 6:53 PM, ce-test, qualified testing bv - Gert Gremmen g.grem...@cetest.nl wrote: As I do not agree with the CT and did not click the right checkbox, I have been blocked contributing access. ** ** OSM promised me that my contributions to be removed in the process to OdBL. That did not happen. Nor has a OdBL version of the OSM database been launched. Gert, your contributions are being looked after at fosm.org. You are welcome to edit there and there's no threat of them ever being deleted. ** ** OSM is still CC-BY-SA and it seems that that won’t change soon. ** Sadly I think you are right. The removal process was never thought through properly. OSM will be stuck with CC-BY-SA content for a very very long time. Expecting the crowd to go and re-map stuff wholesale, for somebody else's benefit is just absurd, it's never going to happen. Mapping is addictive but pointless mapping is no fun at all. So the only recourse is to do bulk deletions. But I don't see anyone hurrying to write the software to do that even if anyone could agree on what it should actually do. ** I think the decision to block my account and that of many others has been a bit premature, and the community should reconsider their decision. ** ** Especially now it looks as if the OdBl will never make it for legal and practical reasons. True. ** ** ** ** Gert Gremmen ** ** ** ** - [image: Osm] Openstreetmap.nl (alias: cetest) P* Before printing, think about the environment.* ** ** ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk image001.gif___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] A case for CT + CC-BY-SA
On Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 1:01 PM, Richard Fairhurst rich...@systemed.netwrote: Rather, it's this: in the absence of enforcement, good guys will comply with the licence voluntarily, and bad guys won't. In the absence of enforcement they good guys will comply with the license if they can. If the terms are onerous then even the good guys will fail to comply. ODbL is way too onerous. Firstly it's not easy to understand what would be required for compliance (the language is unclear and even the best available advice is conflicting) and secondly if the requirement is for a database then it's impractical in many cases. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] A case for CT + CC-BY-SA
and will likely not get it completely wrong. But it goes beyond that. The complexity of the ODbL itself makes it hard to define what you need to do to comply, and we have alreadly seen some indication of this when people asked what the ODbL means in detail. And, of course, choosing a dual licensing approach would let people pick the license they are more comfortable with. * Inadequate protection * CC-BY-SA might not work for data. OSM data is not currently abused in a manner that threatens the project, and that might never even happen. Nevertheless, it seems wise to make sure that we can either prevent this or at least react when it happens. It is true that, by continuing to offer the database under CC-BY-SA, we would no longer /preemptively/ address this potential issue. Making contributors agree to the CT gives us the ability to react *if* legal weaknesses of the CC-BY-SA are actually abused at some future point, though, and I believe that this is sufficient. * Conclusion * The CC-BY-SA is popular, understandable and easy to implement for users of our data. It does not build legal barriers that make using OSM much harder than it strictly needs to be, which encourages people to use OSM in creative, productive and unexpected ways. Continued publication of the OSM database under CC-BY-SA will therefore help us fulfil our project's mission, and can be implemented without disruption of the ongoing licensing process. There's one other consideration which would support your proposal. The task of deleting all non-ODbL content from the OSM database is onerous. It's likely to take a long time to do manually and the final automated removal will either do a lot of damage or be too lenient and forever leave doubt about the provenance of OSM's content. Currently this process is so poorly defined that I personally don't think it will ever happen and so you'll get your CT+CC-BY-SA by default anyway (but then I have issues with the CTs as well so it's no solution for me, which is why I created f...). 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Hitting reset on talk-au
Sorry this was supposed to be copied to legal-talk, not the osm-fork list. Apologies. On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 4:35 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 3:47 PM, Michael Collinson m...@ayeltd.bizwrote: ** If it is UK Ordnance Survey data that is the issue, we now have direct clarification from them that they have no objection to continued distribution of data derived from their OS OpenData under under the ODbL. At the moment, this excludes Code-Point Open, (postcode) data. Hope that helps. The statement from the OS did not specify what content license was to be used for their content. They did not explicitly mention that their content could be included using the DbCL. My understanding is that the OpenData license would be the one that was applicable unless a more permissive license was *explicitly* granted by them, which it was not. Is this a correct reading of how things stand at the moment or have OS subsequently clarified that they are happy for their content to be licensed using DbCL within a database that is protected by ODbL? ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] license change effect on un-tagged nodes
On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 7:58 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Simon, Andreas, all, when discussing these things with the person who goes by the pseudonym of John Smith, keep in mind that he is spending a lot of time building/supporting an OpenStreetMap fork. The forkers, as I like to call them, are driven by all kinds of motivations, the most benign probably being a sincere worry about data loss - they believe that the license change is going to hurt OSM so much that they must do all they can do retain a live copy of the old OSM, or even dissuade OSMF from changing altogether. Frederik, I'm sure you've been paying attention an know full well that the reason fosm.org exists is because we have grave concerns about the new license. The only thing we are forking is the license, we are not forking the tagging scheme or the community or even the objectives of OSM. Data loss is your problem not ours. I see people doing thought experiments about how they can get around the wishes of contributors who have, in good faith, provided their content under the CC license. Those people who have not agreed to the CT have not consented for their content to be used in any other way. You should respect that. A main objective of OSM was to create maps that were free enough to be used by everyone. Anything that steps across the line will taint OSM with the impurity that we strived for so long to avoid. There will forever be doubt about the provenance of OSM data. 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Are CT contributors are in breach of the CC-BY-SA license?
On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 10:55 AM, John Smith deltafoxtrot...@gmail.com wrote: That would be a very narrow and strict interruption of cc-by-sa, The definition of a derivative work is pretty clear. ... a work based upon the Work or upon the Work and other pre-existing works, ..., or any other form in which the Work may be recast, transformed, or adapted,... Modifying content that has been downloaded from OSM is a transformation based upon the Work and (presumably) other pre-existing works (such as tracklogs or imagery). The test of this would be to try using JOSM to contribute without doing a download first. You will not get a good outcome. especially since the assumption is a derivative is required by the user to generate any changes made when the source of their changes would matter just as much. For example if they are using GPS data all they would use existing data for is to work out what doesn't need to be done. Same would go for the Canadian mass import currently occurring,same goes for other data imports such as OS. The only time it would matter is for things like extrapolation the position of streets based on the location of existing streets. Yes, it's editing of *existing* content that is the breach, not the contribution of pure new content in a previously mapped area or when an import is performed without reference to existing content. IANAL etc On 4/17/11, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: It would seem to me that anyone who has agreed to the contributor terms and who then edits content that is published by OSM is in breach of the CC-BY-SA license. Currently the OSM database is published as a CC-BY-SA work. If that content is downloaded from the OSM database and modified then this creates a derived work. If that derived work is loaded back to OSM then it can only be done so under the same license by which it was received, namely CC-BY-SA. That's the nature of the share alike clause in CC-BY-SA. But anyone who has agreed to the contributor terms is claiming that they can contribute this content under a different license. Now I know that it is the intention of OSMF to delete any such content, but in fact anyone who has edit such CC-BY-SA derived works is already in actual breach of the license under which they *received* that content. If you have agreed to the contributor terms you are likely to be breaching the terms of CC-BY-SA. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk -- Sent from my mobile device ___ 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] Are CT contributors are in breach of the CC-BY-SA license?
On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 11:01 AM, Eugene Alvin Villar sea...@gmail.com wrote: IANAL, but as long as the data is currently being released as CC-BY-SA, then there is no breach of the CC license. Clause 4 of CC-BY-SA 2.0 only permits you to distribute copies of a deriviative work under the terms of the CC-BY-SA license. Uploading the derived work to OSM is a form of distribution. This can only be done under CC-BY-SAQ. You do not have the right to distribute the content to OSM on the terms required by the CTs. CC-BY-SA only stipulates that the data, when published, must be under CC-BY-SA. It doesn't say that you cannot enter contracts promising to release the data *in the future* under another license. You can indeed enter into a contract with OSMF but you cannot distribute CC-BY-SA content to them under the terms of that agreement. Arguably, users who have previously agreed that all their contributions to OSM are CC-BY-SA might still be covered by that as the CTs do not explicitly override that pre-existing agreement. The CTs require you to grant rights to OSMF that, for CC-BY-SA licensed content, you do not have. What OSMF subsequently proposes to do is irrelevant. If the data will be released *in the future* under a different license, then it's true that the CC license is breached. Agreed, this issue is with users attempting to grant rights to OSMF now, not in the future, that they do not have. Contributors, not OSMF, are in breach of CC-BY-SA if they distribute CC-BY-SA derived contributions to OSM having agreed to the CTs. They are attempting to distribute content to OSM under an agreement that is not CC-BY-SA and they just plain cannot do that. But, in the case of OSM-ODbL, assuming that all the ODbL rejectors' IP will be removed before the actual relicensing, since what remains is the IP of all who have agreed to the CT, then it's like everyone mutually agreed to relicense their own data under a new license, thus, not breaching the CC license. On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 5:39 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: It would seem to me that anyone who has agreed to the contributor terms and who then edits content that is published by OSM is in breach of the CC-BY-SA license. Currently the OSM database is published as a CC-BY-SA work. If that content is downloaded from the OSM database and modified then this creates a derived work. If that derived work is loaded back to OSM then it can only be done so under the same license by which it was received, namely CC-BY-SA. That's the nature of the share alike clause in CC-BY-SA. But anyone who has agreed to the contributor terms is claiming that they can contribute this content under a different license. Now I know that it is the intention of OSMF to delete any such content, but in fact anyone who has edit such CC-BY-SA derived works is already in actual breach of the license under which they *received* that content. If you have agreed to the contributor terms you are likely to be breaching the terms of CC-BY-SA. ___ 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] Rights granted to OSMF (Section 2 of the CT)
On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 10:58 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: I'd hate to see someone go and say we don't want your contribution. But if any mapper really believes that at some point in the future, they will want to withdraw their data from OSM because 2/3 of mappers choose a free and open license that this mapper might not be comfortable with - then that mapper's attitude is simply not something that we can live with in a community project That rather neatly sums up the position taken by OSMF doesn't it? Their attitude of we don't want your contribution is definitely not something we can live with in a community project. Everyone has made an irrevocable contribution to OSM. Nobody is threatening to remove their own data. It's just OSMF that is threatening to remove OTHER PEOPLE's data. That is exceptionally unpalatable. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Are CT contributors are in breach of the CC-BY-SA license?
On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 11:50 AM, Eugene Alvin Villar sea...@gmail.com wrote: I guess your argument hinges on whether uploading data to the OSM servers is a form of publishing in terms of copyright. Indeed, it's the act of distribution. The question is, if the user uploads a derivative work to OSM is that than an act of distribution? If they were to distribute a copy of the derived work to some other third party such as Google, and grant Google rights that go beyond CC-BY-SA then it's clear that they have breached CC-BY-SA. There is no special condition or exception for OSM and so the same rule applies. If you create a work and never publish it (in other words, nobody else will see it), then it is not yet copyrighted. Even works for hire are not copyrighted until the hiring entity publishes it. Again, IANAL, but submitting data to the OSM server where it is *immediately* published via the OSM API and *immediately* made available to the public licensed as CC-BY-SA, doesn't put the contributor in breach of the CC license. Since the publishing doesn't occur until the data is made available via the OSM API (and the OSM Planet), then I believe there is no problem. On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 6:23 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 11:01 AM, Eugene Alvin Villar sea...@gmail.com wrote: IANAL, but as long as the data is currently being released as CC-BY-SA, then there is no breach of the CC license. Clause 4 of CC-BY-SA 2.0 only permits you to distribute copies of a deriviative work under the terms of the CC-BY-SA license. Uploading the derived work to OSM is a form of distribution. This can only be done under CC-BY-SAQ. You do not have the right to distribute the content to OSM on the terms required by the CTs. CC-BY-SA only stipulates that the data, when published, must be under CC-BY-SA. It doesn't say that you cannot enter contracts promising to release the data *in the future* under another license. You can indeed enter into a contract with OSMF but you cannot distribute CC-BY-SA content to them under the terms of that agreement. Arguably, users who have previously agreed that all their contributions to OSM are CC-BY-SA might still be covered by that as the CTs do not explicitly override that pre-existing agreement. The CTs require you to grant rights to OSMF that, for CC-BY-SA licensed content, you do not have. What OSMF subsequently proposes to do is irrelevant. If the data will be released *in the future* under a different license, then it's true that the CC license is breached. Agreed, this issue is with users attempting to grant rights to OSMF now, not in the future, that they do not have. Contributors, not OSMF, are in breach of CC-BY-SA if they distribute CC-BY-SA derived contributions to OSM having agreed to the CTs. They are attempting to distribute content to OSM under an agreement that is not CC-BY-SA and they just plain cannot do that. But, in the case of OSM-ODbL, assuming that all the ODbL rejectors' IP will be removed before the actual relicensing, since what remains is the IP of all who have agreed to the CT, then it's like everyone mutually agreed to relicense their own data under a new license, thus, not breaching the CC license. On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 5:39 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: It would seem to me that anyone who has agreed to the contributor terms and who then edits content that is published by OSM is in breach of the CC-BY-SA license. Currently the OSM database is published as a CC-BY-SA work. If that content is downloaded from the OSM database and modified then this creates a derived work. If that derived work is loaded back to OSM then it can only be done so under the same license by which it was received, namely CC-BY-SA. That's the nature of the share alike clause in CC-BY-SA. But anyone who has agreed to the contributor terms is claiming that they can contribute this content under a different license. Now I know that it is the intention of OSMF to delete any such content, but in fact anyone who has edit such CC-BY-SA derived works is already in actual breach of the license under which they *received* that content. If you have agreed to the contributor terms you are likely to be breaching the terms of CC-BY-SA. ___ 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 -- http://vaes9.codedgraphic.com ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Are CT contributors are in breach of the CC-BY-SA license?
On 17 April 2011 12:09, andrzej zaborowski balr...@gmail.com wrote: I asked a similar question in http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2010-August/004270.html and the answer (which I can't find now) from Frederik and others is that most likely your contribution in this case equals to only the *modification* of the original data. So you're granting OSM a license on your modification of the original data, and not the exact contents of the XML document being uploaded. The question is whether you can upload a CC-BY-SA licensed work under any other license than CC-BY-SA? If I grant you a license to use a creative work under CC-BY-SA, can you then give it to some third party under a different license? I don't see that CC-BY-SA permits this. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Are CT contributors are in breach of the CC-BY-SA license?
