Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Changeset Comments Copyright

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Wed, Sep 23, 2020 at 6:19 PM Andy Townsend  wrote:

> For those unfamiliar with it, the OSM US' Slack instance has a
> "feed-changeset-comments" channel which shows new changeset discussion
> comments shortly after they are added.  There are lots of other ways of
> getting at that data as well of course - including on osm.org itself.
>

To provide some context, this Slack channel is simply forwarding the
contents of an Atom feed generated by Pascal Neis here:
http://resultmaps.neis-one.org/osm-discussions?c=United States

IANAL, but from an intellectual property point of view, I think Pascal
creating RSS/Atom feeds of changeset comments per country falls under fair
use/fair dealing. And there is a whole ecosystem of tools that process and
consume RSS/Atom feeds, one of which is an integration in Slack was setup
by someone so that comments on changesets in the United States are more
visible to the people who are in the OSM US Slack.

~Eugene
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] local copyright law on government data and OSM license

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

Hi Kathleen, all,

Just as a bit of reference, the original intellectual property law from
1924, back when the Philippines was a territory of the United States,
didn't have this commercial-with-prior-approval second sentence and was
basically modeled after the U.S. law (government works are fully in the
public domain). This additional sentence was added in 1972 and was retained
in the present law of 1997. Previous analysis of the current law by
Wikimedia volunteers with respect to copyright can be seen here and which
concludes that this second sentence is some sort of additional
non-copyright-based government right:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Template:PD-PhilippineGov

This situation actually raises a lot of questions especially in the context
of OSM. For instance, if a government agency published a dataset of
polygons of places, it would probably be best to get the agency's prior
approval to import such dataset in order to waive the requirement of "prior
approval [...] for exploitation of such work for profit" because end users
of OSM should not have to ask the agency for approval if they want to use
the data that was included in OSM for profit.

On the other hand, if an OSM mapper *derives* new data from such a dataset
(for example, generating a representative point for each polygon, maybe at
the centroid, or maybe at at the "admin centre" if the polygon represents
settlements and the mapper used their best judgement and research to place
such points), then this new dataset is no longer the same as the government
dataset. If the OSM mapper added the new derived data to OSM, then one
could perhaps argue that prior approval from the government agency is no
longer needed because the very act of mapping in OSM is not "for
exploitation of such work for profit". And furthermore, end users of OSM
would also perhaps not need to seek "prior approval" as well since they are
not exploiting the original government dataset but rather a derived dataset
(ex., points), and which cannot be used to reverse engineer the original
government dataset (ex., polygons).

Regards,
Eugene



On Thu, Jul 16, 2020 at 10:57 AM Kathleen Lu via legal-talk <
legal-talk@openstreetmap.org> wrote:

> A few thoughts:
>
> I'd want to talk to a Philippine lawyer, because frankly, these two
> sentences seem to contradict each other:
> *No copyright shall subsist in any work of the Government of the
> Philippines. However, prior approval of the government agency or office
> wherein the work is created shall be necessary for exploitation of such
> work for profit*
>
> What would be the consequences of not getting permission? A violation of
> the government's non-copyright rights? Rights of what? I didn't think the
> Philippines had database rights, but there could well be some other
> non-copyright law.
>
> Looking online, I found this on the National Mapping authority's website:
> Can I edit and use the NAMRIA maps for business? Article III of NAMRIA
> Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) states that "the second party shall use the
> digital data acquired from NAMRIA only for its own authorized purpose and
> not for commercial purpose. If digital is sold to other parties, the Second
> Party shall pay the full cost of the digital data and its royalties". This
> applies only to digital maps (scanned/vector) purchased from NAMRIA.
> http://www.namria.gov.ph/faq.aspx
>
> So one question I would have is whether the data source in question is
> digital data acquired from NAMRIA?
>
> I also found this list
> http://www.geoportal.gov.ph/resources/PGPDataInventorywithSW
> which seems to indicate that at least some government geodata has no
> restrictions on it. With respect to at least those datasets, it would seem
> that *explicit permission with respect to OSM* is unnecessary. I didn't see
> a source for the letters mentioned in this list, but it's possible that
> some of the data restrictions would not be a problem for OSM, but they'd
> have to be examined on a letter by letter basis.
>
> Best,
> -Kathleen
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 6:17 PM Erwin Olario  wrote:
>
>> Recently, some edits in the country came to the  attention of the
>> community and have been found to be derived from government data.
>> Volunteers in the community, after advising the DWG of the process and
>> action plan, are undertaking the rollback of affected edits.
>>
>> In our community, the current practice follows the general
>> recommendation, that  no (Philippine government) data should be added into
>> OpenStreetMap, unless explicit permission has been obtained from the
>> originating agency/office/owners that the data will be added in OSM, under
>> ODbL.
>>
>> The relevant local law on government data, states Republic Act 8293
>> ,
>> section 176:
>> "*Works of the Government. ‑ 176.1. No copyright shall subsist in any
>> work of the Government of the Philippines. However, 

Re: [OSM-legal-talk] artist using osm data

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 4:37 PM, Martin Koppenhoefer 
wrote:

> Now the question is if using OSM data as canvas for his work will require
> him to release it (or the data files with the drawings) under the ODbL. Do
> you agree this kind of use is leading to produced works or is there some
> doubt?
>

The artwork itself is a produced work so it can be released under any
license subject to the requirement that the artist also publish the
specific subset of OSM data he used under the ODbL and attributing OSM. But
if he is only using very few objects from the OSM database, a case can be
made that the underlying subset of OSM data is an insubstantial
extract/derivation and therefore the artist has no further obligation under
the ODbL.
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Geocoding as produced work (was: Proposed "Metadata"-Guideline)

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On 9/23/15, Tom Lee  wrote:
>>
>> I mean, nobody cares about a single on-the-fly geocoding result (this
>> easily falls under the "substantial" guideline) but if you repeatedly
>> query an ODbL database with the aim of retrieving from it, say, a
>> million lat-lon pairs to store in your own database, then how in the
>> world could this new database ever be *not* a derivative? Even if you
>> were to define a single geocoding result as a produced work, combining a
>> large number of them in a database would still get you a derived
>> database again.
>
>
> Can't the same argument apply to tiles? If you used tiles to recreate the
> OSM database (say, by tracing road geometry or by OCRing feature names) and
> then republishing under a different license, you would clearly be violating
> the ODbL.
>
> It seems as though the same approach can apply to geocoding: locate
> features to your heart's content, but if you use the results to create a
> general purpose geographic database that substitutes for/competes with OSM,
> you'll be in violation of the license.

