[OSM-legal-talk] INANAL - But these guys are

[Mike Collinson]

At 04:56 AM 28/02/2007, Lars Aronsson wrote:
>Frederik Ramm wrote:
>
> > "Apparently getting away with something" is exactly the kind of legal
> > limbo that frightens off those potential users who have something to
> > lose by getting sued. It may be ok for you. Don't assume it is ok for
> > everybody.
>
>In my opinion, we can find our way only by walking it.  In a court
>of law, lawyers make reference both to written law, previous court
>cases, and to existing, established practices in society and
>business.  Since there is no written law specifically regulating
>how community mapping projects' data can be reused under Creative
>Commons licenses, and very few court cases with regards to CC at
>all, the existing practice would seem all the more important.
>
>The fact that I could get away with this is one important
>observation.  Another important observation is that Multimap could
>get away with using OSM's map of Isle of Wight.  To assist future
>interpretation (by lawyers or others), we could make a list of
>actual uses that have passed without any known protests.

Does Nestoria have an explicit waiver from the OSM Foundation?  If 
not, and if they are not sharing their property listing information 
under an SA license, then they are violating the license.

http://www.nestoria.co.uk/cowes/property/buy

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
- Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you 
may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar 
license to this one.

That would put me in a difficult situation.  I don't want to protest, 
because I think it is an excellent use of OSM work that provides a 
good example and good PR.  On the other hand, it would be unfair if 
they can use OSM data and I can't, simply because I want to be law abiding.

Mike
Manila