On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 2:17 PM, Francis Davey fjm...@gmail.com wrote: On 17 April 2011 13:30, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: The question is whether you can upload a CC-BY-SA licensed work under any other license than CC-BY-SA? I am sorry if I misunderstood your original question. I am not quite sure I understand this one. What do you mean by upload .. .under a licence? That doesn't make sense to me. Do you mean, does CC-BY-SA permit a contributor to contribute to OSMF under the existing contributor terms? (Answer: no) or do you mean something else? Sorry, I was using jargon here which probably only makes sense to those very familiar with the OSM context. I'll try to make myself a little clearer. Suppose there is a creative work that has been published with a CC-BY-SA license. Suppose I take that work and make from it a derivative work. Can I then give a copy of that derivative work to a third party who insists that it is provided to them under an agreement that is like the OSM Contributor Terms 1.2.4? In other words, if I've agreed to the current contributor terms, does the act of submitting CC-BY-SA licensed content to OSM voilate the terms of the CC-BY-SA license? As a bit of background, the process of modifying the OSM map is a three step process: 1) A user gets a subset of the map from the OSM web-site 2) The user makes modifications to that map on their own computer 3) The user gives the modifications back to OSMF via the OSM web-site. All content within the OSM database is published as CC-BY-SA 2.0. This extends comprehensively however it is obtained. There is no special route that content takes when someone wants to edit something. They request a subset of the map (step 1) which is downloaded to the user's computer where they then modify it (step 2). This subset is licensed under CC-BY-SA just like any other content from OSM and their modifications are a Derivative Work. When user has finished modifying the map they then send it back to OSM (step 3) and in doing so they affirm that the modified content is granted to OSMF under a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable licence, or whatever the version of the contributor terms are that they originally signed up to. It seems to me that the CTs get in the way of the loop that is supposed to exist that permits someone to get OSM content, modify it, and then give it back. If the content in this loop is CC-BY-SA licensed then putting up a CT gateway or barrier would appear to break that loop. If I grant you a license to use a creative work under CC-BY-SA, can you then give it to some third party under a different license? I don't see that CC-BY-SA permits this. Yes, for some values of a different licence. Eg, CC-BY-SA 3.0 (us version): I mean a *really* different license, one such as CT 1.2.4 which is known to be incompatible with CC-BY-SA 2.0. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/legalcode Clause 4(b) permits the distribution of the work under certain other licences, including Creative Commons Compatible Licence(s). Its a bafflingly drafted licence (if I may say) since it also says You may not sublicense the Work (in clause 4(a)) which directly contradicts what is said in 4(b). Clearly what is intended is that there is a general rule against sublicensing, subject to a specific set of permissions under clause 4(b) even though this comes under a heading Restrictions. Re-distribution under a licence is sublicensing and cannot be anything else. This is probably a bit of a red-herring and I'm not sure it's relevant to the question at hand. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Are CT contributors are in breach of the CC-BY-SA license?
On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 5:39 PM, Francis Davey fjm...@gmail.com wrote: On 17 April 2011 16:56, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: Sorry, I was using jargon here which probably only makes sense to those very familiar with the OSM context. I'll try to make myself a little clearer. Suppose there is a creative work that has been published with a CC-BY-SA license. Suppose I take that work and make from it a derivative work. Can I then give a copy of that derivative work to a third party who insists that it is provided to them under an agreement that is like the OSM Contributor Terms 1.2.4? I think I've already answered this, but to be clear: (1) obviously you can do it I'm not clear about what you mean here. Can you spell it out please? What does 'it' refer to in this sentence? why do you say obviously? And in what sense you mean can? (2) the act of contributing it is not an infringement of the CC-BY-SA licence, because that permits you to do all that is necessary (reproduce, incorporate etc) Ok (3) CC-BY-SA does not give you the authority to sublicence under an arbitrary licence, so you would have no authority to give the licence in CT 1.2.4 or something like it and that grant of licence would be void as against the original copyright owner (though binding on you) Ok, but can you explain what void as against the orginal copyright owner means? Does it mean the grant of license has no effect on the license granted by the owner of the orginal work? (4) If you do sublicense along the lines of CT 1.2.4 then you may be authorising acts on behalf of the recipient which would be infringements of the copyright of the original copyright owner and that authorisation would be a primary infringement of copyright, actionable by the original copyright owner. This point seems to me to be the crux of what I was trying to understand. But it leads to the subsiduary question, is the act of submitting content to OSM an act of distribution or publication as defined by CC-BY-SA? (5) The no warranty clause of the CT probably means you are not liable in contract for your inability to licence. This seems irrelevant. Does that help? Yes that helps a lot. In other words, if I've agreed to the current contributor terms, does the act of submitting CC-BY-SA licensed content to OSM voilate the terms of the CC-BY-SA license? In general, yes. But not if (for example) the content that was CC-BY-SA licensed belonged to the person you were submitting it to (because then you would not be authorising any infringement of copyright). As a bit of background, the process of modifying the OSM map is a three step process: 1) A user gets a subset of the map from the OSM web-site 2) The user makes modifications to that map on their own computer 3) The user gives the modifications back to OSMF via the OSM web-site. OK. That is what I thought and I have no doubts that *that* is fine. I.e. there is no contractual problem, for reasons I have already explained in this message and the last one. All content within the OSM database is published as CC-BY-SA 2.0. This extends comprehensively however it is obtained. There is no special route that content takes when someone wants to edit something. They request a subset of the map (step 1) which is downloaded to the user's computer where they then modify it (step 2). This subset is licensed under CC-BY-SA just like any other content from OSM and their modifications are a Derivative Work. When user has finished modifying the map they then send it back to OSM (step 3) and in doing so they affirm that the modified content is granted to OSMF under a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable licence, or whatever the version of the contributor terms are that they originally signed up to. As I said, a court would almost certainly construe the CT's so that the licence grant was limited to the changes made by the contributor. This seems like an important point. Can the changes be separated from the original work? If the changes cannot stand alone then they must be based on the original CC-BY-SA licensed work and are consequently a derivative work. The acid test here would be to demonstrate that such a contribution can be made with reference to the original work. If it can then it is clearly not a derivative work, but if it can only be made when the user has a copy of the orginal work then surely it must be a derivative? Or is there some other criteria that would better define / describe a derivative work? It seems to me that the CTs get in the way of the loop that is supposed to exist that permits someone to get OSM content, modify it, and then give it back. If the content in this loop is CC-BY-SA licensed then putting up a CT gateway or barrier would appear to break that loop. No. Although there are difficulties with the CT's if you want to incorporate data from other projects, the CT's do
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Are CT contributors are in breach of the CC-BY-SA license?
On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 8:23 PM, Francis Davey fjm...@gmail.com wrote: On 17 April 2011 19:29, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: I'm not clear about what you mean here. Can you spell it out please? What does 'it' refer to in this sentence? why do you say obviously? And in what sense you mean can? Sorry, all I meant was that there is nothing to stop you *doing* something whether it is legal or not. There's a point to this pedantry (or at least part of one). Its often confusing to talk about being able to do X or Y when what's really important is what the legal consequences of it might be. I am sorry if I was less than clear. Understood. (3) CC-BY-SA does not give you the authority to sublicence under an arbitrary licence, so you would have no authority to give the licence in CT 1.2.4 or something like it and that grant of licence would be void as against the original copyright owner (though binding on you) Ok, but can you explain what void as against the orginal copyright owner means? Does it mean the grant of license has no effect on the license granted by the owner of the orginal work? I meant that the grant had no effect on the legal rights of the original copyright owner. It won't stop them from enforcing any right that they were able to enforce before the grant. This point seems to me to be the crux of what I was trying to understand. But it leads to the subsiduary question, is the act of submitting content to OSM an act of distribution or publication as defined by CC-BY-SA? Well, assuming we are worried only by copyright (since CC-BY-SA says nothing about database rights) then the first question is what acts by a contributor might require the permission of he copyright owner (or they would otherwise infringe) then the second question is: does CC-BY-SA give that permission. If I obtain a work subject to copyright then contributing it to the project involves: (i) an act of copying (or reproduction); (ii) possibly an authorisation; and (iii) possibly an act of making available to the public (depending on whether the work was public or not beforehand). For simplicity lets assume (iii) doesn't apply as it will not in most cases. So, reproduction requires the permission of the copyright owner. CC-BY-SA grants a right to to reproduce the Work, so reproduction by the contributor won't infringe the copyright owner's copyright because the contributor has permission via the CC licence. distribution and publication aren't terms used in UK copyright law for classes of activity that require permission of the copyright owner. You can find a list of acts restricted by copyright at: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/16 Distribution is a term used in CC-BY-SA, but I guess this is effectively embraced by the term Copy in the UK legislation, as you cannot distribute something without first making a copy. Section 16 (2) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 says: Copyright in a work is infringed by a person who without the licence of the copyright owner does, or authorises another to do, any of the acts restricted by the copyright. From this it seems to me that giving of a copy of a CC-BY-SA licensed work to OSM by someone who has agreed to the contributor terms would violate this clause. They are authorising OSMF to do acts that are restricted by copyright and are not permitted by CC-BY-SA, and that therefor is an explicit infringment of copyright. Have I missed something here? distribution is a term used in the EU Copyright Directive (in article 4): http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32001L0029:EN:HTML and corresponds to s16(b) and s16(ba) in the Copyright Act. But you are more likely to be concerned with the rights in article 3 concerning communication to the public. distribution is a permitted act under CC-BY-SA under 3(d). Restricted by 4(a) as only being under this license (USians don't know how to spell :-). License, licence, דערלויבעניש ,דערלויבעניש ;) distribution doesn't appear to be defined under the CC licence, but it seems to me that the sense of 3(c) and 3(d) must be wide enough to permit distribution in the EU/UK sense. A contributor's uploading of a work would not, on its own, amount to a distribution it seems to me, Why not? They are making a copy and providing that copy to a third party. Is there anything in copyright legislation that permits a copy to be made in private, where in private is between two consenting but separate parties? If I copy something and then give it to someone else under a private agreement between the two of us, am I violating copyright? but the contributor is almost certainly engaged in a joint enterprise with others (including the OSMF) to do so and again almost certainly authorises it as well. So the distinction probably isn't very important. Does that help? Yes that helps a lot. I'm glad. I'm sorry I haven't had a chance
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Compliance timeline
On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 3:40 PM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Hi, On 04/08/2011 10:21 AM, Rob Myers wrote: I think it would make more sense to work with the Creative Commons people on CC-BY-SA version 4, so we can upgrade licences without deleting any data or requiring every contributor to transfer rights to the OSMF. Then everyone could just keep on mapping. I'm not sure how much wriggle room there is for addressing OSM's concerns about BY-SA in the 4.0 revision process as it hasn't actually been announced yet. The noises emanating from CC seem to say basically that 1. certainly no CC-BY-SA 4.0 in 2011 and perhaps not even in 2012; So 4.0 will be ready long before OSM switches to ODbL then ;) 2. CC will not write licenses that restrict content over and above what is protected by law in any given country. While I personally find #2 honourable - after all they are for open data and against adding restrictions so it does make sense - this would, in our specific case, mean that we have no solution for the problem that our data is not protected in the US. Is there any evidence that OSM data has been abused more in the US than in any other country? OSM has been around a long time now and time has shown that the reasons for switching to ODbL are unjustified. Where is this threat that ODbL is supposed to be protecting us from? Also, Ed, I think that your wording transfer rights to the OSMF wrong because under the new scheme rights are not transferred, just granted. One of the major advantages of this is that OSMF is then the publisher of the database and thereby OSMF (and in extension, the community) is in a position to authoritatively interpret the license answer questions like can I do X, something that we cannot do today. No, that's not correct. Judges make authoritative interpretations of license terms. Not the people who own the IP or who wrote the license. I.e. even if we were planning to switch to CC-BY-SA 4, the Contributor Terms would still make a lot of sense. Bye Frederik ___ 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] Someone already had a look at the Bing Terms of Use?
On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 11:39 AM, Rob Myers r...@robmyers.org wrote: On 19/12/10 10:30, Andrew Harvey wrote: Where is this direct statement from Microsoft that says derived information from aerial imagery delivered through their map api can be licensed under a CT compatible license? Microsoft have directly stated that Bing imagery may be used to update OSM. The licence PDF states: Any updates you make to the OpenStreetMap map via the Application (even if not published to third parties) must be contributed back to openstreetmaps.org. openstreetmaps.org [sic] It's absolutely clear that if they don't even know the proper domain name for OpenStreetMap and didn't even spell check the document (Imagerty) that they have taken little care over this. I've not seen this license published on a Microsoft/Bing owned web-site so any cautious person would be prudent to doubt even the authenticity of this text. Personally I'm sure it's a genuine attempt by Bing to license something to OSM. I think they are trying to license the right for some applications to access their imagery api, with the additional constraints that any resulting edits are contributed to OSM. The agreement makes no observation or comment about the licenses involved (CC, ODbL, CT, DbCL) and would have to be considered a separate matter. In other words, this license makes no grants of rights to publish derived works under any particular license, over and above what was already there. If we couldn't do it before, we can't do it now, but that also implies that if we can do it now we were also allowed to do it before, although we may not have had the right to use their API and/or an application to do that. Agreeing to the CTs is a condition of doing so. - Rob. ___ 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] Someone already had a look at the Bing Terms of Use?
On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 3:29 PM, Grant Slater openstreet...@firefishy.comwrote: On 19 December 2010 14:40, David Groom revi...@pacific-rim.net wrote: The licence PDF states: Any updates you make to the OpenStreetMap map via the Application (even if not published to third parties) must be contributed back to openstreetmaps.org. Which is NOT the same as stating Microsoft have directly stated that Bing imagery may be used to update OSM. Indeed, had Microsoft have directly stated that Bing imagery may be used to update OSM, then I suspect you would have pointed to a paragraph which backed up that assertion. As I've written before[2] the only direct mention Microsoft have made of derived data made from tracing Bing Imagery is their statement that it isn't allowed [3]. Have you read? Microsoft mention a whole lot more than what link to http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/maps/archive/2010/12/01/bing-maps-aerial-imagery-in-openstreetmap.aspx Try the google cache version: http://bit.ly/eUjkKS What you link to in [3] is Bing's standard terms for everyone else... Not what applies for OSM. Like I said, what applies for OSM only refers to the use of some applications. It make no grant of rights to derive works from their imagery. Without an explict override I'd expect Microsoft to have a very good case if they wanted to. But as David and I both said, we believe that it is their intent to allow. I've seem some crappy license agreements in my time so nothing unusual about this one. 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Someone already had a look at the Bing Termsof Use?