A geocoding result is substantially different from a map tile. A
single geocoded result is arguably a single piece of data that is most
probably devoid of any copyright and by itself does not have any
database rights, while a map tile is a creative work that is clearly
copyrighted.

If you have multiple geocoded results, and if those results are
organized in a manner that enabled individual access, then you already
have a database (in the legal sense). I really cannot see how such can
be considered as a Produced Work when it is clearly a Derivative
Database when a source database was used to help produce the results.

Sets of map tiles, on the other hand, are not automatically a database
and because they are primarily creative works are considered Produced
Works. Just like a photo of a storefront may have embedded trademarks
in it, a map tile may have embedded data from a database in it too. It
is only when you extract the trademark from the photo, or the data
from the map tiles that you may possibly infringe on IP rights. Note
that the operative word here is 'extract'. No such extraction occurs
with geocoded results—they are pure data already.

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Question using Wikipedia coordinates

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

Hi,

If you got the coordinates of objects on your own without looking at Google
Maps or other copyrighted sources, then you should be able to publish them
on Wikipedia and on OpenStreetMap in parallel. But do not indicate
Wikipedia as the source in OpenStreetMap. Please use source=survey or
source=local_knowledge


On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 9:28 PM, Thorsten Schneider ts...@gmx.de wrote:



 Dear all,



 I had been notified, that it might not be possible to include coordinates
 published in Wikipedia and would like to seek a solution here.



 Background: Together with 2 colleagues I have collected over a longer
 period of time a database of coordinates of  a certain type of museums
 worldwide. The coordinates did not come from Google maps, they had been
 determined on the OSM map by using address data from the museums webpages
 and partly own information or coming from people with local knowledge.



 We have published this information, incl. the coordinates on Wikipedia.
 After that I uploaded the coordinates, together with the name of the
 museums, etc. to OSM, in the source tag I put my respective Wikipedia
 article.  A friendly mapper has contacted me and raised the question,
 whether there are licensing problems between OSM and WP-data.



 I would like to learn more on how to contribute to Wikipedia and OSM in
 parallel, without legal hazel.



 Thank you very much!

 Best wishes

 Thorsten



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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Updated geocoding community guideline proposal

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 12:08 PM, Alex Barth a...@mapbox.com wrote:

 How would the Collective Database approach work if the OSM Database must
 remain unmodified to be part of a Collective Database?

 The definition of Collective Database seems to be tailored to use cases
 where the OpenStreetMap database *in unmodified form* is part of a larger
 database. I can't quite conjure up a real world example, but the ODbL is
 pretty clear about this:

  “Collective Database” – Means this Database in unmodified form as part
 of a collection of independent databases in themselves that together are
 assembled into a collective whole. A work that constitutes a Collective
 Database will not be considered a Derivative Database. - See more at:
 http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1-0/#sthash.mDtnZAPO.dpuf


The this Database in unmodified form means the particular database that
is licensed under ODbL. It can be the OSM database itself, or any database
derived from the OSM database that must in itself be licensed under ODbL.

So if you did any transformations on the OSM database (ex., converted it
into a form suitable for a geocoder), the transformed database is licensed
under the ODbL. You can either publish this transformed database or provide
the software used to create the transformed database to comply with the
license of the source OSM database.

Then, this geocoder database can become part of the collective database.
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Creative Commons license question

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Sun, May 4, 2014 at 2:44 PM, Michael Collinson m...@ayeltd.biz wrote:

 This is a pure CC question.

 An organisation is making a short film/video which will be released CC-BY.
  They want to show (fleetingly) OSM map tiles ... which are CC-BY-SA- 2.0.
  Can they do that?


I think fair use/fair dealing could apply here and they have no
obligations? (But an attribution would be nice.)
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Upload of copyrighted map images from OSM to Facebook

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 10:34 AM, Martin Koppenhoefer 
dieterdre...@gmail.com wrote:

 A user on the Italian Mailing List posted this link concerning Facebook's
 integration of Wikipedia content into the so-called facebook community
 pages:
 https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/21721

 In this case they achieved to retain the cc-by-sa attribution and all
 backlinks to Wikipedia. Maybe we can convince them to do the same for OSM
 cartography?


+1
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Using Google Street View to perform virtual survey

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Mon, Apr 7, 2014 at 8:06 AM, Martin Koppenhoefer
dieterdre...@gmail.comwrote:

  Am 06/apr/2014 um 01:24 schrieb Eugene Alvin Villar sea...@gmail.com:
 
  or if a court decision says *exactly* that it is OK to copy stuff for
 OSM.

 how would you get that decision if you didn't use the material before?


You can always file for a declaratory judgment:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaratory_judgment
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Using Google Street View to perform virtual survey

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Sat, Apr 5, 2014 at 11:50 PM, Paulo Carvalho 
paulo.r.m.carva...@gmail.com wrote:


 Dear fellow mappers,

Let me present myself to you.  I'm a OSM mapper from the Brazil
 community and a question rose there which caused a split in the group
 regarding Google Street View to perform virtual surveys, such as taking
 notes of house numbers and plotting them in the maps.

