[OSM-legal-talk] Deconstructing the "loss of data" claim

[Frederik Ramm]

John,

   thank you for joining the discussion. Makes me feel less lonely on
my side of the argument ;-)

> But you absolutely couldn't sue anyone who came along and downloaded
> my copy and then reposted that same data as public domain. There's
> no copyright on your data, and that means that only the people who
> sign your deal are bound to it, not anyone who gets it from the
> people who sign your deal. Unlike the copyright on a song, which
> travels along with the song no matter what, the share-alike is
> restricted to the parties of the contract.

If you would do the "repost" thing in a country where they had a
database law like we have in Europe, would the database law travel
along with the reposted data, giving us a legal handle on bad guys as
long as they're in Europe?

When people said things like you do here in the past, we often had the
argument that even if your license doesn't hold any legal water, it is
still a good declaration of intent, and a basis to "name and shame"
violators. What's your take on this? Is this not a working deterrent
at least for those who have a public standing to lose?

Bye
Frederik

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