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On 11/09/12 01:28, Steve Bennett wrote:
On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 11:14 AM, Ian Sergeant <[email protected]> wrote:Australian copyright law recognises that copyright can subsist in compilation of facts. Once copyright subsists, the only test is "substantial part".Ok, for the sake of argument, how would provider A demonstrate that OSM's data was made by copying its "compilation of facts", when providers B and C contain exactly the same facts? I think that question equates to, how would you get caught? Well, firstly, I would hope that OSMers are honourable people. Secondly, if it came to a court case, would someone really perjure themselves, knowing that your Internet history, etc, for the last two years may be there to be subpoened? If everyone copied just one street name, that's around 200,000 street names copied. Is that substantial? In addition to that we have the terms of service that attempt to prevent copying any part of them, specifically prohibiting building a databases of places or listings.Certainly - but breaching terms of service is not copyright infringement. The outcome after a successful case is much the same. No there isn't. Imagine you are on a jury, and you have a defendant witness saying "I didn't copy street names, I just looked them up out of curiosity while I was also building a competing map product".I also have to say, there's a big grey area between "copying street names to build a database" and "looking up street names out of curiosity, while also building a database". As I said, these twists and grey areas don't get us very far. OSM is a fun hobby, but it is also has the capability to do some real damage to the business models of some companies with large legal departments. Everybody can imagine their own way they believe is legitimate, but ultimately may well not be. The OSM community doesn't want to operate in a legal space where there is controversy. We want to give our downstream data users the ability to create innovative data uses - even if they compete with commercial providers, knowing that our open data is free of impediment. That's why "Just Don't Do It", works best. Ian. |
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