After reading
 http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Legal_FAQ#2a._Can_I_trace_data_from_Google_Maps.2FNokia_Maps.2F3F,
  I was pondering about the impossibility of copyright and licenses apply
 to facts and reality (not regarding philosophical aspects).

Google Street View photos depict reality or facts, thus I could use
 them to observe reality and derive interpretations which would be genuine
 creative work.  It would be illegal to use the images in Mapillary, for
 instance, but the facts depicted by the images are not property of Google.

Your thoughts, please


You may find more discussion of this topic on this OSM help page:
https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/710/can-i-use-google-streetview-to-help-create-maps

Also, somebody has asked Google regarding Street View. Here is Ed Parsons'
answer:

Checking the odd street names is OK. But every street name I would suggest
 would represent a bulk feed.


And bulk feed refers to the Terms of Service:

2(e) [You may not] use the Products in a manner that gives you or any other
 person access to mass downloads or bulk feeds of any Content, including but
 not limited to numerical latitude or longitude coordinates, imagery, and
 visible map data


Hope that helps.
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Using Google Street View to perform virtual survey

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

FWIW, I agree with you that it should not be a case of copyright
infringement to obtain uncopyrightable facts from copyroghted sources.

Here's a blog post that even argues that it is OK to trace from Google's
satellite imagery: http://www.systemed.net/blog/legacy/100.html

But OSM does not operate this way. We aim to be whiter than white, and not
dabble in legal shades of gray. Even if *you* think that it is legally OK
to copy from someone, you shouldn't do it unless you have *permission* to
do so, or if a court decision says *exactly* that it is OK to copy stuff
for OSM.


On Sun, Apr 6, 2014 at 6:04 AM, Paulo Carvalho paulo.r.m.carva...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 Hi,

 You may find more discussion of this topic on this OSM help page:

 https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/710/can-i-use-google-streetview-to-help-create-maps


 I see many people agree that we can use the images to access reality.
  This does not mean we're using the images themselves, which is copyrighted
 work.


 Also, somebody has asked Google regarding Street View. Here is Ed Parsons'
 answer: Checking the odd street names is OK. But every street name I
 would suggest
 * would represent a bulk feed.*


 With all due respect, this is plain wrong.  Anyone who dealt with
 databases know that a bulk load is an automated insertion of copious
 ammount of data.  Browsing photos to manually write down signs and house
 numbers is far from bulk load.


  And bulk feed refers to the Terms of Service: 2(e) [You may not] use
 the Products in a manner that gives you or any other
 * person access to mass downloads or bulk feeds of any Content,
 including but ** not limited to numerical latitude or longitude
 coordinates, imagery, and ** visible map data * Hope that helps.


 It says imagery.  I'm not telling to download and use the images
 elsewhere.  Reading a sign in SV photos and taking a note is different from
 copying them.

 I'm still not convinced.

 thanks,

 Paulo

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Copyright of old media / images / maps

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Sat, Apr 5, 2014 at 12:02 AM, Martin Koppenhoefer dieterdre...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 Anybody can explain how it can be legal to claim copyright on old
 material, say 18th or 19th century works?

 When browsing the web (mostly library pages and catalogues) those
 institutions often claim full copyright and prohibit reproduction,
 distribution etc. of the (digitalized/scanned/photographed) works, but I
 wonder on what basis they do so, given that the authors of those works are
 all dead for centuries now.

 Would it be legitimate to derive features (e.g. names or old names) for
 osm from such sources if the distributing entity claims copyright on the
 material?


As I understand it, in some jurisdictions, while the original piece (on
paper, canvas, etc.) is already in the public domain, a digital scan,
reproduction, or photograph of the piece may still be given copyright
protection, especially if the jurisdiction uses the sweat of the brow
doctrine[1] as the reproduction process may take a lot of effort and skill
(e.g., preventing damage to the original piece). This is notably NOT the
case in the United States as shown by the Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel
Corp. case[2].

As for deriving factual data from the reproductions, I think this should be
OK since you are not copying the reproduction itself but rather picking up
uncopyrightable data, much the same as if you are picking out facts by
reading a copyrighted piece of text. But of course, IANAL.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel_Corp.
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] propriety layer over OSM

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

Hi,

As long as that proprietary layer has not been created based on OSM data,
you are definitely good to go.

However, if the data was created based on OSM data (for example, users add
a marker on an OSM-based map and the marker was positioned relative to
objects depicted on the OSM map), then you are entering a murky gray area
and would need to consult an IP lawyer to give you a definitive answer.


On Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 9:49 PM, yoav kleinfeld ykleinf...@yahoo.comwrote:

 I read previous threads but am still not sure how it applies to my
 following question.

 I'm checking the feasibility of a project I have in mind, I am not a
 programmer, so I will try asking in lay terms without confusing the issue,
 hoping to get an answer that would get through my thick non-technical skull.

 I have an idea for a web/mobile application that would require an
 additional layer over OSM, or other maps for that matter. The layer would
 be street level data, for example - categorical information on a range of
 street numbers (Broadway 1 through 280 = x1, 280 through 600 = x2),
 basically creating data for a street sections similar to traffic
 directions.

 I would like to use the OSM map, and perhaps also its capabilities of
 layer data input. But I would like to keep the data sets created by my
 users propriety, so that quicker programmers will not be able to duplicate
 my work using this data.

 So in short, my question is if it is possible to use OSM to create a
 closed layer, and keep the data in that layer accessible only through my
 service?

 This may sound like not very good citizenship, but - the service will
 probably be free to use, and will incorporate require other layers of data
 shared with (and contributed to) OSM. I just need one specific data set -
 layer - to be closed in order to make the project commercially feasible.
 And just for sympathy points - if I get going with this I will have to fund
 it by eating rice and beans for a while and selling the lint in my pockets,
 I'm still a student basically.