On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 8:04 PM, Grant Slater openstreet...@firefishy.comwrote: Download the license from the OpenGeoData post, it is called Bing Maps Imagery Editor API License FINAL.pdf That's quite curious. Several non-Microsoft sources have indicated that the license will be subject to future revisions. And yet the file name of this document claims it to be FINAL. Like I said, I've seen some crappy licenses... ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources
On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 9:57 AM, Rob Myers r...@robmyers.org wrote: Yes, an upgrade clause is (on balance) good, although some people regard that loss of control as immoral in itself. But that already removes the control of individuals over the licencing other individuals can use in the future. And OSM has already ended up with the wrong licence once. Yes, the current license is *so* wrong that the project is a complete failure. There are no contributors, and nobody is able to use the content. Measured by the simple criteria of whether or not OSM is successful then you just can't say that it's got the wrong license. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources
On 12/9/10, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: I think that, even more than free and open, share-alike is a term that is very difficult to define, and if one tries to define it, one will already have written half a new license. Share alike is a very simple thing to define. If you receive something you can only distribute it under exactly the same terms that you received it. Any variation on that, like for example, being able to distribute some part under different terms is share-different, not share-alike. Simple. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Unsetting CT flag
On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 8:59 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Hi, On 12/07/10 09:24, ke...@cordina.org.uk wrote: However, I believe the license is different. Contributors give OSMF a licence to use their data in a particular way. That licence is to their personal rights. I think it is wrong that this licence can be changed in the future without the consent of all contributors whose data will be affected. Maybe it is just a problem with concepts and wording. Where you say license, I think CT: The contributors grant OSMF the right to use their data under specific rules. These rules can never be changed without their consent, and it would be wrong (like you say above) to try and retroactively change these rules. These rules include the right for OSMF to redistribute the data under certain licenses, the choice of which must conform to a set of criteria which are defined *in advance* by the contributor and are *not modifiable*. So, the const-ness you're looking for is in fact there - just not on the level on which you are lookign for it. Not at all. A 2/3rds majority of *active* contributors can change the license under which everyone elses content is published. Actual active contributors are already a small minority of all contributors, and will inevitably become a smaller and smaller minority as time goes on. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Unsetting CT flag
On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 9:25 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: 80n, On 12/07/10 10:08, 80n wrote: So, the const-ness you're looking for is in fact there - just not on the level on which you are lookign for it. Not at all. A 2/3rds majority of *active* contributors can change the license under which everyone elses content is published. Yes. But no majority in the world can change the rules under which you will have contributed your data (the contributor terms), even if you're long dead. Your data will always be under these terms, which allow OSMF to choose the license for redistribution providing they meet certain criteria that you have agreed to. There is *no* way for OSMF to, for example, * license the data under a non-free or non-open license * license the data under a license not agreed to by 2/3 of active contributors * change the definition of active contributor without asking you. These parameters of your agreement with OSMF are fixed and cannot be changed without renegotiation with you personally. You would agree, however, that OSMF could change the license to one that is not share-alike? If you read the link I referenced about carpetbagging of UK mutual building societies, then you'll appreciate that the criteria for an active contributor is way to weak to be much of an impediment. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Unsetting CT flag
On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 6:58 PM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Hi, pec...@gmail.com wrote: License is fine. It is CT which in fact still allows OSMF to change data license to any other free license (which could be strip share alike and attribution requirements) what blocks usage. In fact, there is NO license which allows such CT to coexist. Only PD, and that's even not working in all countries. I'm sure that if, at any time in the future, the OSM license needs to be changed, it will be into something that works in all countries. We don't know if it will ever be necessary; we don't know what that license might be; we don't even know which countries will be around then and what their legal systems will look like. Think long-term! This is not a clause aimed at next year. I know that ODbL team talked about changing description of free license, but I don't see any official statements about that. I'm afraid that PDists got their way all over again. ODbL is not a PD license, so you do not have to be afraid. As for the distant future - we don't know who will be in OSM then, what their preferences will be, and wheter you and I will be alive then. I think it is ok to let those who *then* run OSM decide, instead of trying to force onto them what we today think is right. I think the problem with this idea is that it opens the door for carpetbaggers[1]. The purpose of share-alike licenses is to prevent the freeness of people's contributions from *ever* being hijacked. I, for one, certainly want to ensure that whoever runs OSM at some indeterminate point in the future can not pervert the principle on which I made my contributions. Anything less is unacceptable and is disrespectful to those who built OSM in the first place. 80n [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpetbagger#United_Kingdom And legal-talk is that way --- 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 ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Bing - Terms of Use
On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 1:45 PM, Chris Fleming m...@chrisfleming.org wrote: On 01/12/10 08:52, Richard Fairhurst wrote: Andrew Harvey wrote: Just to clarify is this http://www.microsoft.com/maps/product/terms.html the document which contains the license grant? No; the document is the one embedded in the OpenGeoData posting (http://opengeodata.org/microsoft-imagery-details). Like I say I'd envisage it might be firmed up a little in the coming weeks. It's worth noting that this is more than we've had for the Yahoo imagery More what? More restrictions or more freedoms? ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Database and its contents
On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 11:15 AM, Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com wrote: Rob Myers r...@... writes: I work with databases every day and I don't understand how the 'database' versus 'contents' distinction is meant to apply to maps and to OSM in particular. Imagine a database of names, song titles, photographs, recipes, poems or credit card numbers. Yes, this makes perfect sense. What seems nonsensical is taking that and trying to apply it to the quite different world of geodata, maps and OSM. What seems to throw people when we are talking about geodata in a database rather than a collection of poems/photos/songs is the granularity of the contents. But it doesn't really matter whether we regard points, ways, uploads or any other unit as the content of the database. The content of the database is any pieces of data smaller than the entire database. Anything - so a planet dump of Germany is the 'content'? Or if that is too much, what about a smaller extract the size of your neighbourhood? I don't want to say that just because the boundary is fuzzy the concept must be unworkable. Real life and the law deal with fuzzy boundaries all the time. But to me it seems not merely fuzzy, but nonexistent. The thing is that an individual piece of data is entirely meaningless by itself - whereas you can take a photograph out of Wikipedia and use just that photo, it makes no sense to extract 'a point', 'a way' or even 'a tag' from OSM. The only unit that makes sense to use is a partial extract of the whole thing - complete with ways, points and tags - which then is clearly a 'database' and not mere 'contents'. Or if it is 'contents' then equally the entirety of OSM taken as a whole must be considered 'contents'. If we wanted to, we could produce an explanatory text which would accompany the licence terms and explain with examples what the OSM project considers to be its database and what we think of as contents. But that doesn't mean the distinction exists in law or would be understood by a court. It would just be on the level of social convention and a request for people to follow the spirit of the licence as well as the letter. Which is fine - I'm all in favour of that - but it makes all the elaborate legal gymnastics seem a bit pointless. Any complexity in this is a product of the law not the licence... I don't think it is a case of the law being complex, but rather of trying to invent new constructs that don't correspond to the law at all, or indeed to common sense. (The example of a collection of recordings or photographs is fine, but that's not what we are dealing with.) That is why things become foggy. Indeed, using something that is so novel and untested as ODbL to license OSM's work is foolish. Especially given that copyright as applied to maps is well established and have been in use for a couple of hundred years. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Best license for future tiles?
On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 2:56 PM, Rob Myers r...@robmyers.org wrote: On 11/19/2010 02:47 PM, Rob Myers wrote: So if what Christine O'Donnell^D^D^Dyou are saying is correct the ODbL doesn't allow you to make proprietary produced works either. And, while I have the text of BY-SA 2.0 generic open in front of me, I can't find any mention of the words map, cartography, geodata or database in the licence that OSM currently uses. And if you had the text of BY-SA 3.0 open in front of you, then you'd see that it has a lot to say about these matters: *Work* means the literary and/or artistic work offered under the terms of this License including without limitation any production in the literary, scientific and artistic domain, *whatever may be the mode or form of its expression* including ... an illustration, *map*, plan, sketch or three-dimensional work relative to *geography*, topography, architecture or science; ... Hmm, perhaps we could use a license like this... ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [DRAFT] Contributor Terms 1.2
On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 4:52 AM, Simon Ward si...@bleah.co.uk wrote: On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 09:15:16PM +1100, Andrew Harvey wrote: If OSMF is not stoping existing contributors to continue to upload their CC BY-SA work without agreeing the the CTs, perhaps new users should not be required to agree to the CTs to sign up. Otherwise some new users will be shuned away while those existing users are allowed to contribute to the project. I think everyone should be treated fairly, regardless of whether some people signed up earlier than others. Occasionally I see somebody write something sensible, and this is one of those occasions. Yes, all users (contributors?) should be treated the same, regardless of when they joined. +1 The OSMF, after member “vote”, is committed to putting up the new licence for community adoption. In doing this, it has confused itself with supporting the process and supporting the licence itself. It goes even further, not necessarily directly by OSMF members, but most likely influenced by it, to state such things as “we are changing the license”. I generally consider “adoption” as something done by choice, but this has apparently already been decided for the community. Requiring new users to sign up to the new CTs just adds bias to the adoption of the new licence. I see the ODbL (+DbCL) as an enhancement to the current situation (although I despise the CTs), but manipulating it so that it gets any advantage like this is just wrong. I’d like to see all mandatory “agreements” to the CTs so far to be disregarded, and mandatory agreement to the CTs be removed for new sign‐ups. All users may fairly be informed about the licensing options, and where they can indicate their preference. At this point we determine what the level of support for the licence+CT change is, and if and only if we have overall support for the licence+CT change we change the sign up terms to reflect it. Simon -- A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.—John Gall -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.14 (GNU/Linux) iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJM51QiAAoJECRyzizpC9xmPxUQAKs8BE8EZoeF+L850DUOsCYk 4IvzNDcKhoF0KOoVV3+DQVmG4NlXCmcen0Hr3v8go+2szfIlbl0tSU4FMh4y709l /WneINCnYiclFsDNNXI9AghPnIWaN/7mRcYz7WZVIIdqan7IwOjSt6FyFQEYSuf9 03c1ofL48wzJpJJ80BqHRv5qzAGijgpglJOZwiesovy5dPpNyZroiz89SLj6PhAC mJWo2vhdyFtKBnOsYCKb1T+OGdL5uEFryp/eZQwAg9PZ8MElTlOF8BLBZteixIXq EijPqBxhQCsSfugDQkahSNIebuwGrxzLXNpyOnDtkhRrkcvx3o2iN5RYUtaQEBe+ WiR+5iJabZbWw0UvJ2huq1Z9NgF3WkUwBiL/OUPs5K1KcgGPWTBTE2GwiqB4umvD Ckj7p/g+NuQajPIy6n0ZkpulKBl+u++bPWAc/22A5mvQ9H4TJH5jg25lpeWftOvj PlORbVQm+PJvGeuosZUHglZFyEa24+QvLgqHcV/QGWWMIKcV+Y/KwUmiVcru6mAU rYe5Z9K/CK79N7Pt48j3TlLjztH7NVR46b+UdkjNrIImkIWTdeQdVsE0aUi486cK es9qNk6SFL8wLKxAd0Pluc110Fch2cMrGgPGiC0Ha3O6TPf+3GcrYusZAaSMPKBR jbCLrWI9TIFNg2gwLxIE =4sYp -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ 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] Share alike
On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 10:28 AM, Richard Fairhurst rich...@systemed.netwrote: Martijn van Exel wrote: If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one. Consider this case: someone wants to use OpenStreetMap data augmented with POIs from a closed source in a routing application. This routing application is then used within the company for which it is built, for commercial purposes. Do the POIs need to be released under CC-BY-SA? The word 'may' implies they do not. May in this case means are permitted to, so in theory, yes they do need to be released. But, as ever, the coach-and-horses hole in CC-BY-SA means that if your routing application combines the POIs itself (i.e. on the client), you are free to ignore the share-alike clause. You are not free to ignore the share-alike clause. You are simply avoiding it by not publishing the combined work. That's a feature of CC-BY-SA which can be used for the scenario you describe. It's maybe not what we originally envisaged when CC-BY-SA was selected but it's not such a bad thing. There are things in the proposed cure that are much worse. It only applies if you deliver a combined OSM/proprietary file from the server. cheers Richard -- View this message in context: http://gis.638310.n2.nabble.com/OSM-legal-talk-Share-alike-tp5750998p5751096.html Sent from the Legal Talk mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ 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] Share alike
On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 11:11 AM, Richard Fairhurst rich...@systemed.netwrote: 80n wrote: You are not free to ignore the share-alike clause. You are simply avoiding it by not publishing the combined work. The ever-unreliable dictionary on this Mac defines publish as print (something) in a book or journal so as to make it generally known: we pay $10 for every letter we publish. You certainly are making the combined work known, and insofar as print can be interpreted as displayed on a monitor (you'd have thought Apple would ship a dictionary on their Macs that was written some time in the last 50 years), it's spot on. Take the example at http://www.geowiki.com/halcyon/ : the combined work is OSM data (CC-BY-SA) and a map stylesheet. _But_ the map stylesheet does not have to be licensed as CC-BY-SA because the client (in this case, a Flash app) is doing the combining. I see the example. Are you saying that this is a problem? It looks perfectly fine to me. Perhaps a better example would be a mashup of POIs on an OSM map. The POIs are not tainted by the OSM license if the combination is done on the client. If the combination was done on the server and published then yes they become tainted. It's not great that there is such a distinction but it's a clear and consistent rule and gives users of the content some options without driving a coach and horses through the license. I don't see what your problem is with this. That's a feature of CC-BY-SA which can be used for the scenario you describe. Yeah, I like features. Potlatch has about 300 features listed on trac. I might get round to fixing them one of these days. I used the word feature deliberately and in the same sense that you did. Perhaps it would be better to say that it's a characteristic of CC-BY-SA. Certainly not an intentional one, but not one that anyone feels a desperate need to fix. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [DRAFT] Contributor Terms 1.2
On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 10:49 AM, Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com wrote: (*) But is this really the policy wanted? So an individual contributor has no choice - they have to grant an unlimited licence and suck up any future licence changes. But a third party can veto licence changes - or insist on data deletion, which is more or less the same thing. Why the difference in treatment? If you publish your data under, say CC-BY, and then contribute it to OSM under the third-party clause then you can avoid granting an unlimited license. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Share alike
On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 1:30 PM, Richard Fairhurst rich...@systemed.netwrote: 80n wrote: I see the example. Are you saying that this is a problem? It looks perfectly fine to me. Depends what you mean by problem. If I were to contrast Scenario A (applying styles programmatically as in the geowiki.com example, and delivering it via a Flash applet) and Scenario B (applying styles manually in, say, Illustrator, and delivering it as a JPEG), it strikes me as silly that the scope of CC-BY-SA differs when the end result - pixels on a screen - is the same for the user. If I were to contrast what I actually _do_ with map data (OS, not OSM), which is to take Scenario B (takes approximately 15 minutes) and then continue by generalising, labelling, dropping in pull-outs, and so on (takes about four whole evenings and a bunch of knowledge, skill and personal judgement, none of which is at all connected to OSM), than I'd say that CC-BY-SA's scope here crosses the line from silly to batshit insane. There's a disconnect in your argument. Your evenings of effort and your knowledge, skill and personal judgement and not subject to CC-BY-SA licensing and are irrelevant. The end product of all that effort is the thing that is relevant. That end product benefits from one of it's inputs (OSM content) and the rules for using that is that you should share alike and provide attribution. Neither of which subtract from or devalue your knowledge, skill and personal judgement. They are still yours to re-use in making another map. It's simple enough to me. If you don't like the rules then start with a different base map. So if by are you saying this is a problem? you mean do you think this loophole should be closed?, no, I don't. I simply think it renders CC-BY-SA an ever more ridiculous licence for OSM. cheers Richard -- View this message in context: http://gis.638310.n2.nabble.com/OSM-legal-talk-Share-alike-tp5750998p5751623.html Sent from the Legal Talk mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ 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] [DRAFT] Contributor Terms 1.2
