[OSM-legal-talk] ODBL enforcement: contract law and remedies

[Matt Amos]

On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 5:16 PM, Ed Avis <eda at waniasset.com> wrote:
> Essentially, in any place where map data can be publicly seen (e.g. on a
> website) but yet not freely copied (because of copyright or database rights),
> the share-alike licence needs to neutralize those rights, to make sure they
> are passed on to everyone who gets the data.
>
> In places where map data is freely copyable anyway, no share-alike is needed.

that's not quite true. share-alike does more than neutralise those
rights - it turns them around to ensure the perpetual freedom of the
data. in places where map data is freely copyable it's still necessary
to have some provision for data availability.

let's assume some data are taken and modified and used to generate
tiles. the ODbL would require that the modified data are made
available, regardless of the license of the tiles. if the data were
effectively-PD then there would be no requirement to make the modified
data available (although i guess it would be allowable to trace the
tiles, subject to the ToS of the site). likewise, CC BY-SA requires
that the tiles are CC BY-SA, but requires nothing regarding the
redistribution of the data.

cheers,

matt