 Thanks for any input you may have. And a reminder - not a programmer, not
 a copyright lawyer.

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Place name translations

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Sun, Jun 16, 2013 at 5:58 PM, Martin Koppenhoefer dieterdre...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 On 16/giu/2013, at 03:47, Erik Johansson erjo...@gmail.com wrote:

  While I agree with Richard, it might be interesting to know that
  Wikidata (a Wikimedia.de project) is licensed CC-0, and they copy data
  wholesale from Wikipedia.

 that's indeed interesting, how can they throw the original viral licenses
 of Wikipedia overboard?


Based on what I've seen, what they are copying from Wikipedia are data and
facts. In the US, facts are not copyrightable as facts do not originate
from creative authorship and there are no database rights in the US either.
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] License question, user clicking on map

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 10:58 PM, Olov McKie o...@mckie.se wrote:

 1. If we present an OSM map to the user let them click on the map and use
 the coordinates they clicked on as part of the meta-data for a place in our
 application, will the resulting database be considered a derived database?
  To clarify, we would not extract any information from the map, beside the
 coordinates that the user clicked on, they would by themselves navigate the
 map to for example London and then click somewhere in London.

 I was expecting this to be OK. If I were to use my old paperback world
 atlas to find the latitude and longitude of different places around the
 world, and then store those coordinates along with an awful lot of other
 information in a database, in no way would I expect whoever wrote that
 atlas to have copyright claims on my database. I see this as fair use of
 the atlas and I see the use of an application showing a map where the user
 clicks on the map as equivalent to an atlas and was therefor not expecting
 this to be an issue. As some of you see this as copying would I like to ask
 sub questions:



You're letting users pinpoint locations on a map created using OSM data.

How is this different from tracing roads and buildings from a map created
using OSM data?

I think most people agree that such tracing indeed creates derivative data
based on the OSM database. And I think it makes no difference if the
tracing is on a point by point basis or via lines or polygons.

So my opinion is that those coordinates should be licensed under the ODbL.
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Licenses for Produced Works under ODbL

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

Hi Igor,

I'd like to address a couple of points.

On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 3:19 PM, Igor Brejc igor.br...@gmail.com wrote:
 Not one company will dare to give out their proprietary source code to
 someone, even if they release it under a very strict license. The risks of
 someone inadvertently then pasting that code on pastebin (example) are just
 too great - and there's no way back.

This is not a problem of ODbL. If the end user distributes the source
code against the wishes of the publisher then the user did so
illegally. It's no different than if someone were to distribute MS
Office binaries via Bittorrent against the EULA.

Also, as Frederik mentioned, you don't have to to share the source
code. Even a proprietary binary program (with all the DRM you want to
prevent illegal distribution) would suffice.

 What's the purpose of it all, anyway? :) If someone releases the source code
 to a single person which then cannot share it with others, how does the
 larger OSM community then benefit from it all?

The point here is not to share and give away software or source code
but to share and give away data.

Eugene

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Licenses for Produced Works under ODbL

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

Hi Igor,

IANAL, so the following are just my opinions.

On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 1:07 AM, Igor Brejc igor.br...@gmail.com wrote:
 They also don't really answer the question what is a Database. Let's take,
 for example, the statement Rendering databases, for example those produced
 by Osm2pgsql, are clearly databases. First of all, what are rendering
 databases? I don't share the same clearliness of that statement, frankly.

A rendering database is a database that is used to render/draw a map.
Raw OSM data is not often suitable for rendering maps and you need to
preprocess OSM data into an intermediate database like the PostGIS DB
produced by Osm2pgsql.

As for what is a Database. This is a legal term and the most common
definition used is from the European Database Directive since it is in
the EU where we have database rights. Their 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

 Another issue is machine-readable form of an algorithm. Who says I should
 interpret that as a source code? And if I do, under what license
 can/should/must I release the source code? I'm certainly not going to
 release my work under the Public Domain.

Take note that releasing an algorithm is just an alternate for
releasing the derivative ODbL database. And from the wording of the
ODbL, yes, the algorithm doesn't have to be source code, just
machine-readable which can mean any electronic text like: Use the
program Osm2pgsql with the following settings on the following OSM
extract...

And if you want to release source code, it can be under any license
with a reasonable cost or free if over the Internet. There is no
obligation for the recipient to share with others. You can actually
say, here's the source code, but you are not allowed to share it with
others.

 I think the core issue that needs to be addressed and answered is: is there
 a place for proprietary/closed source software in OSM ecosystem? If we
 follow the strict reading logic of the mentioned guideliness and the one
 expressed in Frederik's answer, I would certainly have to say the answer is
 NO.

There is actually place for closed software in the OSM ecosystem. You
can use a proprietary map rendering software to draw maps made from
OSM data or a derivative database (assuming the software doesn't
itself create derivative databases.) And as I mentioned above, there
is absolutely no requirement to release source code or even algorithms
if you are able to provide the final derivative database used to
create your produced work at a reasonable cost.

Eugene

 On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 9:34 AM, Michael Collinson m...@ayeltd.biz wrote:

 Hi Igor,

 I wonder if this resource helps with your question?


 http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Trivial_Transformations_-_Guideline
 (a work in progress)

 Mike



 On 22/10/2012 18:45, Igor Brejc wrote:

 Hi,

 Thanks for your clarifications, everybody. I was under the (looks like
 wrong) impression the produced work must also be available under the ODbL
 license.
 One issue still bugs me though:

 If the closed software you have used did not work on the data directly,
 but on some sort of pre-processed or augmented data, then *that* would be
 the data you have to hand over.


