[OSM-legal-talk] Questions about CTs 1.2.4

Francis Davey fjmd1a at gmail.com
Wed Apr 13 23:06:10 BST 2011


On 13 April 2011 22:24, James Livingston <lists at sunsetutopia.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> After looking at the new CTs, I'm still a bit confused about whether I can agree or not and what a few things actually mean. I was wondering if someone could enlighten me.
>

Answers are my best (informal) guess - so don't rely on it as formal
legal advice.

>
> From clause 1 "If you contribute Contents, You are indicating that, as far as You know, You have the right to authorize OSMF to use and distribute those Contents under our current licence terms"
>
> To me, that says I can upload any data as long as it's compatible with whatever license we are using at the time. That is, I can agree to the CTs and then still upload ODbL incompatible data because our current licence is CC-BY-SA.
>
> * Is that a correct reading?

Yes.

> * If so, how do we know what data must be removed in a switch to ODbL?
>

That clause doesn't appear to put any obligation on you to remove
data. All it requires of you is that _when you contribute_ you have a
right to give that authorisation.

>
> Clause 2 is a grant for certain rights. From previous discussion here, can I assume that I can agree if I'm not the copyright holder, and that I only grant the rights I can under the licence I received the data under?
>

That depends very much on the licence, but for many licences the
answer will be no. For example most CC licences don't give you the
right to grant such a licence.

> If that is correct, then OSMF may not be able to re-license under clause 3. For example I got data that could be re-licensed under CC-BY-SA and ODbL so I could upload it, it's not necessarily going to be able to be re-licensed under any arbitrary future licence. How do we indicate that?
>

It is not correct. So the problem doesn't arise. The problem you raise
illustrates why, in practice, you cannot give the grant in clause 2 if
all you have is a CC-licence to use the data.

>
> If my earlier reading of clause 1 was wrong, and I can't agree to the CTs and upload CC-BY-SA data - why? If it's related to clause 3, would that same reason stop people uploading ODbL-only data in future since it can't be re-licensed to CC-BY-SA (which is listed)?
>

I don't know why. I do know that the licence working group have
thought a great deal about it and are always happy to accept
constructive suggestions about it. I anticipate someone coming along
and explaining.

In answer to your last question: yes again. ODbL data does not allow
you to make a grant as wide as that in clause 2.

Whether any of these problems are real (rather than imagined) is
another matter. In practice I suspect the likelihood of anyone
bringing legal action for infringement is negligible.

-- 
Francis Davey



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