[OSM-legal-talk] Please enable commercial use

[Sebastian Spaeth]

Gervase Markham wrote:
> The notion of derivative works is a fairly well defined one under 
> copyright law. Many, many companies deal with this concept every day.

-Right, so having an overlay with proprietary data on an OSM map is 
derived? As a separate layer? If it's merged in one image instead, is it 
then derived?

-If I print a book with pretty OSM maps which are used to describe 
bicycle routes. Is the map figure derived, the route description or the 
book?

-If I print an OSM map in my book, do I derive work from OSM and 
attribute them? Or do I derive from the works of 10,000 contributors and 
have to print a 200 page appendix to my 10page leaflet, naming all 
contributors?

-If I am a company in Togo, does copyright law from the US or Togo 
apply? As a foreign company, would I dare to get myself into possible 
trouble as some OSM contributor in Utah sues me there?

I am not so sure that copyright is very well defined and clear cut for 
all of these uses. In some countries you can transfer your copyright to 
others, in some countries that is not possible at all.


I am not saying these issues are not solvable, but they make things very 
complicated and ambiguous.

spaetz