On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 11:18 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Hi, On 11/17/10 10:46, ke...@cordina.org.uk wrote: Looking at this the eyes or a data-holder, say the OS, who is considering allowing data to be used this would be a big concern as the term means they would lose control over how their data is licensed. No, the data contributed to OSM can come under any terms as long as they are compatible with the *current* license; the onus is on OSM to remove it if a license change makes continued distribution impossible - quote from draft: No, the data contributed to OSM must be licensed to OSMF under the contributor terms: You hereby grant to OSMF and any party that receives Your Contents a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable licence to do any act that is restricted by copyright, database right or any related right over anything within the Contents, whether in the original medium or any other. The rider in section three restricts what OSMF can do with the contents but it doesn't give any contributor the right to agree to the above clause unless they have full ownership of that content. (b) If we suspect that any contributed data is incompatible [(in the sense that we could not continue to lawfully distribute it)] with whichever licence or licences we are then using (see sections 3 and 4), then we may [suspend access to or ] delete that data temporarily or permanently. To me, this is the exact opposite of losing control over how their data is licensed. Bye Frederik ___ 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] Nike Deja Vu
On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 7:36 PM, Julio Costa Zambelli julio.co...@openstreetmap.cl wrote: Last night a friend contacted me to told me that the guys from Nike Chile were using OpenStreetMap for the map of their weekend event Cruce de Chile, a 300Km Relay race from the top of the Andes in Portillo to Valparaiso in the Pacific Coast. At first when I checked the link [1] I was kind of exited of seing our map used for such and event, but quickly realized that the site did not belong to Nike but to Terra (an ISP and news provider subsidiary from Telefonica España like O2) and that the official Nike website for the event [2] was using a regular map. Anyway what worried me after a few seconds of checking the website, was that the owners were actually violating the CCBYSA License, since they did not give any attribution to OpenStreetMap (not even one mention, besides the browser loading bar getting the tiles from the OSMF Servers). So besides my controvertial subject for this message it is not a second violation of the license by Nike [3], but a violation from another company in a Nike related event. What do you think about this? Some tweets to #crucedechile might get their attention. Regards, Julio Costa OpenStreetMap Chile http://www.openstreetmap.cl/ [1] http://www.terra.cl/crucedechile/index.cfm?seccion=gpsmapa=1000x768 [2] http://www.crucedechile.cl/ [3] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2010-April/003281.html ___ 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] OS Opendata the new license
On Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 7:38 PM, SteveC st...@asklater.com wrote: On Oct 1, 2010, at 12:20 PM, Anthony wrote: On Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 9:58 AM, SteveC st...@asklater.com wrote: Personally I think it's time to consider kickbanning the trolls with the fake names. TimSC is a fake name? If so, what's SteveC? Both are very easy to discover. Hell, you can even get my phone number from my website. The hint is in the signature. You on the other hand actively hide your real name, and the fact you were banned from wikipedia. Or would you like to correct me? And, also, when I questioned you about it on the 80n mailing list, he apparently moderated my post. Steve, I assume you are referring to this mailing list: http://groups.google.com/group/osm-fork I've pasted your account settings below. As you can see your account is not moderated, and as far as I know, has never been moderated. We are very pleased to have you as a member of the group. *Nickname* SteveC *Email* steveco...@gmail.com - search for recent messages to this group http://groups.google.com/group/osm-fork/search?q=author:steveco...@gmail.com *Joined* Thurs, Aug 26 2010 11:42 am *Subscription type* No Email - read this group on the web Email - send each message as it arrives Abridged Email - send a summary of new activity each day Digest Email - send all new messages in a single daily email *Membership type* Regular member - members can read the archives and post messages Manager - managers can approve pending messages and members and can change group settings Owner - group owners can remove the group in addition to changing all settings *Posting permission* Default group policy - Member is allowed to post Override - Member is allowed to post Override - Member is not allowed to post Override - Member's posts are moderated *Remove steveco...@gmail.com* - no longer allowed to post messages or read the archive - may not rejoin the group or apply for membership. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] OS Opendata amp;amp;amp; the new license
On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 2:24 PM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: In my opinion, the license must be chosen according to what's best for the project in the long term; short term considerations should not apply. Admissible reasons for not using license would be, for example, ... that license doesn't work ... ODbL has been extensively tested in the courts over many years, how can you possibly say that it doesn't work? ... isn't enforcable ... OSMF has massive legal resources and an excellent track record of relentlessly pursuing and enforcing copyright violations, of course ODbL is enforceable. ... leaves too much doubt ... Legal counsel has advised that ODbL only uses well established and universally understood legal principles. It is clear and easy to understand and contains nothing that is controversial. ... runs the risk of sidelining OSM in the long run ... Everyone is using ODbL, this is mainstream, there's no chance that ODbL would sideline OSM. or such. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] OS Opendata amp; the new license
On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 2:36 PM, Rob Myers r...@robmyers.org wrote: On 09/24/2010 02:06 PM, 80n wrote: From OS I have a a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive licence. But for the CTs I need a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual, *irrevocable* license. There's no revocation or termination language in the OS licence, so I assume you have such a licence, *but* my knowledge of how the law works runs out at this point so I don't know for sure. Mine too, but usually words like that are there (or absent) for a reason. I don't have the right to grant an irrevocable license. For CC-BY-SA I have to grant a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual (for the duration of the applicable copyright) license which is revokable and term limited. The OS OpenData license permits me to do that. And what's more they explicitly state that the license is intended to be compatible with CC-BY-SA 3.0. BY-SA isn't revokable. You can stop offering the work under BY-SA, but anyone who has already received it is free to continue to use it under BY-SA and to continue to offer it themselves. You cannot revoke their licence. Section 7 of CC-BY-SA 2.0 says This License and the rights granted hereunder will terminate automatically upon any breach by You of the terms of this License. In other words, if I breach the license terms, for example by publishing without attribution, then the license is automatically revoked. If OSMF breaches the contributor terms then anything I've given them necessarily needs to be revoked. The language to do that in the CTs is just plain missing. It's also not term limited, unless I've misunderstood something. Any copyright licence lasts at most for the duration of the copyright. Again it's an assumption on my part but I'd think copyright licences default to this. (I'm now wondering if the OS licence is BY (and BY-SA) 2.0 compatible, as 2.0 lacks the non-endorsement language that the OS licence insists on... ;-) ) Indeed. I'd expect the OS to do better than this given the preponderance of lawyers they employ. However they have clearly indicated their intent to be compatible with CC-BY-SA so that's something. It then goes on to say If You are not the copyright holder of the Contents, You represent and warrant that You have explicit permission from the rights holder which is the relevant clause. It's obviously not clear enough for some people. I still find it clear but I admit that it is a bit legalesey, yes. I think there's plenty of evidence to suggest that most people don't read them. Here's an amusing example of such: http://www.pcpitstop.com/spycheck/eula.asp I *never* read EULAs. Just alternative licences. ;-) (I am not a lawyer, etc.) - Rob. ___ 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] OS Opendata the new license
On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 8:25 PM, Grant Slater openstreet...@firefishy.comwrote: On 16 September 2010 19:29, Dave F. dave...@madasafish.com wrote: On 16/09/2010 16:43, Robert Whittaker (OSM) wrote: If it isn't will this mean previous traced/imported Opendata will have to be removed? If the incompatibilities in the licenses / CTs are not resolved before the OSM license change goes ahead, then as far as I can see, the only option would be to remove all OS OpenData derived mapping from OSM. This saddens me. I find it hard to conceive that members of OSM were lobbying the OS/Government to release data for public use, whilst at the same time (by the same people?) creating a new license that's incompatible with it. This clashes with the legal advice giving to the Licensing Working Group in that OS OpenData's license _is_ compatible with ODbL and the Contributor Terms. Specifically section 4 of the Contributor Terms provides a mechanism for attribution. Grant, who is giving you legal advice? Can you quote (or paraphrase) the advice you have been given please? I have asked Robert if he could share the email with the LWG, it would be interesting to see the question asked and the full legal reasoning. Regards Grant ___ 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] Does importing data give you a copyright?
Dave Hanson relicensed the TIGER data under CC-BY-SA when he contributed it to OSM. If you received it from him you have to comply with his license terms. On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 12:15 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Hi, with my eyes firmly on the upcoming license change, I wonder how we are going to deal with people who have imported data which is suitable from a license point of view, but whom we cannot reach or who do not agree to the CT. For the sake of argument, let's assume that Dave Hansen (who ran the TIGER import) wouldn't agree to the CT. I know he has agreed already, I'm just using this as a what-if example. The original TIGER data is PD, so there's no license problem with keeping it. But Dave certainly has invested a lot of time in planning and executing the import, and he has certainly created copyrightable software in the process, thinking of how to match features in the original data to OSM tags and so on. We know that facts are very unlikely to be protected by CC-BY-SA in the US, no matter how many times you convert them into something else, but let's assume for a moment that Dave was operating out of Europe. Would his act of converting and uploading public domain data to OSM give him rights in that data, so that we'd have to remove it if he does not agree to the CT? Or do we say PD data is PD data, no matter what the person uploading it to OSM says? It may be even easier to think about this if one splits the process into two steps - person A masterfully creates a piece of data conversion software, then person B installs that software, grabs a PD dataset, and hits a button on the software. Who owns the resulting data in OSM? A, who devised the algorithms? B, who pushed the button and used his computing time and network bandwidth? Both? Neither? 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 ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Does importing data give you a copyright?
On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 1:07 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: 80n, 80n wrote: Dave Hanson relicensed the TIGER data under CC-BY-SA when he contributed it to OSM. If you received it from him you have to comply with his license terms. Just to be clear again, we're only using Dave as an example here; the real Dave Hansen has already agreed to the contributor terms so we're not worrying about him. Understood. I was using Dave as an example in the same spirit. Generally, CC-BY-SA is a license based on copyright. I can only license something CC-BY-SA if I have a copyright in the first place. Since I do not automatically have a copyright on everything I touch, I'm afraid things are not as easy as you make it sound. If I cut and paste a page of a Shakespeare play and put it on my web page, and write CC-BY-SA 2.0 below it, that's null and void. Copying a page of text doesn't give me a copyright on it, and where I don't have a copyright I cannot license it CC-BY-SA. (I can perhaps say it but it isn't legally binding.) If I download a TIGER file from the US government and mirror it on my web site, I cannot claim copyright or relicense it. Anyone who receives that data through me can do whatever he pleases with it, just as he can if he downloads the file from the government. The question is, how much do I have to do with that file before I can legally (or, if someone fancies going into that, morally) claim a copyright. What if I convert line endings or use an automated process to convert from one character set to another - does that give rise to copyright? Or is it too trivial an action? What if the action I do on the file is highly complex (such as converting from a shape file to OSM format or compiling from C source code to binary), but the action is done by a program where my only input is pressing a button and naming a file? Does copyright then lie with the author of the complex program, or is actually pushing the button on the software in this case non-trivial enough to warrant copyright? If the author of the complex program made that available (under GPL or whatever) then you can just press the button again. If they didn't share the program with you then you have some code to write. You can't just argue that you *could* have written the code if you wanted to, and so take the output anyway. Doing the right thing is often a matter of understanding the spirit of the law, not trying to twist the letter of the law. Certainly when it comes to OSM contributions this should be the prevailing attitude. 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 ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Google MapMaker and OSM data...
On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 9:30 AM, Eric Jarvies e...@csl.com.mx wrote: On Sep 8, 2010, at 2:25 AM, Sam Larsen wrote: Eric, Unless you post the details of this edit on the list - then all this info is useless for the rest of us reading it. As you can see there are way too many emails on this list for any sane person to keep up with this is just adding to the overload. If you have provided the details to the data working group - then that is great, and from our point of view they are the best people for you to continue this investigation/discussion with. I sent the way/info to the suggested OSM email address/people at OSM(read previous dialog in this thread) earlier today after having been advised(by Richard and 80n I believe) to do so. Eric, to be clear about what I advised - you should take this up directly with Google, as you are the copyright holder. The OSMF and the Data Working Group might be able to support you but they are not the copyright holder - you are. Eric Jarvies Sam - Original Message From: Eric Jarvies e...@csl.com.mx To: Licensing and other legal discussions. legal-talk@openstreetmap.org Sent: Tue, 7 September, 2010 19:52:22 Subject: Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Google MapMaker and OSM data... On Sep 7, 2010, at 11:51 AM, Richard Weait wrote: On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 1:12 PM, Eric Jarvies e...@csl.com.mx wrote: On Sep 7, 2010, at 10:02 AM, Richard Weait wrote: Also, as more data sets are opening up it is possible that Map Maker and OSM editors are using similar sources. Yes, I understand this and the context you are explaining it in. But how does this apply to the edit I made to the OSM data? This edit was not some recently made available source that was provided to OSM, Google, and others, it was a just a newbee screw up by yours truly, that resulted in a very unique and deliberate edit to an existing OSM coastline, that subsequently ended up in Google's data, as is clearly(to me) being rendered now. I was just shocked to see that Google had inherited my screwed up edit of an existing OSM coastline, and that shock turned into interest, which is why I asked here if they are now using OSM data. In short, there really is no other 'similar source' in this case... they either got the coastline/way directly from OSM, or got it from someone else who got it directly from OSM. Dear Eric, It is hard for me to say what happened. What you describe above does make it sound like a GMM contributor used OSM as a source after your edit, but before you repaired it. If I haven't overlooked something; perhaps a GMM contributor made the same newbee mistake? Well, this is what aroused my interest... after the initial shock of seeing my mistake for a second time... first on OSM, and then now on Google MapMaker(I'm talking a considerable stretch of coastline), I then looked at what is and what is not possible to edit on Google MapMaker... and coastlines are NOT possible to edit by contributors, or at least my user account will not allow it. And if there is no other innocent explanation; you didn't make the edit on GMM yourself did you? ;-) No, I have never contributed data to the MapMaker repo. Then 80n's description above is correct. Infringement is much more likely to be a result of ignorance rather than malice. It is still infringement but it might best be resolved with a please and thank you than with a nasty-gram. I was merely curious if Google had started using OSM data, simply because I was painfully reminded of that terrible coastline screw-up I made, that was the bane of my initial OSM editing experience(not knowing that the coastline is not rendered immediately/regularly). So apart from the initial shock of seeing it replicated on Google's MapMaker a week or two after the initial incident occurred, I was just downright curious why it would be there, as I thought Google did not use OSM data. So this was a curious fact finding mission wrought from a screwed-up coastline editing experience... nothing more. I do still recommend that you share the location and details with OSMers you trust with more experience than you have; you did describe yourself as a newbee. I emailed the way to the email address you provided me previously, thank you. You might, as 80n described, decide to pursue this with GMM yourself. I'd probably try to reach the GMM contributor who made that edit, I could not find indication of this... I was not allowed to edit the GMM coastline whilst logged into Google... perhaps other users are able to do so... but I doubt it. if that information is available. Or, you may decide to ask somebody else in the community to do that for you. Perhaps somebody at your local OSM meetups, mapping parties or local
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Google MapMaker and OSM data...
