[OSM-legal-talk] Transformed OSM data and CC-BY-SA

[Rob Myers]

I Am Not A Lawyer, This Is Not Legal Advice.

Henk Hoff wrote:
> I'm talking with a local Dutch company specialized in GPS-equipment. 
> They are interested in using OSM data on mainstream GPS-devices. (Just 
> in case: no, the company's name is not TomTom ...).

:-)

> During the meeting we stumbled across an issue on the licensing. Let's 
> say: a company would use the OSM data, transform it to a proprietary 
> format that can be used by specifiek GPS-devices. Is that company 
> allowed to sell that product without having to release it in public 
> (under the CC-BY-SA license)?

If the product is the data or the data with additional software then no. 
The data must still be BY-SA (the software needn't be). They can charge 
for it on CD, they don't have to put it on a public web server or 
anything, but they cannot stop people copying the data from the CD once 
someone has paid for it.

If the format counts as "technological measures" then this will break 
the licence, but I don't know whether simple proprietary-ness is enough 
to do this.

If the product is a piece of hardware with the data pre-installed then I 
don't know. They really would need to ask a lawyer. The cc-licenses list 
might know.

One thing that may be worth pointing out is that they don't have to 
release their formatted version of the data to the public for free. They 
can charge for it on a CD as the only way of receiving it from them. But 
they can't stop anyone copying the data from a paid CD and giving it to 
their friends.

> Just to make clear: they are willing to donate data and promote OSM etc 
> etc. No problems here. We're only talking about the same data, but in a 
> different format.

The issue from the point of view of the licence is whether users 
continue to receive the data under the same licence. Changing the format 
doesn't affect this requirement. A piece of read-only hardware may 
change it in practice (think iPod) but only once the data is on it.

So: They have to distribute the data BY-SA but they can charge for 
distribution, they just can't stop people copying it. If they distribute 
the GPS devices with the data already on then I don't know what the 
issues are.

You might like to ask the cc-licences list:

http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-licenses

- Rob.