Hi, John Smith wrote:
Because it is irrelevant given that the Database as a whole is protected, rather than the individual pieces it contains which, as you correctly state, are largely unprotectable anway?
Largely isn't completely, which means you are suggesting that if there is any copyright it be removed, which is relevant because then that data becomes PD like Anthony suggested.
I think it has been repeated countless times already, and it is funny to see how both you and Anthony seem to ignore that.
Copyright protection of facts is patchy at best. It depends very much on how much art you have put into your facts, and in what country you live. John and Liz in Australia say that CC-BY(-SA) works for geodata in Australia, meaning that facts can be copyrighted. Several Australian judges seem to think otherwise but let's assume it were so. Anthony in the US says that CC-BY(-SA) is more or less equivalent to PD when applied to geodata in the US, i.e. CC-BY(-SA) doesn't work as supposed (and that's why he likes it - he perceives ODbL as restricting some options he thinks he has under CC-BY-SA).
Any license that tries to use this patchy copyright protection of data is bound to be unfair at the very least, and more likely a pain the behind of anybody who wants to use it. The legality of OSM use cases would depend on whether you execute a project from your Australian or American office. We might be divided on some issues but *that* can surely not be our aim.
That's why ODbL protects the *collection* as a whole, rather than individual bits of data. The individual bits might already be PD in your jurisdiction or they might become effectively PD but ODbL is constructed in a way that this does not matter; and indeed (since un-protectability of factual database contents is a given in some jurisdictions) this is the only sane way of dealing with the situation.
That's what is meant by "irrelevant" - ODbL works independently of whether or not you could theoretically protect individual facts in your jurisdiction.
Fortunately most people seem to grasp the concept but I've here made an effort to present it, again, in simple terms to increase the number of those who do.
Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail [email protected] ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" _______________________________________________ talk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
