[OSM-legal-talk] ODbL "virality" questions

[Laurence Penney]

Interesting stuff, Matt.

Back in 2005 I asked Ed Parsons, then still at Ordnance Survey, a  
similar question about OS TOIDs. I wondered if I could use TOIDs as  
tags in my own database of photos, in the sense "photo x depicts TOID  
y" - of course omitting all location data associated with the TOID in  
MasterMap. The method of acquiring the TOIDs wasn't specified. He  
didn't know the answer, and to my proposal that a Freedom of  
Information request might be one way for me to get the data out of the  
OS, he suggested I give it a go.

So I did. For my test case I asked for a list of all churches in  
London, along with their TOIDs. I got the response:

“Whilst I can confirm that Ordnance Survey does hold this information,  
I regret to inform you that your request falls within the ‘Formats of  
documents’ exclusion under section 11.(3)(a) of the Re-use of Public  
Sector Information Regulations 2005 (PSI) whereby we are not obliged  
to adapt information to comply with a request. This exclusion applies  
because even though the information exists, it does do as a part of  
the Ordnance Survey MasterMap topography layer and is not available  
through us as separate information. Additionally, under section 21 of  
the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), we would not release the  
information as it is ‘accessible to the applicant (you) by other  
means’. This same reason applies under section 5.(2)(c) of PSI.”

It seemed clear that such data extractions would not be considered  
public domain, simply by virtue of having no grid reference or lat- 
long. They were part of MasterMap, hence regarded as chargeable data.

Even if the OS had responded with the data, often forgotten is the  
fact that any data provided in an FoI responses is, by default, under  
crown copyright. See this notorious case:

http://timworstall.typepad.com/timworstall/2006/07/craig_murray_an.html

So even if they had responded with the data, I probably wouldn't have  
been able to anything with it. (A local authority might well respond  
positively to an FOIA request of, say, a list of all the footbridges  
in its jurisdiction, yet I'd not necessarily be allowed to republish  
that data, or use the TOIDs in my database.)

At the Society of Cartographers conference last month Peter Miller put  
a closely related question to Vanessa Lawrence:

“Is it possible to, and I have had some indications that it is  
possible, to create a database that basically says ‘this feature in  
Ordnance Survey is the same as this feature in all of these other  
databases [Teleatlas, Navteq, OSM] such that an asset which is  
collected and associated with a feature in one of them can be used in  
features in the other ones as long as the person who provides that  
information is happy for that to be the case.”

After some apparent confusion about whether Peter was asking a  
technical or a legal question [the latter was the case], Vanessa  
responded: “I’m afraid I have no idea. If that’s a question you’d like  
to pose to us, please write in.” (Any response yet, Peter?)

It’s good that OSM is asking the same questions of itself!

FWIW, I very much hope that OSM would be freer with its IDs than  
Ordnance Survey seems to be with its TOIDs. However, since Vanessa had  
“no idea” about the OS's policy on TOID reuse, perhaps there isn’t one.

- L

On 2 Oct 2009, at 18:06, Matt Amos wrote:

> hi legals,
>
> i've come across a couple of interesting questions / use-cases for the
> ODbL and wider discussion. it basically reduces to whether we want the
> ODbL to have viral (GPL-like) behaviour, or whether it should be less
> viral (LGPL-like). we've discussed this at an LWG meeting and the
> general feeling was that the LGPL-like behaviour would be more
> desirable, as it would allow wider use of OSM by third parties.
> however, it was felt that a wider discussion is necessary.
>
> first case: a site wishes to use OSM data as a basis for
> non-geographic data. the example used is a review side, like
> beerintheevening.com or tripadvisor.com. they might want to use OSM as
> the source of geographic data by linking its reviews to OSM node IDs
> (or lat/lons taken from the OSM data). under a GPL-like interpretation
> of the ODbL, this would "taint" the database, requiring its release.
> considering that the records in the database may contain private
> information (IP/email address of the reviewer) this may mean that the
> site decides not to use OSM, because releasing the DB would violate
> their own privacy policy.
>
> second case: OSM data is downloaded to a handheld device (e.g:
> iphone). this is likely (given the screen size of the device) to be an
> insubstantial amount. the data is locally used for reference when
> entering other information (e.g: abovesaid reviews). the reviews are
> uploaded to a non-OSM site, linked to the OSM-derived node ID or
> lat/lon. if many people do this, does that constitute repeated
> extraction and therefore require release of the non-OSM DB under the
> ODbL? i.e: can 3rd party sites use OSM IDs or lat/lons from OSM as
> keys into their database?
>
> the discussion at the LWG meeting centered around whether the database
> "linking to" OSM data could be considered stand-alone. using the
> similarity with the LGPL; whether the reviews database could be
> "re-linked" against another source of geographic data while continuing
> to work. this would imply that the list of (e.g: pubs or hotels) would
> need to be released as an extract of OSM as a list of OSM IDs or
> lat/lons, but that the reviews themselves and auxillary tables (such
> as the users' information) wouldn't constitute a derivative work of
> the OSM database.
>
> what are your thoughts?
>
> cheers,
>
> matt
>
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