[OSM-legal-talk] Same old derived/collective question

[Richard Fairhurst]

We're running an article in the next issue of our magazine (Waterways  
World) about the River Rhine, which will include a map and a whole  
bunch of photos with captions.

The pics will be related to places on the map, probably by a numeric  
key (so pic 1 is pinpointed on the map with [1], etc.), or maybe by  
lines linking the photo to the right place on the map. They'll be on  
the same spread, with the pics in the blank areas where the river isn't.

There's no shortage of map data for the Rhine: if I want something  
free, I can just extract from VMAP0 or trace off Landsat; if I don't  
mind paying (which I don't), then there's any number of datasets to  
choose from.

But bearing in mind Steve Chilton's posting asking for examples of  
cartography produced using OSM data, I wondered about using OSM's  
Rhine coverage.

Usually (as per countless previous messages) I can't see any way in  
which I can use OSM data for commercial cartography like this. The  
requirement to CC-SA the finished map means that other publishers  
(here, competing magazines) can take away one of our commercial  
edges, viz. we have better maps than any of the other canal  
magazines. Given that I have NPE and other sources, it's not even  
worth considering it. But in this case, we're the only one of the  
magazines that covers overseas waterways anyway, so there's no  
commercial risk - and, for the first time, I could potentially use  
OSM data.

The question, as ever, comes down to the collective/derivative boundary.

If the photos and the map together make a collective work, then I can  
use it.

If they together make a derivative work, I can't. The photos aren't  
mine to relicense under CC-SA. (In common with many publishers, we  
generally don't own the copyright on what we publish in the magazine,  
just first serial rights.)

Any thoughts about which it would be?

(I guess essentially this is the same question I posed last year as  
http://www.systemed.net/stuff/sharealike/ )

cheers
Richard