[OSM-legal-talk] Grant for usage of a google mapmaper users data to me

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

jamesmikedupont at googlemail.com wrote:
> We need to state that we are not working for yahoo and why people
> should prefer to license thier work to OSM over other sites.

No. Such we-are-better-than-them reasoning will only give you the kind 
of negative feedback you have just received.

I agree that it would be nice to have some kind of standard message for 
GMM contributors that explains our project and the possibility of dual 
licensing. However, please always bear in mind that Google have the same 
rights vis a vis our contributors, so if you do start to poach in their 
realm, test yourself: Will you react calmly if Google send messages to 
every OSM contributor asking them to dual-license their data? Only if 
you can honestly answer yes should you proceed.

If you do prepare such a standard letter, be sure to highlight the 
positives and not the negatives:

"Dear so-and-so, I see you have added a tremendous amount of data to 
Google Map Maker which I found very impressive. I am involved with a 
non-profit project that does something similar to Google Map Maker. It 
is called OpenStreetMap. We try to be soemthing like a Wikipedia for 
maps - everyone can contribute, and everyone can use our data for any 
purpose they like (drawing different kinds of maps, offering various 
services, programming computer games - whatever). I, and indeed the 
whole OpenStreetMap project, would indeed be very interested to be able 
to use the data that you gave to Google Map Maker for OpenStreetMap as 
well. Since OpenStreetMap follows very strict intellectual property 
rules, we do not simply copy data from anywhere - we always ask the 
original rights owner for permission. Since you are the original rights 
owner of the data you contributed to Google Map Maker, will you allow me 
to incorporate your data in OpenStreetMap as well? There would be no 
additional work involved for you. You can find more about the OSM 
project here ... and all our data is licensed under CC-BY-SA which you 
can read more about here ..."

Bye
Frederik