 What does pre-processed or augmented data really mean? OSM data has to
 be preprocessed to get to the form suitable for rendering. Some examples of
 preprocessing:

 Importing it into PostGIS and flattening the geometries (like Mapnik does
 it).
 Generalizations: simplifications of roads, polygons etc. for a certain map
 scale.
 Finding suitable label placements.
 Extracting topology from the data (like multipolygon processing, merging
 of polygons, road segments etc.).
 Running other complex algorithms on the OSM data.

 This preprocessing can be done on-the fly or (in case of Mapnik) as a
 separate prerequisite step.

 Igor

 On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 2:06 PM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org
 wrote:

 Hi,

 On 10/22/12 12:07, Igor Brejc wrote:

  2. I generate a PDF map from that extract using an unpublished,

 closed-source software. The map includes the appropriate OSM
 attribution text.


  1. Is this possible?


 Yes (assuming that the PDF is not a database).

   2. What are my obligations in terms of ODbL license? What (if
  anything)

  do I have to provide, publish etc.?

 Recipients of the PDF, i.e. anyone who views iStockPhoto, would have the
 right to ask you to hand over the database on which the map is based. You
 would then have the option of saying it's plain OSM, simply download it
 from X, or actually give them the data.

 If the closed software you have used did not work on the data directly,
 but on some sort of pre-processed or augmented data, then *that* would be
 the data you have to hand over.

  3. Would there be a difference if it was PNG/SVG instead of PDF?


 I don't 

Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [Talk-us] press from SOTM US

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 4:12 AM, Alex Barth a...@mapbox.com wrote:

 And this is where SA gets really hairy. It's entirely possible and actually 
 quite common that part of a database that contains private data is public. E. 
 g. public facing web sites that are powered from a Salesforce DB through a 
 private API. Again, we need real-world examples. Working on this.

Please take note that the legal term database* is different from the
technical term database. Just because one website's data is in just
one PostgreSQL or MySQL database doesn't mean that this whole
database needs to be licensed under ODbL.


* According to the European Database Directive, 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.

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Some questions about using ODbL Produced Work maps in Wikipedia

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 3:04 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote:
 If it were any different, you could team up with a co-publisher, publish
 your ODbL Produced Works to him and he forwards them to the world without
 you ever having to release anything. It would be a loophole that demands
 quick fixing ;)

Is this a valid (i.e., legal) interpretation of the word publish? My
interpretation is that you make a work available to the general public
for it to be considered as publishing (hence the etymology of
publish which means to make public). So, conveying your work to a
another entity and not the general public does not count as
publishing.

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Critical Mass for license change-over

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 7:11 AM, Mike  Dupont
jamesmikedup...@googlemail.com wrote:
 I am just explaining the legal basis behind copyright and copyleft :
 Copyright says that I own all my work and you have no right to copy
 it, copyleft says you are allowed to copy it under certain conditions
 that are helpful to building a community.
 You might consider copyright to be selfish in itself or the idea of
 ownership in general, so please explain yourself.

But copyleft is in fact an exercise in copyright. Some people have
this mistaken idea that copyleft != copyright.

Copyleft exists because the copyright owner has the sole right to
decide how copies of his IP can be made and that the owner has decided
to freely share and let others copy his IP.

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL and publishing source data

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 6:42 PM, Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com wrote:
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.

 That makes some sense but you are implicitly taking the individual pixel as
 the level of granularity.  If you took the OSM planet file as your example
 once again, you could state that neither the individual co-ordinate numbers 
 like
 50.1234, nor individual tag strings like 'highway', have any independent
 existence.  They must stand together with other data items to form a complete
 object such as a node, which even then may not have much meaning without 
 others.

The difference is that for the OSM database, you can construct a
systematic level of granularity where individual objects at that
granularity are individually useful. Certainly, individual tags or
individual pairs of coordinates are not generally useful but a
collection of tagged POIs, ways, and relations are each individually
useful.

Whereas for a *typical* image consisting of a matrix of pixels,
there's no level of granularity that would make individual objects
generally useful, whether those objects are single pixels, or rows of
pixels, or columns of pixels, or tiles of 8x8 pixels. You have to take
the image as a whole to make sense of it.

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL and publishing source data

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

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.

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL and publishing source data

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 12:31 AM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 4:17 PM, Eugene Alvin Villar sea...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 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.

I think the word independent also applies to data and other materials.

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [talk-au] Statement from nearmap.com regarding submission of derived works from PhotoMaps to OpenStreetMap

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 11:01 PM, John Smith deltafoxtrot...@gmail.com wrote:
 On 18 June 2011 00:54, Eugene Alvin Villar sea...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 10:44 PM, John Smith deltafoxtrot...@gmail.com 
 wrote:
 On 18 June 2011 00:40, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote:
 I am not trying to apply patents to OSM. I am trying to use the example of
 patents to prove to you that your reasoning either something is CC-BY-SA 
 or
 it isn't is, in this simplicity, invalid; that there may well exist
 limitations external to the license that limit what you can or cannot do
 with the CC-BY-SA licensed entity.

 Sorry if I didn't explain myself properly, I meant if you apply
 CC-by-SA you are allowed or limited by that license only, if there is
 further restrictions you would have to use something other than
 cc-by-sa (such as CC-by-ND) to enforce this, OR use a contract.

 If you are given a CC-BY-SA licensed work, they you are limited by by
 the CC-BY-SA license on the copyrightable aspects only. Other aspects
 like trademarks or patents that are inherent in the work are already
 limited irrespective of the CC-BY-SA license. The person who gave you
 the CC-BY-SA licensed work does not have to enforce you to follow
 trademark or patent restrictions, by contract or another copyright
 license.

 I'm aware of the patent/trademark issues, I wish Frederik hadn't
 brought this up as it only serves to side track things, because unless
 he plans to constantly patent tiles we can ignore that side of things
 completely.

Let me try copyright-only examples.

I can take up the full text of all of the works of William
Shakespeare, compile it into a book with annotations, and release the
book under CC-BY-SA. Now since the original text by Shakespeare is
already in the public domain, I can copy those parts from the book
without following the book's CC license. In this case, the CC license
has no way to restrict me from doing that.