On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 10:51 AM, Eric Jarvies e...@csl.com.mx wrote: On Sep 8, 2010, at 2:58 AM, 80n wrote: On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 9:30 AM, Eric Jarvies e...@csl.com.mx wrote: On Sep 8, 2010, at 2:25 AM, Sam Larsen wrote: Eric, Unless you post the details of this edit on the list - then all this info is useless for the rest of us reading it. As you can see there are way too many emails on this list for any sane person to keep up with this is just adding to the overload. If you have provided the details to the data working group - then that is great, and from our point of view they are the best people for you to continue this investigation/discussion with. I sent the way/info to the suggested OSM email address/people at OSM(read previous dialog in this thread) earlier today after having been advised(by Richard and 80n I believe) to do so. Eric, to be clear about what I advised - you should take this up directly with Google, as you are the copyright holder. The OSMF and the Data Working Group might be able to support you but they are not the copyright holder - you are. Ok. But I really have no desire to do so at this point. Instead, if after a period of time, this currently 'assumed/speculated/non-substantiated' activity continues, then I would of course send them an email reminding them to attribute and adhere to the OSM license, and go from there. Right? You seem fairly knowledgeable in these subject matters... perhaps you could share some wisdom/informal advise of a legal nature pertaining to copyright/license/etc. Much of the data I am posting to OSM now, over the past years I have licensed it out to various companies/persons for monetary gain, wherein they could not resell, etc. the data. Now that I am posting some of this same data of mine here in OSM under share alike/attribution license, what happens to the status of my original data? I can still license independently, correct? For example... i will be posting properties to OSM, but I will not be posting property owner names, property owner histories, etc., because I still actively sell/license that data to third parties... but in doing so, I always provide them with the geometries. After I post these geometries to OSM, and I later sell/license some data to someone, and provide them with the geometries from my source data, like in PostgreSQL or shapefile format, does that in any way conflict with the same data I have previously posted on OSM under an entirely different license? I am under the current understanding that there is no problem with with... I can contribute to OSM some of my data, and that data then becomes subject to the CC by SA license terms, whilst at the same time I can license the same data differently to someone else... is this right? Eric, yes that's exactly right. Thanks! Eric Jarvies Eric Jarvies Sam - Original Message From: Eric Jarvies e...@csl.com.mx To: Licensing and other legal discussions. legal-talk@openstreetmap.org Sent: Tue, 7 September, 2010 19:52:22 Subject: Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Google MapMaker and OSM data... On Sep 7, 2010, at 11:51 AM, Richard Weait wrote: On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 1:12 PM, Eric Jarvies e...@csl.com.mx wrote: On Sep 7, 2010, at 10:02 AM, Richard Weait wrote: Also, as more data sets are opening up it is possible that Map Maker and OSM editors are using similar sources. Yes, I understand this and the context you are explaining it in. But how does this apply to the edit I made to the OSM data? This edit was not some recently made available source that was provided to OSM, Google, and others, it was a just a newbee screw up by yours truly, that resulted in a very unique and deliberate edit to an existing OSM coastline, that subsequently ended up in Google's data, as is clearly(to me) being rendered now. I was just shocked to see that Google had inherited my screwed up edit of an existing OSM coastline, and that shock turned into interest, which is why I asked here if they are now using OSM data. In short, there really is no other 'similar source' in this case... they either got the coastline/way directly from OSM, or got it from someone else who got it directly from OSM. Dear Eric, It is hard for me to say what happened. What you describe above does make it sound like a GMM contributor used OSM as a source after your edit, but before you repaired it. If I haven't overlooked something; perhaps a GMM contributor made the same newbee mistake? Well, this is what aroused my interest... after the initial shock of seeing my mistake for a second time... first on OSM, and then now on Google MapMaker(I'm talking a considerable stretch of coastline), I then looked at what is and what is not possible to edit on Google MapMaker... and coastlines are NOT possible to edit by contributors
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Google MapMaker and OSM data...
Eric It is your content and your copyright. If you believe that Google or anyone else is infringing your copyright then it is your right to take up this issue with them directly. Most infringments are accidental and if you approach the infringer in a helpful and sympathetic way then they will usually react swiftly and be very apologetic. There was a very recent case with Waze which was dealt with very promptly and to everyone's satisfaction: http://www.waze.com/blog/thanks-and-huge-apology-to-the-openstreetmap-community/ In the first instance it is often better to deal with these things off-list rather than naming the possible offender in public. OSMF's role is to provide support to contributors, and you may find that they can help you deal with the issue. The Data Working Group is the team that deals with this kind of thing: http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Working_Groups#Data_Working_Group They are well connected and can probably help you contact the correct people within Google. I think we'd all love Google to use OSM content and they are welcome to do so as long they provide the correct attribution. This is probably the right spirit in which to approach them initially. 80n On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Eric Jarvies e...@csl.com.mx wrote: Perhaps someone who knows can answer my original question... does Google MapMaker use(according to the OSM license) OSM data? If not, then perhaps the person/people whom typically deal with these matters can communicate with me accordingly, so I may provide information and explain the situation in detail, so it may be addressed pragmatically, either validating or invalidating it prior to the entire list being pointed to(alerted of) the suspected problem. I say this because I do not have the -OSM- experience that is necessary to validate what I suspect, as it relates to changesets, and being able to go back a few versions and render the specific version in question, so it may be compared with what is being used over at Google MapMaker. I am 99.9% certain that the coastline that is being displayed over there on Google MapMaker is in fact one in the same as one of my screwed-up iterations, which has subsequently been changed and hopefully repaired(but not yet rendered by OSM... tick tock tick tock). The very nature of the way I changed/edited the coastline was deliberately inaccurate and very unique, meaning it did not follow the real coastline, because at the time I was still trying to hunt down a problem, a problem that I later discovered did not really exist(I just needed to wait days/weeks for OSM to render the coastline), and so I arranged the coastline in a very deliberate way so that I would see the change when it rendered, as I was trying to substantiate if my changes were actually occurring/working or not. Thus, anyone who is capable of going back to a previous version in this particular way/changeset and rendering it, will be able to render the exact same coastline that is being displayed over at Google MapMaker. Is this how this type of issue is normally dealt with? Eric On Sep 7, 2010, at 8:00 AM, Emilie Laffray wrote: On 7 September 2010 14:51, Eric Jarvies e...@csl.com.mx wrote: Grant, Yes, I can point to an example... but prior to bringing attention to the matter/area, I would instead prefer to monitor it and see what else appears. The coastline, akaik, is not editable by users/contributors, which is why I asked if Google is now using OSM data. I think that even an example would be nice, so more people can have a look at what is happening. It would be best if we realized what is going on sooner rather than later. Emilie Laffray ___ 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 ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Garmin Maps / Produced Works
On Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 1:20 PM, Simon Ward si...@bleah.co.uk wrote: If you render as a PNG, without additional metadata you are similarly going to have difficulty reverse engineering it (admittedly more difficulty than with vector graphics, which much more closely resemble the geodata). The fact that you actually have to reverse engineer either to get useful geodata out of them suggests they are Produced Works alone. Ironically, for most people it is much easier to reverse engineer a .png than it would be to inport a dataset. Given a dataset in an arbitrary format then it will require a significant effort to analyse and extract data in a form that is useful to OSM. Conversely, it is almost trivial to trace from an image. It is an oft quoted aspect of the ODbL approach that it's the data that OSM is interested in. However, in practice it would seem to me that it is going to be really difficult to reincorporate data that has been combined with an ODbL database. Firstly, the publisher can distribute it in any arbitrary format, removing IDs, modifying tags, etc. There is no incentive for the publisher to make it easy to use. Secondly, the size of the database is likely to be formidable limiting the number of people who might have the resources to deal with it. OSMF could help here by providing hardware resources to anyone who wanted to perform an import, but that's a terrible burden on a project that has better things to do with it's hardware. Thirdly, the publisher can simply refuse to agree to the contributor terms. Finally, the possiblility of tracing the content from a published .png may also be denied as produced works can be published under very restrictive and/or incompatible licenses. I find it hard to imagine that *any* ODbL licensed data will ever get shared back to OSM. If it is so difficult to share back data then I think that will be a serious demotivator for many contributors. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Noise vs unanswered questions
On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 10:55 PM, SteveC st...@asklater.com wrote: On Sep 1, 2010, at 3:17 PM, Liz wrote: The complete lack of any arguments left in the brains of the pro-ODbL lobby shows in the complete falling apart of any discussion on this list, with previously thoughtful people concentrating on personal attacks on others, mostly claiming that they are making personal attacks. Um, no, just all the smart people are kind of bored by you and your friends so we don't participate in the mindless circular 'debates' you engender any more. So all we have left on the list is you guys jerking off. I'm saddened that the people in control of OSM have such little respect for their contributors. OSMF has failed to demonstrate a convincing majority in favour of a license change, but is embarked on a plan to change the license without any further debate or decision point. This kind of response reinforces the impression that many people are now getting of how OSM is being run. 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Community vs. Licensing
On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 8:58 AM, Richard Weait rich...@weait.com wrote: On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 3:35 AM, John Smith deltafoxtrot...@gmail.com wrote: On 1 September 2010 17:30, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: only the most presumptuous person would believe that a license they choose today will automatically be the best license for the project for all time. The sheer arrogance of all this is astounding, you and others are telling all the current contributors that you know best, because you are trying to speak for both people now and people in the future without even asking people what they want. You seem to be sending your emails from OppositeLand, JohnSmith. The Contributor Terms, and specifically the relicensing term in term three are prudent because we know that it is impossible to know what license will be best for OSM in 6, 10 or 50 years. I think the general view is that the project is currently licensed under CC-BY-SA but that if you don't like it then you are free to fork. Nobody is saying that CC-BY-SA is perfect. It isn't but it works. Look at how quickly Waze reacted. Not bad for a broken license, eh? The great thing about the current license is that there's no coercion. If you don't like it or the licensed doesn't work for your use case then you can just go ahead and start your own fork. That's what those who are in favour of ODbL should have done two years ago. Instead we now have this ugly mess which is set to string out for a very long time with continual disruption and damage to the project. That you assert that CC-By-SA is right for OSM now and will be the right license for OSM forevermore makes you the one claiming perfect foresight. That you claim that Frederik, or LWG, or OSMF Board are are trying to speak for both people now and people in the future in the very same breath is bold. You know perfectly well that term three gives the decision on future licenses to future OSM active contributors, by 2/3 majority vote. Frederik's argument that we cannot predict what future generations will want is quite fallacious. We have a responsibility to do the right thing now and not leave a mess someone else to sort out later. ___ 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] Licence Implementation plan - declines ornon-responses
On Sun, Aug 29, 2010 at 5:36 PM, Richard Weait rich...@weait.com wrote: On Sun, Aug 29, 2010 at 12:14 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Aug 29, 2010 at 3:44 PM, David Groom revi...@pacific-rim.net wrote: 1) Those who do not want to, or can not. agree to the CT's and make an decision not to accept the CT's. 2) Those previous mappers who are no longer active and so won't even have made a choice between accepting or not. In the case of group (1) it seems wrong to me to disregard their wishes and just leave the data in. It would be equally wrong to disregard the wishes of those in case 2. Being uncontactable is not a justification for abusing a person's rights. OSM used to be very respectful of other people's copyright. It used to be one of the values that was held very highly. But now it seems to think that it can just trample all over the rights of the people who built it. I'm ashamed that OSM is no longer the body that it once was. It has lost my respect. I neglected to address those who don't respond either way in my earlier reply but I'd expect to treat their contributions with the same care as the decliners. 80n have you presumed I had malice where I only failed to address a sub-question? Thanks. I don't see where David suggested anything that would deserve your ire, either. Even if you disagree with what either David or I said, you would paint the entire OSM project with your loss of respect and shame, rather than engaging in the discussion? I'm not sure I see what it is that you are reacting to in such a visceral way. Richard, I'm pleased to hear that you are prepared to respect the wishes of those who do not want to re-license their work. The best way to do this would be to create an ODbL licensed fork and leave us in peace. But, since some people have chosen the harder path of trying to change the license in-situ, I'm sure you'll join me in calling for a vote of all contributors. The gun-to-the-head, we'll delete your data if you don't agree approach is not something that garners any respect from me. 80n ___ 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
[OSM-legal-talk] Relicensing graphic
The license working group has published a graphic showing the amount of data that is currently relicensable under CT and ODbL. Green squares are ODbL, red squares are CC-BY-SA. As I understand it each square represents the square root of the size of each user's contribution. I don't know how the contribution size is calculated, I'd guess it's just a count of the number of nodes that were last touched by a user, which would oversell the amount of data that would really be usable under ODbL. Here's what the LWG published: http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g51/80n80n/osm/odbl.png But that includes bulk imports and bots, so what happens if you removed those? Here's the same graphic with just the three largest contributors removed (two of which are probably TIGER and AND): http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g51/80n80n/osm/odbl_cropped.png That's quite a difference. Only six of the top 30 contributors have agreed to ODbL so far and the image is predominantly red. By way of a rather toung-in-cheek contrast I thought I'd prepare my own graphic showing how many OSM contributors have now agreed to CC-BY-SA. In this graphic the green boxes are those who have agreed and the red boxes are those who have not: http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g51/80n80n/osm/cc-by-sa.png Enjoy. 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] Are the Contributor Terms Irrevocable?
I'm curious about the meaning of the word irrevocable in the contributor terms. Having examined a number of licenses that grant a similar range of rights (worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual) none of them include irrevocability. They also all contain a termination section that is usually engineered to allow termination in the event of a breach. Am I right in thinking that if OSMF committed a material breach of the CTs then contributors would not be able to revoke their grant of rights? Does the common law right to repudiate trump the inclusion of an irrevocability clause? 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Are the Contributor Terms Irrevocable?
On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 8:25 PM, Francis Davey fjm...@gmail.com wrote: On 23 August 2010 19:58, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: I'm curious about the meaning of the word irrevocable in the contributor terms. Having examined a number of licenses that grant a similar range of rights (worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual) none of them include irrevocability. They also all contain a termination section that is usually engineered to allow termination in the event of a breach. Am I right in thinking that if OSMF committed a material breach of the CTs then contributors would not be able to revoke their grant of rights? Does the common law right to repudiate trump the inclusion of an irrevocability clause? I assume you mean fundamental breach Yes, that was the term I was searching for. since a material breach of contract may not be sufficiently serious to permit the other party to repudiate it. Off the top of my head I don't know any specific law on the subject, but if OSMF's conduct struck at the very root of the contract (i.e. it was a fundamental or repudiatory breach) then I cannot see any reason why the contractual element of the CT should not be revocable. I'm less sure about the licence element. -- Francis Davey ___ 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] Is CC-BY-SA is compatible with ODbL - a philosophical point
On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 7:50 PM, David Groom revi...@pacific-rim.netwrote: - Original Message - From: 80n 80n...@gmail.com To: Licensing and other legal discussions. legal-talk@openstreetmap.org Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2010 6:26 PM Subject: Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Is CC-BY-SA is compatible with ODbL - a philosophical point On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 5:44 PM, David Groom revi...@pacific-rim.net wrote: Why are we changing the licence? Well [1] states among other things that [CC-BY-SA] is therefore very difficult to interpret, and we have indeed seen this situation occur many times when people have asked what can and can't be done with OSM data, and no definitive answer could be found. If it was unclear if something was allowed under CC-BY-SA then users of our data were asked to take a cautious approach. And that seems very reasonable stance to take, even though it resulted in a lower than hoped for use of OSM data. So it was decided that since even the OSM community could not categorically say how CC-BY-SA applied to OSM data a licence change was needed. Move forward a bit and we start to implement the new licence. Since we could not reach consensus on how CC-By-SA applied to our data, it seems reasonable to assume that we can not assume how CC-BY-SA data applies to other people data, and therefor to be safe I presume we won't simply be blindly importing CC-BY-SA data into OSM. I presume we will be approaching providers of data that has a CC-BY-SA licence and asking if we can use that data in OSM. So our permission to use the data will stem not from a CC-BY-SA licence, but from the explicit permission given by the copyright holder. Or am I missing something? David, CC-BY-SA licensed content is incompatible with ODbL+CT. CC-BY-SA derived content would not be allowed in an ODbL version of OSM. 80n Sorry I should have made it clear that I realise that. As I titled the post, it was more a philosophical point that extended beyond the confines of the CT's ODbL. David, I know that you realise that. I just wanted to clarify this for the benefit of others reading this thread who may not have the detailed background knowledge or stumble on this thread out of context. I suppose where it ovelaps with the discussion on CT ODbl is where I asked if we will be approaching providers of data that has a CC-BY-SA licence and asking if we can use that data in OSM. So our permission to use the data will stem not from a CC-BY-SA licence, but from the explicit permission given by the copyright holder. As such it then wouldn't matter if CC-BY-SA were incompatible eith the CT ODbL as we would not be relying on the CC-BY-SA licence, but rather on the explicit permisison. David 80n Furthermore if we don't approach CC-BY-SA providers and ask if we can use their data, then we are using it by virtue of the fact it is CC-BY-SA, and surely the CC-BY-SA permissions flow though into the OSM data. In which case nothing has been gained from the licence change process as the same permissions which were there before (and were difficult to interpret) still exist. Apologies if this has been discussed before, but I cant see anything about it on the implementation plan [2] David [1] http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/License/We_Are_Changing_The_License#Why_are_we_changing_the_license.3F [2] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Database_License/Implementation_Plan ___ 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] Is CC-BY-SA is compatible with ODbL?
