[OSM-legal-talk] selling map images

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

> IMO this is the problem with the CC-by-SA model for geodata; 
> forcing access to what people do with OSM data isn't that 
> productive, since gaining such access does not improve the OSM data.

Most people agree with this sentiment. A show of hands at SOTM07
showed that a majority was in favour of going PD, with less than 10%
of people present considering themselves serious copyleft advocates.
However most of the PD folks were not pro-PD because they believed
that ther should be totally unrestricted access for the sake of it;
most of them were PD in the OSM-typical pragmatic sense: "It is just
too complicated to get the SA bit right, we'll always cut off a number
of desirable uses, we'll be forever bogged down in license debates,
we'll never be able to give legally binding answers to people who want
to use our data, and in the end somebody who doesn't want to give
something back can never be forced to do so anyway unless you've got a
giant legal budget."

It is my personal view, and has been strengthened by the discussion at
that conference, that the project is essentially held hostage by a
very small number of people who tell us that it is going to fall apart
if we went PD, with the vast majority really wanting a pragmatic
(instead of ideological) solution. The problem is that for those few,
being "copyleft" is a major pillar of their interest in the project;
they're not in it for a free world map, they're in it for a copyleft
world map. They are a very vocal minority. The majority however just
shrugs and says: "I'd prefer PD but I don't have the slightest interest
in endless license debates, let's get on with the mapping."

I am trying to get as many people as possible make a statement that
their contributions are PD, see this wiki page:

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Category:Users_whose_contributions_are_in_the_public_domain

In time, I hope to be able to make some sort of mirrored OSM database
available which only contains contributions by these users and not
anything else, so that potential users can always choose wheter they'd
rather use the PD version which has less data, or the more complete
but also more restricted copyleft version. However this is still quite
far away and might never really work. I would of course prefer to see
the whole project go PD but can't see how this will happen without
considerable force and determination which I am not prepared to
invest.

> If you fixed an incorrect road name in the process, that fix is 
> what the licence should be trying to pull back in - not the raw 
> .pdf that's sent to the T-shirt printers (which could in theory 
> be used to obtain and apply the fix, but in practice never would be).

Just to be clear: If you produce a PDF design based on OSM, send this
to the printer and have T-Shirts made from it, and then sell these
T-Shirts, the following applies:

* The PDF file does not have to be licensed under CC-BY-SA because
  you do not "distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly
  digitally perform" it. You send it to the printer as part of your
  business relationship. If the printer takes the PDF and, without 
  your consent, sends it to someone else, he can't claim CC-BY-SA
  privileges - he's in breach of contract just as he would be if
  your PDF contained Ordnance Survey data.

  (It would be a different situation if the printer had contracted
  you to create something based on OSM data for him. In that case
  you would have to license the PDF under CC-BY-SA and it would be 
  at the printer's discretion what he does with the file - if he
  never publishes it then that's that, no gain for anybody.)

* The T-Shirt, since you sell it, is "distributed" and so CC-BY-SA
  applies. This however does not mean that you have to give the
  T-Shirt to anybody. It just means that people may copy the T-Shirt
  and you can't prohibit them from doing so.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00.09' E008°23.33'