Here's another example. All English Wikipedia articles are licensed
CC-BY-SA. Most articles have images. Some images are *not* licensed
CC-BY-SA. In fact, many of such images are included in the article
under fair use reasoning. That doesn't give the reader the license to
use such images under CC-BY-SA simply because they were included in
CC-BY-SA-licensed articles.

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] PGS coastline

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

Isn't PGS in the public domain since it's a work of the US federal
government and in addition was automatically generated from Landsat
imagery, which is also in the public domain?


On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 8:56 PM, OJ W ojwli...@googlemail.com wrote:
 My account used for importing PGS coastlines just got an email asking
 that it agree to new contributor terms - has anyone already declared
 this is OK during the import-checking phase of license change?

 Asking on mailing list, since there should be about 32 other accounts
 used for the import and controlled by other people, so presumably we
 want them all to make a consistant decision.

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Are CT contributors are in breach of the CC-BY-SA license?

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

IANAL, but as long as the data is currently being released as
CC-BY-SA, then there is no breach of the CC license.

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.

If the data will be released *in the future* under a different
license, then it's true that the CC license is breached.

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.


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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Rights granted to OSMF (Section 2 of the CT)

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 6:06 PM, ce-test, qualified testing bv - Gert
Gremmen g.grem...@cetest.nl wrote:
FSF, owner of GCC, has copyright assignment. On the other hand, OSMF's
CT only has a rights grant (contributor still retains copyright on his
own data), which is the same thing as what ASF's agreement asks. So
this should be less problematic than the FSF situation.


 That is like writing a song, and grant the rights to do with it what
 he wants to the publisher. You seen where that leads to in the music
 business.
 Same for OSM. The CT-phrase in particular must be copied from them.


You seem to imply that *all* music publishers are evil. Some are evil,
some are not. But just because there are some music publishers who
coerce artists to give up their rights, doesn't mean that OSM is also
evil.

I'd like to see you say to the FSF that they are as evil as many of
the RIAA companies for having copyright assignment.

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Are CT contributors are in breach of the CC-BY-SA license?

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

I guess your argument hinges on whether uploading data to the OSM
servers is a form of publishing in terms of copyright.

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.


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-- 
http://vaes9.codedgraphic.com

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[OSM-legal-talk] Rights granted to OSMF (Section 2 of the CT)

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

Some people have problems with section 2 of the proposed CT because of
granting of rights to OSMF.

Section 2 of CT 1.2.4[1]:

[...] You hereby grant to OSMF 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. [...]

But to reiterate a point I raised before, this is not a new thing in
Free/Open projects:

Apache Software Foundation Contributor License Agreement[2]:

[...] You hereby grant to the [Apache Software] Foundation and to
recipients of software distributed by the Foundation a perpetual,
worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable
copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly
display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute Your
Contributions and such derivative works. [...]

Clearly this is not that big a problem for Apache contributors, why
should it be a big problem for OSM contributors (setting aside the
desire to import other data for which the contributor has no right to
sublicense)?

[1] http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/License/Contributor_Terms
[2] http://www.apache.org/licenses/icla.txt

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Rights granted to OSMF (Section 2 of the CT)

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 1:00 PM, John Smith deltafoxtrot...@gmail.com wrote:
 On 17 April 2011 14:39, Eugene Alvin Villar sea...@gmail.com wrote:
 Clearly this is not that big a problem for Apache contributors, why
 should it be a big problem for OSM contributors (setting aside the
 desire to import other data for which the contributor has no right to
 sublicense)?

 Apache has been a mature project for quite some time, what you should
 be asking instead is why did others go for GPL for their httpd.

 In any case this sort of clause is most common with projects like
 google map maker, In fact until recently this was a reason used to
 promote OSM, the fact that it didn't use the same terms as google map
 maker.

The point still stands. Granting rights to a central body (but not
your copyright--you still retain that) is not unheard of in open
communities.

I personally have not used the reason you state to promote OSM over
GMM. I have always emphasized in my outreach that you can use OSM data
in more ways than GMM's data (such as using OSM data to create Garmin
maps--Garmin is the most popular PND brand in my country).

I understand though that some may have used the no central body as a
promotional banner, but that is a really poor method since the FSF and
ASF has had copyright assignment and rights grants respectively for a
long time now.

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Rights granted to OSMF (Section 2 of the CT)

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 1:25 PM, John Smith deltafoxtrot...@gmail.com wrote:
 On 17 April 2011 15:17, Eugene Alvin Villar sea...@gmail.com wrote:
 The point still stands. Granting rights to a central body (but not
 your copyright--you still retain that) is not unheard of in open
 communities.

 They also aren't generally the most popular, just like BSD lags behind
 Linux, which could be due to the strong sharing clauses of the
 license.

The virality (or share-alikeness) of a license is orthogonal to
whether contributors assign rights or not to a central body.


 The FSF have 20 years of not only expressing strong opinions about
 moral aspects of licensing, but they have stuck to their guns,
 something that the OSM-F hasn't done, SteveC states at various times
 in the past he will only support share a like licenses, yet the ODBL
 and CT both weaken this stance considerably.

On the share-alike, I disagree, but this is a personal preference. I
like the share-alike aspects of ODbL over CC-BY-SA for OSM data. You
think ODbL weakens it, but I like it because you have access to the
derivative data and not just the final product.

On sticking to ones guns, this could be a plus (being consistent) or a
negative (being stubborn). Same with the converse: being flexible vs.
being wishy-washy. Comparing the FSF to OSMF in this way without
considering the context is not very persuasive.