On Sat, Aug 14, 2010 at 7:08 AM, Mike Collinson m...@ayeltd.biz wrote: At 10:11 AM 13/08/2010, 80n wrote: On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 11:47 PM, David Groom revi...@pacific-rim.net wrote: b) Ignoring the Yahoo data, but taking any data that may have had a PD or CC-BY-SA clause that has be used in import, since these are general permissions given and they do not explicitly mention granting rights to use in OSM, I cant possible agree that I have EXPLICIT permission to use them. I have permission by virtue of they are PD or CC-BY-SA, but not EXPLICIT permission to do so. David, I don't think that CC-BY-SA is compatible with ODbL, nor with the Contributor Terms. If you have added content that is licensed under CC-BY-SA you cannot agree to the Contrbutor Terms. I'm sure you know that but your statement above suggests that CC-BY-SA is compatible with OBdL and CT. It is not. I have moved this from [OSM-talk] Voluntary re-licensing begins to legal talk as it is worth further discussion in view of dilemmas faced by our Australian community. I understand that CC-BY-SA is currently a preferred vehicle for releasing government data. I am inclined to agree with 80n, though in the context that CC-BY-SA licenses on data are just too potentially broad in their virality. I present this for the purposes of discussion and do not see my conclusions as immutable. I focus on Share-Alike, though Attribution is also a consideration. In order to submit CC-BY-SA under the contributor terms you need to give OSMF rights that you don't possess. CC-BY-SA does not grant you a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable license to do any act that is restricted by copyright and so you can't pass that right on to OSMF. Its as simple as that isn't it? 80n I would also like to note that I am having an email dialogue with Ben Last of NearMap of Australia ( http://www.nearmap.com). They allow use of their PhotoMaps to derive information (e.g. StreetMap data) under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike (CC-BY-SA) licence. They are being most cordial and helpful. They are submitting the ODbL for legal review from their own perspective. I hope they will share some of the conclusions they reach, both for the perspective and the authoritative opinion. -- To grossly paraphrase, a GNU type software license it works like this: Write a word processor --X-- Write a book with the software. Virality remains in the software, it is NOT transmitted to the book. It IS possible to use other non-compatible software to make the book. But if the software is improved to write the book and software is published, then software improvements must be available Share Alike. ODbL is slightly stronger: Create map data --X-- Make a map Virality remains in the data, it is not transmitted to the map except in reverse engineering out the data. It is possible to use other non-compatible data to make the map under certain conditions. But if the data is improved and the map or the data is published, then data improvements must be available Share Alike. But if CC-BY-SA license is used to try on information rather than the virus can potentially just keep on going. It all depends on what the original publisher feels they want to exert(?). Here is a real dilemma being faced by the Australian community: Aerial imagery under CC-BY-SA - Create map data with some imagery tracing - Pull out a single lat/lon and put it in a book; make a map; ... ODbL breaks the chain at the second -, either because the extract is not substantial or because the right-hand item is a Produced Work. CC-BY-SA does not, or at least you'll need to clarify with the original publisher(?). Personal conclusion: The CC-BY-SA license are great on fully creative works. It was never intended to be applied to highly factual data and information, and if it is, it is vague and confusing. If you believe strongly in pandemic virality, then it is a good thing. If you believe that all the chain of Share-Alike and Attribution should be far more constrained, then it is just dangerous and should be avoided. Which is why most of us want to move away from it as our own license. Our primary goal is disseminating data we collect ourselves. Mike ___ 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] decision removing data
On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 4:08 PM, Francis Davey fjm...@gmail.com wrote: On 6 August 2010 19:42, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: What's the criteria in the EU? Do you know? own intellectual creation Article 3(1) of 96/9/EC: 1. In accordance with this Directive, databases which, by reason of the selection or arrangement of their contents, constitute the author's own intellectual creation shall be protected as such by copyright. No other criteria shall be applied to determine their eligibility for that protection. I was actually asking about the criteria for traditional copyright not database rights. However the reference above is interesting in that it That is the criterion for traditional copyright and not database rights. The Database Directive actually did two things: Can you confirm my understanding if this. Copyright protection is based on the existence of an author's intellectual creation resulting from selection or arrangement. Correct? Can you give examples to make this clearer? (1) it harmonised the threshold criterion for *copyright* in databases (see above) (2) it created a new database right, the threshold for which you will find in article 7(1): 1. Member States shall provide for a right for the maker of a database which shows that there has been qualitatively and/or quantitatively a substantial investment in either the obtaining, verification or presentation of the contents to prevent extraction and/or re-utilization of the whole or of a substantial part, evaluated qualitatively and/or quantitatively, of the contents of that database. In other words there has to be substantial investment in one of: (i) obtaining; (ii) verification or (iii) presentation, where that substantial investment could be quantitative or qualitative. snip ... The Fixtures Marketing cases being particularly relevant: http://www.out-law.com/page-5055 These cases appear to indicate that, *excluding* the investment in creation of the content, substantial investment is required to obtain, verify and present the content, before a database right is earned. If OSMF were to claim a database right, how would they demonstrate substantial investment? It's difficult to see how that could be a financial investment. What form could such an investment take? 80n -- Francis Davey ___ 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] decision removing data
On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 11:11 PM, SteveC st...@asklater.com wrote: On Aug 9, 2010, at 7:14 AM, Anthony wrote: If that was you back then: Why should you request OSMF to properly remove all of your work when at the same time you have no problem with OSM using my contributions in any way whatsoever? IIRC, SteveC convinced me that my work should be sharealike a short time after I wrote that. Also I read numerous arguments which convinced me that OSM is not just a factual database. That was, I believe, one of my first posts to the list about the matter, and certainly before I realized what a bumbling mess this whole process was. It's not a bumbling mess. What's happening is very simple: The people on the LWG are too nice. Every time someone comes up with either a issue with either the process or license, the LWG take time to address it. I would estimate about 70 or 80% of these things are either bonkers, FUD or restatements of previous bonkers/FUD things. Given that the LWG are all volunteers and meet once a week and there have been hundreds of these emails, rants and people on the call, that means they literally spend years at this point dealing with this stuff. Thus, it slows everything down. Oh and this and other threads going on right now are good examples. It's explicitly slowing down and complicating the process, which is probably the aim of several of the people here. I completely agree. I've been pushing for this whole thing to be wrapped up as quickly as possible. The longer it drags on the more damage there is to the community and the project. It's a pity you have no involvement with the LWG Steve, I'm sure you'd be get them to focus on the need to bring this bumbling mess to a rapid conclusion. Referring back to a previous thread about the need for a community vote. There seems to be a view by the authors of the Contributor Terms that a license change would be legitimate if 2/3rds of active contributors voted for it within a 3 week window. Looks to me like you could have it all done and dusted in a little more than three weeks from now, which would be, um, September 1st. Go on, you haven't got the guts to call a vote. 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] decision removing data
On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 6:57 PM, Jukka Rahkonen jukka.rahko...@latuviitta.fi wrote: 80n 80n...@... writes: There are many things that meet the almost trivial threshold that legally constitutes creativity. Road classification, land use, abstraction, generalization, selectivity, arbitrary tagging, arrangement, smoothness, routes, desire paths, boundary approximation, building outlines, junction topology, address schema, layers, etc. All creative, all copyrightable. I have been leading a team of digitizers tracing features from aerial images. I was doing everything I could to minimize the creative or artistic part of their work. Actually, a quite heavy system of internal and external quality control was there just to make sure that every worker was producing about the same sort of bulk data. So, without your best endeavours, would you agree that these contributors would naturally introduce some creativeness? If you have to expend effort to remove creativity then you have made a pretty good case for the existence of creativity. Thank you for your testimony. There are also other and bigger organizations than OSM doing same kind of, for my mind non-creative, work. Please don't misunderstand the legal meaning of creativity with respect to copyright. As far as I know, creativity in this context refers to factors such as originality, arrangment and selectivity. Decisions such as whether or not to trace a particular feature because of its prominence is one of selectivity and in the eyes of the law that might constitute creativity. Mapping agencies in the European countries, for example. I think that we must not claim that this kind of work is creative and copyrightable. That will be used against us and against all the citizens willing to use geospatial data produced by our administrations. We should show an example about free geodata, not the opposite. -Jukka Rahkonen- ___ 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] decision removing data
The test for copyrightability is some amount of creativity. Case law suggests that this can be very minimal. Rather than looking for what is factual and thus not copyrightable, let's look for what is. There are many things that meet the almost trivial threshold that legally constitutes creativity. Road classification, land use, abstraction, generalization, selectivity, arbitrary tagging, arrangement, smoothness, routes, desire paths, boundary approximation, building outlines, junction topology, address schema, layers, etc. All creative, all copyrightable. On 5 Aug 2010 21:03, Rob Myers r...@robmyers.org wrote: On 08/05/2010 08:20 PM, Anthony wrote: I don't think so. Ways contain geographical data, but ... I don't know what else they are. The fact that the form is fixed on the hard drive is less important than that it's fixed as ... They are different forms. Different forms have different copyright protection, including none. Accuracy would be maximized by using as many nodes as possible. Not if many are inaccurate. Outliers aren't just a book by Malcolm Gladwell. ;-) That's not what's being done. Instead, the creator of the way is selecting nodes which s/he f... True. But if the sorting is simply sweat of the brow then it's not eligible either. My point is that they are different fixed forms covered by different aspects of copyright la... They are. But only because both are forms that are explicitly covered by copyright law. A font program is a copyrighted work that describes an uncopyrightable (in the US) but more graphical design. A white pages web site may have a typographic, design and code copyrights but wont (under US law) have a database copyright. Copyright isn't just copyright, and a particular expression or element of something may or may not be copyrightable. (IANAL, TINLA.) - Rob. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-t...@openstreetmap ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] decision removing data
On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 10:00 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: 3. Each element is examined and only those with an unbroken history chain from version 1 to the most recent ODbL'ed version are marked as OK. Does anyone know whether the code exists to do this yet? How are way splits handled (only one half of the way will have a full history)? 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] decision removing data
On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 12:48 PM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Hi, 80n wrote: Does anyone know whether the code exists to do this yet? I doubt it. How are way splits handled (only one half of the way will have a full history)? I think they can be auto-detected (i.e. where in one changeset, one way suddenly loses some nodes and another springs up that uses exactly those). This quickly gets quite complex when factored across multiple generations of way splits. Many roads start of as a single way that get repeatedly split as one way sections, bridges and other detail gets added. Changesets are a relatively recent invention. Edits prior to the introduction of changesets don't have any formal grouping so this approach will not work for old data. Even older data that was converted from segments will have no history at all because it was discarded. This has quite a significant impact on early roads such as the M25 motorway (London Orbital) which was orginally created as segments. While it could easily be re-derived from Yahoo imagery today the current ways are surely based on data for which there is no complete history and would logically get deleted. The knock on effects of this and similar random deletions are likely to be problematic. Such auto-detection could be limited to areas where we have recorded contributions that are not being relicensed; in all other areas we would not have to bother. Prolific editors don't tend to restrict their activity to a single location. This might be more widespread than anticipated. Any such mechanism, in my eyes, need not be 100% perfect; it is sufficient to make a honest attempt at doing the right thing, and if a few things slip through, then fix them in case of complaints. Anyone who cares strongly enough to not want to relicense their work will probably make a lot of complaints if their work is not fully purged This could generate a very large amount of manual remediation. But I am not in the LWG and they might, unbeknownst to be, already have something that works. If there is anything under development it would be good if we could see it. It is unlikely to be a trivial piece of code and I'd be very surprised if it can be developed by September 1st if it hasn't already been started. The whole relicensing effort would be a bit of a non-starter if this deletion process cannot be done. 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] decision removing data
On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 8:34 PM, Richard Weait rich...@weait.com wrote: On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 2:32 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: [ ... ] September 1st represents a reasonable timeframe, based on the currently published implementation plan Dear 80n, Absolutely not. From the implementation plan. Phase 2 scheduled as 5 or 10 weeks. Phase 3 as 8 weeks. Plus undefined time for technical cut-over work. How do you find your fictional September first deadline reasonable? The clock was started on 12th May 2010. Three months is a reasonable time scale and consistent with the schedule laid out at that time. 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] License Cut-over and critical mass
On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 2:43 PM, Anthony o...@inbox.org wrote: On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 8:52 AM, Rob Myers r...@robmyers.org wrote: On Fri, 23 Jul 2010 18:59:37 -0400, Anthony o...@inbox.org wrote: And what is it that's wrong with CC-BY-SA again? http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License_FAQ So, nothing that is solved by ODbL (an eloquently expressed nothing, of course). Here's what that FAQ says: What's wrong with the current licence? OSM currently uses the Creative Commons Share-Alike/Attribution 2.0http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/licence, or CC-BY-SA for short. The main problems that have come to light over time are: - The CC-BY-SA licence was not designed to apply to databases of information and therefore has shortcomings when attempting to protect the OSM data. - The method of giving attribution is somewhat impracticable for a project with many thousands of contributors. - Limitations make it difficult or ambiguous for others to use OSM data in a new work (eg mashups) I tend to agree with Anthony that ODbL does very little to solve these problems. And at the same time it introduces a whole range of new problems. There would certainly be great difficulties in practical use and many many misunderstandings about what it says. Copyright is a principle that is well understood in most parts of the world. When you add to that Database rights which are not well understood even in Europe and contact law which is notoriously complex and varies greatly across juristdictions, you have a very impractical mess on your hands - good luck with that. This medicine is much worse than the illness it is trying to cure. 80n ___ 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] License Cut-over and critical mass
On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 3:06 PM, SteveC st...@asklater.com wrote: I propose 3) Occam's Razor - the now hundreds of people who've been involved in the ODbL in the last few years, some of whom are real lawyers are all wrong Steve And the advice of those lawyers that didn't suit you, such as Baker McKenzie, got buried? 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] openstreetmap.org copyright
2010/7/23 Iván Sánchez Ortega i...@sanchezortega.es El día Friday 23 July 2010 15:02:19, Alex Protyagov dijo: Would you please educate me on what legally should be done in order to develop a commercial application that uses cached maps from openstreetmap.org ? You just have to comply with the CC-by-sa (and ODbL if you store the data in addition to the cached maps). That's simply not true. You do not have to comply with ODbL. All OSM content is currently licensed under CC-BY-SA. (A small percentage is dual licensed under ODbL but that's for the future and not applicable today). In a nutshell: say the data comes from OSM, and don't impose any (legal) contraints on the cached data. You don't have to specifically ask anyone to make commercial use of OSM maps. That's the beauty of the license. Cheers, -- Iván Sánchez Ortega i...@sanchezortega.es Un ordenador no es una televisión ni un microondas: es una herramienta compleja. ___ 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] Query over contributor terms
On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 5:26 PM, David Groom revi...@pacific-rim.netwrote: Apologies if this has been brought up before. The last line of para 1 of the contributors terms states You have explicit permission from the rights holder to submit the Contents. Given the scope of the contributor terms I think this really does need to say explict here. You are giving OSMF permission to potentially change the license of any data you submit to any other free and open source license. Unless the original rights holder has placed the material in the public domain (or CC0 or whatever) then you probably wouldn't have the rights to agree to the contributor terms. It's certainly my understanding that CC-BY does not convey the rights to re-publish under any old free and open source license. However I believe LWG are currently seeking legal guidance on this point. The use of the word explicit worries me. To me that would indicate that the rights holder would have to sate something along the lines of I give David Groom permission to incorporate my data into OpenSteetMap , though possibly a more vague permission such as I give anyone permission to incorporate my data into OpenSteetMap, might be OK, thought arguably this is not explicit permission. Lets say I got hold of some CC-BY data, I could not incorporate that into OSM, unless I approached the author and got specific explicit permission to do so, since the permission given by CC-BY is implicit and not explicit . What worries me is the amount of data sources where permission is implicit, but not explicit David ___ 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] License Cut-over and critical mass
