[OSM-legal-talk] Houses of cards

[Rob Myers]

SteveC wrote:
> On 20 Feb 2008, at 20:23, Rob Myers wrote:
> 
>> 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.
> 
> THAT. IS. THE. WHOLE. POINT.  :)
> 
> It's based on those three things so that if one fails (perhaps just in  
> your jurisdiction) then the other two can hold.

All can fail at once is my point.

If I am a US college student with a Tor client, an SSL connection and a 
Hotmail account, I can grab the OSM tarball, remove the ODL, and upload 
it to archive.org or a torrent host.

- Copyright doesn't apply because it's data.

- Database right doesn't apply because I'm in the US.

- Trade secrets don't apply because the data is publicly available.

- I have violated the contract but I am completely anonymous and 
untraceable. Nobody can find out who I am to do anything about this. And 
OSM would want copyright restored not damages anyway, which isn't possible.

So anyone can grab the now copyleft-less OSM data (outside the EU at 
least) and there is very little OSM can do about it.

- Rob.