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Compliance timeline

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 6:52 PM, John Smith deltafoxtrot...@gmail.com wrote:
 On 8 April 2011 20:38, Nick Hocking nick.hock...@gmail.com wrote:
 I believe that this is the (only) critical issue. To be open contributions
 need to be given freely and without restriction, so as to avoid the current
 situation where some contributors (with varying agendas) seem to be holding
 OSM to ransom by threatening not to relicence their contributions.

 Which is something only done by commercial companies, most community
 based projects have a fixed license, I'd love for someone to try and
 push something like the CTs on kernel contributors and see how far
 they got considering how strongly people are in favour of share a
 like.

You seem to be ignoring the fact that the Free Software Foundation has
copyright assignment: you assign your code copyright to FSF. ANd if
you check the usual contract, there is no mention of any fixed GNU
license.

In addition, the Apache Software Foundation also has a software code
CT, with language quite similar to OSM's CT:

You hereby grant to the [Apache Software] Foundation and to
recipients of software distributed by the Foundation a perpetual,
worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable
copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly
display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute Your
Contributions and such derivative works.

Interestingly, the ASF does not even specify any fixed open-source or
free license (and it could even be effectively public domain basing on
the ASF CT's language).

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Compliance timeline

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 2:55 PM, Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com wrote:
 to transfer rights to the OSMF.

But, you still own rights to the data you contributed (you can give it
however you want to anybody else). You're just giving OSMF the
permission to release your data as part of a database.

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CC-BY-SA / Non-separatable combination of OSM+other

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 4:02 AM, Peter Miller peter.mil...@itoworld.com wrote:

 On 2 February 2011 19:05, Rob Myers r...@robmyers.org wrote:

 On 02/02/2011 06:39 PM, Peter Miller wrote:
 Frederik has explained how it can be argued that BY-SA's private use
 exception allows online mash-ups. Printed versions of the same works would
 be distributed/publicly exhibited and so cannot be made under the same
 exception.

 (IANAL, TINLA)

 Indeed, I don't believe that there are any lawyers in the house! I do wish
 that the Foundation would pay for one from time to time to help with general
 questions like this which matter a lot to potential users of our lovely
 mapping.

 10 non-lawyers are not the same as one lawyer. I will bounce this question
 of our lawyer at some point in the future and let people know at that point,
 until then I would encourage people to create combined works.

Francis Davey, who has piped up in this thread and is a lawyer, can
provide his opinion when he has time. It would also be good if you can
also consult with your lawyer and share his opinion here as well.

For the record, I also think that Frederik's view is correct. That's
how I understand how derivative works operate from working with
images and illustrations in Wikipedia, and this OSM interpretation
just strengthens that idea.

This is one of the two main reasons why I was convinced that CC-BY-SA
a poor choice of license for the OSM database (and why ODbL is
better): CC forces derivative map images to be CC-BY-SA as well as any
inseparable mash-ups of those map images. (The second reason is that
you don't have up-front access to the raw data used to make the
derivative map images, which I consider more valuable than the image
itself in the context of OSM.)

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Unsetting CT flag

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

I agree with Frederik's very nice comparison of OSM with volunteer
organizations as well.

I guess OSM should be viewed as a collection of geodata to which
Frederik, John, Liz, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Richard, Richard,
Richard, et al have contributed to, instead of as a collection of
Frederik's geodata, John's geodata, Liz' geodata, Steve's geodata,
etc.


On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 4:39 PM,  ke...@cordina.org.uk wrote:
 Nice post.  Your comparison with contributions of effort to voluntary 
 organisations is a good one, and has changed my view on the inclusion of a 
 clause that allows the licence to be changed.

 With a dose of AGF, and a removal of my lawyer hat, I see the point and that 
 it really should not be an issue for contributors.  You're right, we're 
 giving effort to the project, here it's in the form of information, not 
 helping build a community hall, but that doesn't change the principle.

 I still have reservations about whether the change ability means the CTs are 
 compatible with other the licences of other data sources from which data may 
 be sourced, but that is a legal one, not a policy one on which now agree with 
 you.

 Kevin

 Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] some interesting points from the bing license

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 4:32 PM, Andrew Harvey andrew.harv...@gmail.com wrote:

 Am I the only one that sees a problem with the legal foundation of
 tracing from Bing imagery? Take a look at how NearMap.com make their
 imagery available for tracing. On their website along with the their
 license of how their imagery can be used, they include a clause that
 allows derivative information to be licensed under {such and such}
 license.

 If Microsoft have the authority to sublicense the Bing aerial imagery,
 then what they should do is add a clause to their existing
 license/terms of use that says something along the lines of, we
 declare that anyone who derives information from the Bing imagery owns
 the copyright (or whatever other rights are needed for one to be free
 to user, modify... the information).

 I am yet to see a license.
 http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/maps/archive/2010/12/01/bing-maps-aerial-imagery-in-openstreetmap.aspx
 is not a license, its just a quote from some guy named SteveC, which
 doesn't actually say anything about derivative works and the copyright
 of such works.

 The only legal terms I could find were at
 http://www.microsoft.com/maps/product/terms.html but I couldn't find
 anything which would allow derived information to be CC BY-SA 2.0
 licensed.


Then you must have the same objection to tracing from Yahoo's imagery.
Unlike Bing, there is no specific agreement between Yahoo and OSM.
Yahoo only agreed that the act of tracing from the satellite imagery
that they host and putting the traced data under any license (and not
specifically CC-BY-SA 2.0) does not violate Yahoo Maps' terms of
service, which contains similar language to Bing's terms of use. Yet
here we are tracing from Yahoo for years already.

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Bing - Terms of Use

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 11:23 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote:
 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?


I think it's the fact that we have an actual documentation of the
permission to trace. Yahoo's is pretty much just an unwritten/informal
agreement.

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Fair use?

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Sat, Oct 9, 2010 at 12:55 AM, Prado, Renato (R.P.)
rpr...@visteon.com wrote:
 Hello!