On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 7:19 AM, Chris Fleming m...@chrisfleming.org wrote: Although the intent of ODBl is to provide the protections we thought we were getting with CC-BY-SA; if we were to go to something *completely* different then I can image these discussions getting *really* nasty. Chris Do try to pay attention and keep up with the thread ;) Diane Peters of Creative Commons posted the following statement in this thread a few hours ago: There are a number of fundamental differences between CC's licenses and ODbL that at least from CC's point of view make the two quite different. ODbL is something completely different. In addition the content license and the contributor terms have no parallel with CC-BY-SA. Structurally there are big differences. 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] License Cut-over and critical mass
On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 3:53 PM, Rob Myers r...@robmyers.org wrote: On 07/17/2010 12:30 PM, John Smith wrote: On 17 July 2010 20:11, Rob Myersr...@robmyers.org wrote: If this is the case then given that the CC licences are copyright licences what would they apply to in the OSM database in Australia? The court case in question was over facts, dates and times and show names, IceTV who instigated this case, also pays students to review shows, which adds an element of creativity to their database of facts. Thanks. So IceTV weren't infringing on Channel Nine's copyright as Channel Nine didn't have one on the mere facts of their programme schedule, but IceTV's combined and creativity-added database is above the creativity/originality threshold required to gain copyright protection as a (collective?) literary work? There has been discussion in the past about how creative the various levels of OSM are (my personal opinion is raw data:not, edited and combined ways:possibly, rendered maps:definitely). The outcome wasn't to rely on creativity. ;-) What's your source for the assertion that we shouldn't rely on creativity? ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] License Cut-over and critical mass
On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 9:23 PM, Rob Myers r...@robmyers.org wrote: On 07/17/2010 04:13 PM, 80n wrote: What's your source for the assertion that we shouldn't rely on creativity? I didn't assert that we *shouldn't*. I know you didn't. But somebody did. What's your source for the statement The outcome wasn't to rely on creativity. Who was it who gave this advice? ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] License Cut-over and critical mass
On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 10:57 AM, Andy Allan gravityst...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 10:24 AM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 9:28 AM, Andy Allan gravityst...@gmail.com wrote: Given that that has been the only option, that's hardly surprising. Everyone had two options: 1) agree to CC-BY-SA or 2) take your data to some other project (plenty to choose from). Nobody forced you to contribute to OSM. You agreed to CC-BY-SA. Oh, this is ridiculous. Of course I've agreed to CC-BY-SA. The ODbL didn't even exist when I joined OSM - and you know that fine and well Etienne, you were there too when there was only 3 of us mapping in SW London. So it's a crazy line of argument that you are following. Using the assertion that 30,000 people have agreed to ODbL already is the crazy line of argument. Everyone knows that new users are very trusting when signing up to an established project with a fine reputation. The sign up page doesn't even link to ODbL nor to the human readable summary. How many people do you think actually know what they are signing up for? In a truly open project there is no need to be so underhand. But there's more to OSM than the license, and if the project wants to change the license, and I think the new license is reasonable, then I'm happy to change. I've contributed to wikipedia under different licenses over the years too, you know. This line of discussion has turned from daft to pointless. Cheers, Andy ___ 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] License Cut-over and critical mass
On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 11:28 AM, John Smith deltafoxtrot...@gmail.comwrote: On 16 July 2010 20:23, Andy Allan gravityst...@gmail.com wrote: No, he was making the point that CC-BY-SA has 100% support amongst all the contributors, since we all agreed to it, and is using that to suggest that nobody wants to relicense and that anyone who does needs to fork the project. That's the ridiculous part. You are correct, it's obvious that there is some people unhappy with the status quo. But, seemingly still happy enough to continue contributing to it. If there was really some serious problems with the status-quo then a fork or a competing project would have already happened. It's got nothing to do with Google and it's not helpful to drag them into the discussion. It could have been any community that offers map editing similar to OSM, Google just happens to be the most obvious alternative. ___ 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] License Cut-over and critical mass
On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 4:10 PM, Gervase Markham gerv-gm...@gerv.netwrote: On 14/07/10 04:12, 80n wrote: The correct way to re-license a project is to fork it. What large body of people holds that opinion, such that you can be so dogmatic? The correct way to make any significant and contentious change to a project is to fork it. Significant changes that are not universally supported will cause a project serious damage if they are dealt with this way. The license change has been damaging OSM for well over two years. It could have been dealt with much more swiftly by creating a fork back then when there were only 2,500 contributors. Instead we've had a running sore that is set to continue for some time yet. The ODbL proponents know that a fork would be risky and would probably fail. Instead they tried to effect change from within. This continues to damage OSM. If there's no conclusion by September 1st then I believe that the move to re-license should be considered to have failed. We relicensed the entire Mozilla codebase without forking it. We had 99.8% (or something like that) of people agree. It's unlikely that 99.8% of OSM contributors will agree to ODbL. This is not a comparable situation. Can we all stop speculating about what percentage of people, or data, or objects, or countries are going to support it, and do whatever's necessary so that we can actually _ask_? Then we can figure out what to do. If the number is not 100%, no doubt people will have different opinions. At that point, it may be that OSMF says no, others say yes, and there's a fork. Or it may be that OSMF says yes, other say no, and there's a fork. Or it may be that we all agree yes, or all agree no. And this is the problem with trying to have any kind of fair vote. What do you count. Number of contributors? Number of contributions? Number of respondents? Number of recent contributors? You'll never even get agreement on how to measure this process fairly. A fork is actually the only practical and undeniable way to achieve such change. 80n Let's do it and find out. 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] License Cut-over and critical mass
On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 4:01 PM, Andy Allan gravityst...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 1:32 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: The problem is there's no time limit either. The process can be allowed to drag on for another 5 years if necessary. That's not quite true, and I think you know that. The OSMF isn't exactly likely to have this phase of the relicensing simply dragging on - to start suggesting that it would isn't helpful and is another fear of the fear of ODbL thing. All the time that there is uncertaintly about the license it is harming the project. Deterring potential contributors and confusing prospective users. How much longer should this be allowed to continue? I think allowed to continue is the wrong phrase. Perhaps what can I do to help speed things up? would be better. Maybe working on (more) documentation and outreach, or finding out what the holdup is with allowing existing contributors to choose to relicense and offering to help with that. I know I'm itching to be allowed to indicate my preference, and I know that there's already something like 30,000 newbies who have agreed already. The correct way to re-license a project is to fork it. But the proponents of the ODbL don't have the courage to do that. Instead they are trying to do it by attrition. First they give newbies no choice. Eventually, they hope, the number of newbies and new content will be overwhelming. If they had any guts they'd have forked the project. And they don't have the guts to put it to a straight vote either. With no deadline there's never a point at which anyone can say they failed. How much time is needed? Everything is in place, the LWG has had several years to prepare. If there isn't a clear majority by September 1st then I'd say the relicensing has failed. 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] License Cut-over and critical mass
On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 12:32 PM, Andy Allan gravityst...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 12:12 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: The correct way to re-license a project is to fork it. I whole-heartedly disagree. Do you think that wikipedia should have forked for their relicensing? Or Mozilla? They managed to find ways to achieve relicensing without the massive upheaval of starting a new project - instead they brought everyone along with them and built on their success. Forking is what happens to projects when they fail, and I don't believe anyone here wants OpenStreetMap to fail. I thought the whole reason for the relicensing was because CC-BY-SA was an epic fail. For five years people have been saying that OSM won't work because of the license. Well, Chicken Little, the sky has not fallen in, and last time I looked OSM was working pretty well. But the proponents of the ODbL don't have the courage to do that. Instead they are trying to do it by attrition. First they give newbies no choice. Eventually, they hope, the number of newbies and new content will be overwhelming. Interesting accusation. Are you accusing all ODbL proponents of having this plan? Or just the LWG? Or do you care to name anyone in particular? Because otherwise your accusations aren't very constructive. The minutes show that Steve Coast, Richard Fairhurst, Mike Collinson and Andy Robinson and me decided this on 20th March 2008. http://www.osmfoundation.org/images/e/e3/Osmf_boardminutes_20080320.pdf And yes, I understood the implications of this and all voted for it (it may even have been my idea). If they had any guts they'd have forked the project. And they don't have the guts to put it to a straight vote either. With no deadline there's never a point at which anyone can say they failed. How much time is needed? Everything is in place, the LWG has had several years to prepare. If there isn't a clear majority by September 1st then I'd say the relicensing has failed. Thanks, that is what I was asking. By clear majority do you mean a clear majority of respondents, or a clear majority of active contributors, or a clear majority of all contributors? And would you confirm what %age equates to a clear majority? I think it has to be factored by the size of contribution. The size of the resulting database should be the key determinant. However, this would be seriously skewed by TIGER and other imports. Perhaps bulk imports can be balanced by counting on both sides. So compare the volume of data that would be licensed under ODbL with the corresponding volume of data that would be licensed under CC-BY-SA. Then a simple largest wins criteria would work. 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] License Cut-over and critical mass
On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 10:31 AM, Richard Fairhurst rich...@systemed.netwrote: Elizabeth Dodd wrote: I still don't agree with this approach. It doesn't sit with my idea of democracy. When people vote they need to know for what they are voting, and what the cut off marks are considered to be. It's not a vote. It's a request by the OpenStreetMap Foundation for you personally to consider relicensing your contributions. The only question you're being asked is do you agree to relicense your contributions?. The problem is there's no time limit either. The process can be allowed to drag on for another 5 years if necessary. All the time that there is uncertaintly about the license it is harming the project. Deterring potential contributors and confusing prospective users. How much longer should this be allowed to continue? You are not being asked to vote on what you think should happen to others' contributions - you can't be, they own the rights and neither you nor me nor OSMF can relicense them without their permission. You should tick the box solely according to what you are willing to permit with _your_ contributions. I hate to get all meta, but there seems to be a lot more fear of fear of the ODbL than fear of the ODbL (not to say the latter doesn't exist). cheers Richard -- View this message in context: http://gis.638310.n2.nabble.com/License-Cut-over-and-critical-mass-tp5279719p5286683.html Sent from the Legal Talk mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ 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
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
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
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] ODbL: How obscure/inaccessible can published algorithms be?
On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 12:07 PM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Hi, OdbL has this requirement where, if you publish a produced work based on a derived database, you also have to publish either (a) the derived database or (b) a diff allowing someone to arrive at the derived database if he has the original, publicly available database or (c) an algorithm that does the same. Is that correct so far? I don't think it's quite as simple as that. Suppose, considering your WMS example, two separate companies provide identical services: A) The first service uses massive processor power to analyse a raw planet dump and provides the output directly. Perhaps a larger company such as Google might take this approach. B) The second uses some algorithms and optimisations that involve creating a derived database, but results in exactly the same output as service A. Perhaps, a smaller company such as Geofabrik might take this approach. Let's assume that neither company voluntarily publishes any information about their methods. On what basis can you demand from company B that they release their intermediate database? You don't know (for sure) that they have an intermediate database. The ODbL doesn't give you any rights to ask company A to warrant that they are not using an intermediate database. What kind of duck test can you use to be sure that a derived database is involved in the process? 80n To use a simple example, let's say I build a WMS that works with OSM data. To make this perform well at low zooms, I have to combine ways into longer bits and simplify their geometry. The result is clearly a derived database that falls under the above, and in practice I would probably choose the a route and simply make a weekly PostGIS dump available for download and be done with it. However, I wonder about the permitted ways of doing (c). I guess it would probably permitted to specify a number of PostGIS commands that achieve the changes. - Let us assume for a moment that applying these PostGIS commands would require a machine with 192 GB of RAM and Quad Quadcore processors and still take two weeks to complete, putting it out of reach of many users. Would it still be permitted to do that? Or, would it be allowable to say: For simplification, a Douglas-Peucker algorithm link to DP wikipedia entry is used. (leaving open the exact implementation and parametrisation of DP - bear in mind that with some algorithms, how they work is easily explained but implementing them in a way that runs on standard hardware may be a hard task). Or, would it be allowed to say: For simplification, just load the data set into name of horribly expensive proprietary ESRI program and hit Ctrl-S X Y, then choose Export to PostGIS? What about: For simplification, we did the following steps: detailed instructions that are easy to follow. These steps in this sequence are patented by us, so if you want to follow them, please apply to us for a license to use our patent. Bye Frederik ___ 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] ODbL: How obscure/inaccessible can published algorithms be?
On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 4:13 PM, Matt Amos zerebub...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 3:43 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: On what basis can you demand from company B that they release their intermediate database? You don't know (for sure) that they have an intermediate database. The ODbL doesn't give you any rights to ask company A to warrant that they are not using an intermediate database. company B is required, under the ODbL, to provide an offer of their derived database (or a diff, etc...). What kind of duck test can you use to be sure that a derived database is involved in the process? if you suspect that someone is using a derived database, and isn't making an offer of it, you are suspecting that they are in breach of the ODbL. this can be tested by asking the company and, if they don't provide a satisfactory response, legal proceedings could follow. Exactly. On what grounds would you suspect that either company was using a derived database? this is similar to the AGPL. if you suspected that someone was distributing or allowing users [to] interact[...] remotely through a computer network with a derivative version of AGPL'd code, you could ask them where the corresponding offer is and, if they don't provide a satisfactory response, legal proceedings could follow. cheers, matt ___ 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] ODbL: How obscure/inaccessible can published algorithms be?
On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 8:09 PM, Matt Amos zerebub...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 6:30 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 4:13 PM, Matt Amos zerebub...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 3:43 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: What kind of duck test can you use to be sure that a derived database is involved in the process? if you suspect that someone is using a derived database, and isn't making an offer of it, you are suspecting that they are in breach of the ODbL. this can be tested by asking the company and, if they don't provide a satisfactory response, legal proceedings could follow. Exactly. On what grounds would you suspect that either company was using a derived database? by whatever grounds you'd suspect that a company was providing services based on AGPL software, or distributing a binary incorporating GPL software - gut instinct ;-) In the scenario I described you'd have no grounds for suspicion. let's assume it's known that this company is definitely using OSM data - determining that can be difficult, depending on exactly what it is they're doing with the data. in general, it's very difficult to do anything directly from the planet file alone, so i'd suspect that any company doing anything with OSM data has a derived database of some kind and, if there's no offer evident on their site, i'd contact them about it. You're going to do that for every single organisation that publishes some kind of OSM data?!! Good luck. it's a similar situation to looking at a site and thinking they're using OSM data to render a map, without respecting the license. it's entirely possible that they have some other data source, or have collected the data themselves. so it's a gut instinct whether or not you think any of the data has come from OSM and should be followed up. Not at all. The lack of attribution is self evident. A derived database is not at all evident. cheers, matt ___ 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] ODbL: How obscure/inaccessible can published algorithms be?
