[OSM-legal-talk] Easter eggs in the database

[John Wilbanks]

In response to some questions on whether or not the addition of easter 
eggs (false data) to the OSM database might make it a "Creative Work" 
and thus subject to copyright law...I asked around (5 lawyers, 4 of them 
practicing, one law professor). The answer held close to my 
expectations, which is that no answer would be found that gave this 
debate a magic conclusion.

In the US, the answer is pretty clearly no - this is from the classic 
Feist v. Rural Telephone case 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications_v._Rural_Telephone_Service). 


In the UK and the EU, the answer is murkier. The UK and the EU give more 
credit to the sweat of the brow argument to protect a database, but that 
doesn't come from the fake entries - it comes from the work required to 
put together the good stuff, not the fake stuff.

In short, I don't think it changes the contours of the argument either 
way. It's a way of figuring out if someone is copying, but it's not part 
of the legal decisionmaking.

GSDI was an interesting event. In preparing my comments it was 
gratifying to see how much true public domain global spatial data there 
is. In some conversations where I referenced the OSM debates there was 
the idea that the OSM locational traces could be in the public domain 
while letting some of the higher level work sit under another license. 
That would put some minimal, and clearly factual, data into the PD under 
the banner of the project.

Anyhow, as usual, YMMV.

jtw