[OSM-dev] licensing question

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 12:31, Pieren <pieren3 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 1:32 PM, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Yes, I'm also pretty sure that you can just completely ignore the
>> license since you're only using the data within your own organization.
>> The licence only kicks in when you're doing re-distribution to third
>> parties.
>>
>
> Could you point out in the license text where "own organization" and "third
> party" are defined and where it says that "CC" or "BY" do not apply for the
> first ?

Copyright law covers distribution. As long as you're not distributing
a work to third parties you don't have to worry about it.

If you haven't signed a contract nobody can force you to adhare to a
license for a copyrighted work until you start distributing it. I can
scribble on my Sunday newspaper without caring about copyright, but if
I distribute it to other people I have to start worrying.

The same thing applies to corporations. The Sunday Newspaper Inc. can
distribute a proprietary third-party image around their office while
they're deciding what to do with it. They don't have to worry about
contacting someone else for royalties until they put it in print and
thus start distributing the work to third parties.

So I don't see why someone couldn't completely ignore the CC-BY-SA
when using OSM for personal or intra-office use. They're not
re-distributing anything, so the licenes doesn't apply.

The above is just my understanding of copyright law. I'm not a lawyer
and it may all be BS. But as far as I can see it's backed up by
several examples in the wild.