Richard Fairhurst writes: > [follow-ups should be to legal-talk yadda yadda] > > Russ Nelson wrote: > > What about the people who didn't agree to the CT, but whose data is > > in the public domain? > > See > http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2011-August/006608.html > et seq.
I only see two people defending the idea, and a lot more questioning it, that somehow a PD declaration is legally any less binding than signing a contract. The first is a contract of adhesion: "Here's my work; I renounce any copyright claims over it." The OSMF has the choice of accepting that contract or rejecting it, just as it does the contract formed by agreeing to the Contributor Terms. I don't understand their choice of accepting the one contract but refusing the other. Can somebody explain why one contract is superior to the other? Because the CT looks more "legal"? But PD steps entirely outside the realm of the law by stating that the author will not enforce copyright. That looks like an even *better* contract to accept than the CT. In both cases, if the contract is breached, and the work infringing, the OSMF's actions need to be exactly the same: remove the data from the database, and make a reasonable attempt to ensure that it is not further distributed by any recipients of the data. Since the OSMF has entered into a contract with all contributors (PD or CT both), and the contributors have agreed to this contract (PD or CT both), it has an affirmative defense of innocent infringement. Given that we do everything in an open and public manner, with board meeting minutes, and community discussion being published, breaking that defense would require proof that somebody on the OSMF board agreed to accept somebody's contract with a wink and a nod. That would be somewhere between impossible and expensive. If it's impossible, no worries. If it's merely expensive, you have to look at the harm done. Since there's no one editor (aside from importers of US Federal Government works) who dominates the database, any claim of harm would be difficult to prove. Since 1) the defense is strong, 2) the harm is minimal, 3) cooperation is full, you should expect absolutely nobody to sue the OSMF for infringement of works which are supposedly PD or CT but not really. -- --my blog is at http://blog.russnelson.com Crynwr supports open source software 521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315-600-8815 Potsdam, NY 13676-3213 | Sheepdog _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk