[OSM-legal-talk] Circumnavigating Share-Alike through software / now and future

Rob Myers rob at robmyers.org
Mon Oct 27 15:42:07 GMT 2008


IANAL, TINLA.

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 2:54 PM, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:

> My example above did *not* contain distribution of any OSM-derived work.
> The items that were distributed were (a) proprietary software, (b)
> proprietary data, and (c) unaltered OSM data.

(c) is distribution of the original work and so is still covered by
the licence, notably section 4.a about not restricting the recipient's
ability to exercise the rights granted by the licence:

"You may not offer or impose any terms on the Work that alter or
restrict the terms of this License or the recipients' exercise of the
rights granted hereunder."

Section 4 applies to the whole of section 3, which includes simply
creating derivatives.

> The derived work was then
> created on the end-user's hard disk, for his own, immediate, local use,
> much as I have privately created derived works from OSM and Google.

If we change the scenario so that the end user downloads the OSM data
themselves from someone other than the proprietary data vendor then
you may be right. But even in that scenario the proprietary data
vendor still looks like they are trying to limit the end user's
ability to exercise their rights.

My statement about "cannot make..." was phrased too strongly, as Nic
and you both point out. I meant it in this context of a third party
trying to force you to make such a derivative.  The end user wishing
to make their own derivative and not release it is different from the
third party trying to force you not to release a derivative you have
made.

- Rob.




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