[OSM-legal-talk] Removal of CC-SA-BY licensed data from OSM after ODbL takes effect

80n 80n80n at gmail.com
Wed Dec 10 16:35:38 GMT 2008


On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 10:11 AM, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> 80n wrote:
> > The key phrase is "cannot be contacted" and the import being that if
> > they were contactable they would probably agree to the new license.  If
> > they subsequently make contact and don't agree to the new license then
> > they can legitimately claim that their copyright is being infringed and
> > their data would be removed at that time.
>
> Plus any data that has been derived from their data, as described in
> Ævar's example?


Yes, definitely.  Anything based or derived from their original contribution
would also have to be removed.  CC-BY-SA is viral, there is no choice.

In Ævar's specific example if the POI location was based on GPS data then it
has not been derived from the surrounding road network. If the POI location
was based on the knowledge that it is on a particular street corner and that
corner is defined by the existing road network, then of-course it has been
derived.

Since there is no information that can tell us how the POI's location was
determined, then the prudent solution is to delete any POI that is within,
say, 50m of any road that is removed from the database.


> If you assert the copyrightability of even the smallest contribution,
> then you will have to choose a very narrow definition of what consists
> a derived work. Ohterwise it would probably only need a handful of
> non-consenting users who contributed to the London dataset back in 2006
> to basically have to remove all London data today.
>

I don't think anyone is asserting that fair use rules apply and that we can
just get away with ignoring minor contributors.

What I think is intended here is that we may have to just assume it's ok
until such time as the copyright holder re-appears.  If they don't appear
then, yes we've violated their copyright but they haven't sued anyone.  And
if they do appear then they can just politely ask for their data to be
removed, or sue anyone and everyone who has used the data under the new
license.  Hopefully the former not the latter.

Given the very cautious approach OSM has had to copyright infringement up to
now, this does seem like a rather reckless and uncharacteristic position for
us to take, but I don't think I've heard any other proposals for how to deal
with this.

80n



>
> Bye
> Frederik
>
>
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>
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