[OSM-legal-talk] Progressing OSM to a new dataLicence regime

[Gervase Markham]

Frederik Ramm wrote:
> And I may add my pet issue that if someone breaches contract you are  
> likely to be able to sue them for damages at most, which amount to  
> the money you could have earned if the contract had not been  
> breached, which is zero in our case.

This would not be true in all cases.

Say a company, Foo Inc, builds a business on providing services relating 
to OSM data, which includes contributing to the database. Some US 
company, Bar Corp, takes OSM data and breaks the contract - e.g. by 
adding their own information but keeping it proprietary. Foo Inc could 
certainly sue for damages based on the fact that Bar Corp has gained an 
unfair competitive advantage due to their breach of contract.

I don't know whether _you_ or _I_ personally would have grounds to sue, 
but there's a long jump between that and Bar Corp being able to assume 
that _no-one_ would sue.

Gerv