[OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] License missing on many web pages

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

(just to clarify: this is talking about the current CC-BY-SA license, 
not the new proposed license.)

Joseph Gentle wrote:
> Ah yes; but the original authors are the contributors not the OSM
> foundation.

It is in fact much more complex than that. Note how the license speaks 
of the original *author* (no plural here). This is because the license 
only works between two parties at a time: You create a way - you are the 
original author. I modify your way - I create and publish a work derived 
from your work; the new work is "my work" which I have to attribute to 
you. A third person modifies the way again; now I am the original author 
in the sense of the license (not you!), and the license works only 
between me and him. Of course any license I grant him is void unless I 
adhere to the terms that you set in your license to me, but still, the 
third person has no direct legal relationship with you.

So the original author is always only the last person to have edited an 
object.

Strictly speaking it would be *his* responsibility to somehow credit 
those upon whose work he has built his work; we assume this to be 
automatically provided by the database mechanism (way refers to node, 
node has username) but even this has not been tested in court ever.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"