 Are you planning to just overlay your data over the background map as
 a separate and independent layer? If yes, then this would qualify as a
 collective work under CC and you just need to attribute OSM in the
 suggested way.
 Thanks a lot for your help.

 The idea is to leave the OSM maps intact serving as the background of my
 data cloud (which would be an unrelated database, locally stored,
 containing data and lat/lon coordinates), both during online viewing and
 in printed reports, with text properly stating that the maps are by OSM,
 licensed XYZ. My potential customers would pay for those reports.

 One image is worth a thousand words:
 http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQwFnmupPSmD2eqpE0dN0S9WlG0s-FzF
 rbr4gQzMYlkuvkwILkt=1usg=__9kS2vS-zZAo9ndGB4HU-H8foRaw=

 As per my understanding, this should qualify as a collective work since
 I would not be changing any of the maps and would properly acknowledge
 the OSM in both online and printed forms, but I would like to be sure
 prior to investing in this project.

Yes, just attribute OSM in the suggested way. You can use the provided
attribution mechanism in OpenLayers to make your job easier. :-)

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Licence Implementation plan - declines or non-responses

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 1:27 PM, jamesmikedup...@googlemail.com 
jamesmikedup...@googlemail.com wrote:

 On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 2:03 AM, Eugene Alvin Villar sea...@gmail.com
 wrote:

  ...why should the onus of forking be
  on the license-change agreers? If this is indeed the case, then the ones
 who
  should fork are those for CC-BY-SA 2.0.
 
 because the license change is not going to work in the first try.
 Technically you need a beta test phase.
 never change a running system. Get it running first, dont break what
 we have already.

 mike



What you said doesn't require a fork in the normal sense of that word (which
implies splitting off part of the community and not using the original name:
OpenStreetMap). If majority of the OSM community favors changing the
license, then that project on the new license is still OpenStreetMap. It's
definitely not a fork at all.
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Licence Implementation plan - declines or non-responses

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Sun, Aug 29, 2010 at 10:22 PM, jamesmikedup...@googlemail.com 
jamesmikedup...@googlemail.com wrote:

 my question is, why dont you just make a fork for the new license and
 leave the rest of us to continue in peace? get the new system working
 and then we can talk about it.
 mike



This actually depends.

If the majority of the community (including OSMF and the sysads who run the
servers) agrees with the license change, why should the onus of forking be
on the license-change agreers? If this is indeed the case, then the ones who
should fork are those for CC-BY-SA 2.0.

Right now, we are in the process of determining if the majority of the
community indeed agrees. Once we have enough data and visualization tools to
see the effect of the license change, then the community can decide whether
to change the license or not.
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] ODbL vs CC-by-SA pros and cons

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Sun, Aug 29, 2010 at 7:22 AM, John Smith deltafoxtrot...@gmail.comwrote:

 I wonder how Frederik is going to rationalise having the Kosovo
 information removed, another million objects that can be added in just
 a few weeks?

 http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2010-August/004107.html

 I wonder how many million of objects he plans to remove and in the
 process upset contributors until there are no more contributors to
 keep adding in these millions of objects.


I wonder how long you are going to keep targeting Frederik as if he is the
only one to blame for this?

I know you are frustrated with the whole licensing problem, but please, stop
targeting people.
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL, CTs and tracing GPS tracks

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 5:54 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 8:58 AM, Jukka Rahkonen 
 jukka.rahko...@latuviitta.fi wrote:

 TimSC mapp...@... writes:

  Hi all,
 
  Apologies if this has been raised before, but I was wondering about GPS
  track data and licenses. Presumably we are using public GPS trace data
  under CC-BY-SA. By the way, it would be helpful to clarify that on the
  wiki. I'll ignore the problem of tracing other people's tracks and the
  resulting relicensing issues. At the moment, I am considering how GPS
  tracks work with the CT and ODbL (assuming they too will be relicensed).

 I have understood that uploaded GPS track logs that we have now are
 effectively public domain. They are facts (even they do not allways
 tell the truth) and they miss all the creativity so they are not
 copyrightable.


 Is this a correct understanding of what a fact is, from a legal point of
 view?

 A telephone number is a fact in the sense that it is it's own identity.  A
 copy will be identical.  And this seems to be the basis of much US case law
 in this area.  On the other hand GPS tracks are made up of information, but
 they are samples of a paths and no two sets of GPS tracks will ever be
 identical.  The stuff of GPS tracks is very different from the stuff of
 telephone numbers.

 Before using the GPS tracks are facts meme we really should have a better
 understanding of what constitutes a fact, in legal terms.


I think the GPS tracks are facts meme simply means that the tracks are a
recording of where the GPS device has calculated its position to be at
certain moments in time. The fact is not this road is at so-and-so
coordinates, because the GPS tracks does not have to correspond to a road
or anything else on the ground at all, but rather, the fact is that  the
GPS device has recorded its position at so-and-so coordinates at so-and-so
point in time.

It's no more or less factual than recording temperature and other
meteorological data at a weather station.
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] decision removing data

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 4:21 PM, Liz ed...@billiau.net wrote:

 On Sun, 8 Aug 2010, Frederik Ramm wrote:
  Imports are bad enough in the effect they have on the surveying
  community.

 You are welcome to join a 48,000 km kayak trip to survey the Australian
 coastline.

 However

 If there is mapper time to spare , the Phillipines coastline needs love
 first.



To all those who have helped us in cleaning our coastlines[1] from the
SRTM-derivation to Landsat, thank you very much.

And we in the Philippines support the move to ODbL. :-)


[1]
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Philippines/Coastline_Corrections
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] decision removing data

[Eugene Alvin Villar]

On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 8:20 PM, 80n 80n...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 10:00 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.orgwrote:

   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)?


I imagine that the history of the nodes in split ways would provide the
needed provenance.
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