On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 9:20 PM, Matt Amos zerebub...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 9:03 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 8:44 PM, Matt Amos zerebub...@gmail.com wrote: a lack of attribution is evident, but whether they're using OSM data isn't. you have no grounds for suspicion, but you might have a gut instinct. what do you do? If you have no grounds for suspicion then you do nothing. But checking the Easter Eggs is a pretty good method of establishing grounds in your example. That doesn't hold true for the derived databases in my scenario. are there easter eggs in OSM? i thought we followed the on the ground rule? ;-) The two are not mutually exclusive. Ordnance Survey are well known for having very accurate maps, they are also known to have easter eggs. it isn't a good method of establishing grounds if the data may have been modified by the inclusion of 3rd party data, or processed in a way which would change the visual texture of the data. basically, while sometimes you can be sure there's a derivative database or that data is from OSM, a lot of times you can't be. I think you've lost the thread. Now, you are arguing that you can't spot a derivative database. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL: How obscure/inaccessible can published algorithms be?
On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 1:07 AM, Matt Amos zerebub...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 10:45 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 9:20 PM, Matt Amos zerebub...@gmail.com wrote: are there easter eggs in OSM? i thought we followed the on the ground rule? ;-) The two are not mutually exclusive. Ordnance Survey are well known for having very accurate maps, they are also known to have easter eggs. sure. but each easter egg is a deliberate inaccuracy. it isn't a good method of establishing grounds if the data may have been modified by the inclusion of 3rd party data, or processed in a way which would change the visual texture of the data. basically, while sometimes you can be sure there's a derivative database or that data is from OSM, a lot of times you can't be. I think you've lost the thread. Now, you are arguing that you can't spot a derivative database. i've been arguing that from the start. not only have i been saying it's difficult to tell if there's a derivative database, i've been saying it's the same difficulty as telling if a map is derived from OSM, or if a binary contains modified GPL code, or if a service is using modified AGPL code. It's clearly not the same difficulty. And the point of this is that it's going to be almost impossible to detect a derived database in use. You said yourself that you'd just assume that anyone processing OSM data would be presumed to be using a derived database. The example I described above clearly demonstrates that you can't differentiate between company A who doesn't use a derived database and company B who does. You counter example, that maps are just as difficult is hardly relevant, and incorrect anyway. In most cases you can detect the infringment because you would have the evidence in front of you. The reality is that the derived database rule is almost unenforceable in the way that you describe it. It would be a massive drain on OSMF resources to try enforcing such a policy and would certainly be a very strong case for many commercial companies to avoid OSM data like the plague. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] OBbL and forks
On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 12:57 PM, Richard Weait rich...@weait.com wrote: On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 7:40 AM, mapp...@sheerman-chase.org.uk wrote: Hi, A quick question for the legal people: does ODbL allow the project to be forked? Why not? The code is in svn and has been for ages, ready for forking. Of course, you can't change the license on the GPL code that you fork without re-writing it. The OSM data can be forked now as cc-by-sa as the data is right there in planet, ready for forking. You could fork data from an ODbL project the same way. Of course the same requirements for relicensing would exist. You'd have to essentially replace all of the data to relicense the data. Could a fork relicense the Content in a different way? As I understand it the Content is unrestricted by any license or copyright claim. Obviously any collection of the Content that forms a substantial amount would have to be wrapped in ODbL, so I'm not sure what it would mean in practice, but it seems that someone could re-publish an ODbL licensed database that contained Content that was restricted by a no-modifications clause or a non-commercial clause. I may not have understood the meaning of the Contributor Terms properly, but clause 2 seems to waive any rights in the Content from the contributors and I haven't seen anywhere that asserts any additional rights, so am I right to infer that the Content is not constrained in any way? ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] OBbL and forks
On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 12:14 AM, Matt Amos zerebub...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 11:14 PM, andrzej zaborowski balr...@gmail.com
wrote:
2009/12/8 Matt Amos zerebub...@gmail.com:
On Tuesday, December 8, 2009, Anthony o...@inbox.org wrote:
On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 7:40 AM, mapp...@sheerman-chase.org.uk
javascript:_e({},
'cvml', 'mapp...@sheerman-chase.org.uk'); wrote:
A quick question for the legal people: does ODbL allow the project to
be forked?
Technically, it does. But remember that the OSMF is granted a special
license in addition to the ODbL. Any fork would be at a major disadvantage
as it wouldn't have that special license.
Yes, because the osmf has a direct relationship with the contributors,
and any fork wouldn't. This is similar to the fsf, which asks its
contributors to assign copyright, giving it rights that any fork
purely under the GPL doesn't have.
Right, so this is one thing that isn't being made so clear. It's been
said multiple times that the ODbL transition in summary is the spirit
of CC-By-SA taken and made into a proper license for a database. But
actually it's the spirit of CC-By-SA + copyright assignment, like that
of Mozilla and others, which makes a difference.
it's in that spirit, but it's also worth pointing out that we aren't
asking for copyright assignment or any other rights assignment. that's
a subtle, but often important difference.
Matt, could you explain why it's an important difference please?
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] License for OSM logo
On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 11:56 AM, Richard Weait rich...@weait.com wrote: On Tue, 2009-07-07 at 03:01 -0400, Russ Nelson wrote: On Jul 7, 2009, at 2:53 AM, Andy Robinson (blackadder-lists) wrote: The logo is also now trademarked. I'll raise this (and have also copied to Matt) as currently we don't have a policy on reuse of the logo. You'll need permission from Steve Coast first, as he is still listed as the Proprietor by the Intellectual Property Office. http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/tm/t-os/t-find/t-find-number?detailsrequested=Ctrademark=2500155 A Canadian trade mark lawyer was surprised that the transfer from Steve Coast to the OpenStreetMap Foundation would take more than a week or two. Has this transfer slipped due to oversight, incompetence, redefined goals or some sinister Satanic Portal[1] The transfer application form is currently with the UK Intellectual Property Office and should get processed any day soon. It seems however that all that does is update the IPO's registry records. A separate assignment is required to actually transfer the IP from Steve to OSMF. This is in hand, and will probably be dealt with at Thursday's board meeting. 80n We (Open Source Initiative) have struggled with this for years. Not straightforward. Python Software Foundation has a good policy for reuse of their snake logo. The Fedora Project has Trademark Guidelines. The Foundation might use this as a starting point once the Foundation owns a trade mark. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal/TrademarkGuidelines#Proper_Trademark_Use [1] Satanic Portal might also be a trade mark owned by Steve Coast but I don't see it listed. http://www.ipo.gov.uk/search.htm?words=satanic +portal ___ 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] ODbL RC and share-alike licensing of Produced Works
On Mon, Jun 8, 2009 at 11:46 PM, Henk Hoff o...@toffehoff.nl wrote: Peter Millar schreef: - Original Message - From: Henk Hoff o...@toffehoff.nl To: Licensing and other legal discussions. legal-talk@openstreetmap.org Sent: Saturday, 6 June, 2009 01:54:07 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal Subject: Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL RC and share-alike licensing of Produced Works The LWG has mentioned this issue with ODC. There will be an RC2 of the ODbL in which this problem is solved. The change will be: 1. Add something on produced work/derivative db question along lines of: Any derivative Database used in the creation of a Publicly Available Produced Work should be considered itself as Publicly Available and therefore subject to Section 4.4. (where Section 4.4 is the Share Alike clause) 2. Remove the reverse engineering clause. With these two changes the focus of the SA-clause (within the ODbL) is on the data and not the produced work as a whole. It's basicly saying: we don't care what license you use for your Produced Work, as long as the derivative database that you used to create the Produced Work is publicly available under the ODbL license (or a by OSMF determined compatible one). Since the data itself will have ODbL, we don't need the reverse engineering clause anymore on any produced work. This also protects any copyright data that is used with a collective (!) database (since there is no reverse engineering applicable). We (the LWG) think this is an adequate solution to the problem of having Produced Work released under another license. Cheers, Henk Hoff I'm not sure I follow this. Is it proposed that the reverse engineering clause is removed altogether or just in the context of a Produced Work with a share-alike licence? Peter It is proposed to removed the clause 4.7 altogether, because it suits no purpose with the addition of derivative databases being public when the produced work is also public. Why bother to do all the reverse engineering when the data with which the produced work is made is already freely available? In the RC1 this was not the case. So if you have a Produced Work based on: - the database: no need for reverse engineering since the database is freely available The database is not freely available. It is only available under OdbL. The incentive to reverse engineer a produced work would be to create map data that isn't constrained by the OdbL. This modification would allow that to happen. This is unsatisfactory. 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Produced Work guideline working
Actually I think the duck test http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_test is the simplest way of approaching this problem. If someone treats something as a database then its a database. Otherwise its a produced work. They can call it whatever they like when the publish it. The duck test kicks in when someone uses it. 80n On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 11:01 PM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Hi, Mike Collinson wrote: If it was intended for the extraction of the original data, then it is a database and not a Produced Work. Otherwise it is a Produced Work. We can clearly define things that are USUALLY Produced Works: .PNG, JPG, .PDF, SVG images and any raster image; a map in a physically printed work. Database dumps are usually not Produced Works, e.g a Planet dump. I think it was 80n who, in an older discussion about this, pointed out that it may not be helpful to focus on the *intent* of someone doing something. Someone might make an SVG file that contains the full original OSM data, but without the intent of extracting data, and someone else then uses that as a database. But I guess we don't need to get all upset about this because if a database is made from the Produced Work then ODbL again applies through the reverse engineering clause... 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 ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL comments from Creative Commons
Thinh Nguyen of Creative Commons writes: While some complexities are introduced by differences in background legal doctrines, others are introduced by the ODbL scheme itself. These two points about the complexity of the ODbL are important ones that probably haven't been discussed as much as they should have been. As if the ODbL is not complex enough, when you add in the FIL and all the other considerations that apply to the practical implementation within the OSM context (eg click-through access for mirrored databases etc) then we have something that, in my opinion, is near to being unusable. Given that we have a goal of going from 100,000 contributors to 1 million complexity is something that will cost the community a lot. On my personal list of issues complexity is one that I consider to be a show stopper. 80n 2009/3/21 Jean-Christophe Haessig jean-christophe.haes...@dianosis.org Le samedi 21 mars 2009 à 19:02 +0100, Ulf Möller a écrit : Thinh Nguyen of Creative Commons has posted detailed comments on the ODbL on the co-ment website. A large part of this comment focuses on the complexity of the ODbL. While simplicity is better, I think we should be allowed a reasonable amount of complexity in the writing of the license, if our goal is to make a license that can be reused by others, and if it makes the license more efficient and suited to our needs. My point is that licenses like CC or GPL are not that simple either, but their extended use makes them well-known and in this case a moderate amount of complexity is not a problem. JC ___ 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] License Telephone Debate
On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 10:59 AM, Russ Nelson r...@cloudmade.com wrote: On Mar 16, 2009, at 4:49 AM, 80n wrote: On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 1:16 AM, Russ Nelson r...@cloudmade.com wrote: We didn't understand the negative aspects of the CC-By-SA, but we used *it*. Are you saying that OSM shouldn't have been licensed at all, because at the time the licensing decision was made, people didn't understand exactly how it would work? Are arguing that we should then make the same mistake twice? No, I'm saying that sober people looked at the license and given their current understanding, thought it was the best choice. Other sober people have also looked at the proposed licenses and have identified a lot of questions and uncertainty. I'm suspicious of anyone who at this point thinks the new license is good enough. The open issues list contains a number of significant problems. Are you (and the other sober people you refer to) endorsing the license despite these issues? Or is your endorsement qualified by the assumption that these issues will have been addressed? Either position seems foolish to me. We shouldn't let the fact that we'll be smarter in the future delay us from making the best decision now, just as they didn't let the fact that we're smarter now from making that decision then. There seems to be a lot of emotion here, but if cost(CC-By-SA) cost(ODbL) + cost(switching), then we should switch even if we know that in the future we'll be evaluating cost(ODbL 1.0) against cost(ODbL 1.1) + cost(switching). This should be obvious, no? So why do we need to have a discussion about it? ODbL is more complex than CC-BY-SA in many way (copyright *and* database rights *and* contract law) and it is completely untested. EVERY open source contract is a unilateral contract (contract of adhesion) which relies on copyright law for its teeth. So, the ODbL introduces database rights ... but only because we've already seen that CC-By-SA doesn't work.. YES, there are risks, but YES there are risks of the status quo. The trouble here is that people are not very good at evaluating the risk of an unlikely event with bad consequences. Expect irrationality. So you are happy with these risks. That is your choice. Others may not be happy with these risks. The way to help people evaluate the risks is to explain them. 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Reverse-Engineering Maps and Share-Alike Licences
On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 6:02 PM, Nic Roets nro...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 7:37 PM, Ulf Möller use...@ulfm.de wrote: The problem with this though is that if you make an exemption for CC-BY-SA then you can drive the whole planet file through that loophole. If you want to close the loophole, you will need to get everyone to accept the license contract before letting them look at the map. That loophole can be closed by requiring that Produced work is only something that is primarily not a map. Map would be a very slippery term to define (pun unintentional). ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Difference between a Produced Work and a Derived Database
On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 9:17 PM, Jean-Christophe Haessig jean-christophe.haes...@dianosis.org wrote: In fact, we might not have to define what a Produced Work is. Instead, we could let the producer of the derived work fully decide: My current interpretation of the ODbL is that this is precisely the intention. If you publish it as a Produced Work then it is a Produced Work. If you publish it as ODbL then it is ODbL. What happens when you use a Produced Work is that if you try to access it as a database then it magically reverts to being an ODbL licensed work because of the reverse engineering clause. Unfortunately, while this is nice in theory, it means that you can't license a Produced Work under a share-alike license because the reverse engineering clause is incompatible with every share-alike license. I don't see any way around this at the moment and we really do need a solution. 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Reverse-Engineering Maps and Share-Alike Licences
On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 9:10 PM, Gervase Markham gerv-gm...@gerv.net wrote: a) GPL and CC-BY-SA compatibility of produced works is more important. Agreed, but... b) If people are reverse-engineering our stuff, either they need a massive, sustained, continuous Mechanical Turk effort, or their map will be out of date anyway. ... an effort like OSM for example, or Google's Map Maker. And they can always get the latest OSM data just by creating a new Produced Work any time they want. It's not much of an obstacle. IMHO the whole Produced Work thing, as currently drafted, is fatally flawed. It fails to achieve what it is trying to do. A rethink is required. 80n ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] A Creative Commons iCommons license
On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 10:26 AM, Richard Fairhurst rich...@systemed.netwrote: CC-BY-SA says: You may distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform a Derivative Work only under the terms of this License, a later version of this License with the same License Elements as this License, or a Creative Commons iCommons license that contains the same License Elements as this License (e.g. Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Japan). slightly provocative Could we ask CC to declare that the new fabulous ODbL, after due revision and comments by the community, can be considered a Creative Commons iCommons licence for the purposes of the above - in much the same way as FSF permitted migration from GFDL to CC-BY-SA? /slightly provocative It's my understanding that the ODbL is very different from a CC-BY-SA license, so I think this would be a very unlikely thing to happen. More importantly the Factual Information License, which is what contributors will actually be signing up to, is totally unlike CC-BY-SA in every respect. 80n cheers Richard -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/%22A-Creative-Commons-iCommons-license%22-tp22260709p22260709.html Sent from the OpenStreetMap - Legal Talk mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ 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
