[OSM-legal-talk] Progressing OSM to a new data Licence regime

[Iván Sánchez Ortega]

El Lunes, 4 de Febrero de 2008, tim escribió:
> Hello,
>
> Few clarifications and questions about use cases.
>
> If I distribute web mapping of my special company data and OSM, I
> don't have to give my data back to OSM, right? In other words, there's
> no requirement to distribute, but also, if the map images are
> distributed, then it doesn't have to be under the same licence.

If the data stops being a database (that meaning, if you render the data into 
an image), the ODL-database stops applying.

IANAL, but for the avoidance of doubt, section 3.1.a should clarify the 
concept of "Extraction". Now it reads:
"Licensor grants You a [...] licence to
a. Extraction and Re-utilisation of the whole or a Substantial part of the 
Data;"

It should be made clear that, when converting the OSM data to a format not 
considered a database, the license stops applying.

Local jurisdictions (such as spanish copyright law) may clarify that, but it 
also should be present in the license IMHO.


I quote from the Spanish copyright law 
(http://civil.udg.es/normacivil/estatal/reals/Lpi.html), article 133.3.a :

"b) Extracción, la transferencia permanente o temporal de la totalidad o de 
una parte sustancial del contenido de una base de datos a otro soporte 
cualquiera que sea el medio utilizado o la forma en que se realice."

Meaning: "to Extract is transfer all or a substantial part of the DB to 
*other* media".

Again, to avoid problems, I suggest that the license clarifies "Extraction" 
and "Derivative DB".



So, yes. If you render OSM into images, the images become just ODL-factual, 
and you "lose" the viral portion of the ODL-database license.

> If I zip up the shapefiles used, and put them on my server for folks
> to download, then these would come under the same licence and be able
> for OSM to benefit from them?

Shapefiles qualify as databases. For the purposes of ODL-DB, they're 
derivative DBs.

> How about putting my propriety data and OSM together locked within an
> in-car sat nav system. Would this be classed as distribution of the
> database? What should my company do in this case?

Yes, because the nav system internally uses something that resembles a 
database. So, you're actually selling a derivative DB with every 


I quote again from spanish law (art. 12.2):

"2. [...] se consideran bases de datos las colecciones de obras, de datos, o 
de otros elementos independientes dispuestos de manera sistemática o metódica 
y accesibles individualmente por medios electrónicos o de otra forma."

Basically meaning "A DB is a collection of data, metodically arranged". Which 
covers the files on your nav system.

(Again, to avoid problems, I suggest that the license clarifies "Database".)


(The following disclaimers apply to this e-mail: IANAL, YMMV).


Cheers,
-- 
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Iván Sánchez Ortega <ivansanchez at escomposlinux.org>

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