[OSM-legal-talk] Houses of cards

[Rob Myers]

Nesting answers here a bit.

John Wilbanks wrote:
> --------
> 
>  > > Quoting SteveC <steve at asklater.com>:
>
> Well I can tell you exactly what they do, their licenses are based on
> the same three things that the ODL is. The Database Directive,
> copyright and contract.
> --------

But I think that DB right won't apply outside of the EU, copyright won't 
apply anywhere unless they are doing something interesting that we 
should find out about, and contract law is of more use for corporations 
who can sue for damages than for community projects who can't restore 
copyleft even if they do sue.

> So I can't dig through and find the NavTeq and TeleAtlas contracts, but 
> if anyone wants to send them my way, I'll look at them. But my instinct 
> is that the contracts are built on a fourth pillar, which is trade 
> secret. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_secret

Yes that makes sense. Kinda hard for a public project to claim trade 
secret status though. ;-)

- Rob.