[OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] I don't want companies stealing OSM data that I contribute!

[Frederik Ramm]

(moving this thread to legal-talk)

Valent:
>>> AFAIK with new Contributor Terms [1] all data entered into OSM can be
>>> taken by some company, closed and they could create a product made 
>>> profit on it.

Grant:
>> No, they have to make the data available. The data is share-alike.
>> http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/summary/

Felix:
> Nope, they don't have to. Only if they use it as one database. If they 
> use it to publish maps, or create a product that afterwards uses two 
> databases seperately, they don't have to publish their own data under Odbl.

Grant is right in saying that they have to make the *data* available - 
not the end product but any OSM-derived database they create in the 
process. For the data, this is a *stricter* requirement than CC-BY-SA 
has (which requires you to make the end product available and not the 
data).

Also, Felix is right in claiming that if you manage to create a product 
by using two separate databases, one OSM and one not, you do not have to 
release the "not-OSM" database. This is the same as with CC-BY-SA, which 
  does not require you to release *any* of the two databases.

While CC-BY-SA forces you to release the final product, anything that 
can be done by "using two databases separately" is very likely to be 
doable using the multi-layer technique we use today when we take OSM 
maps and overlay proprietary data - even today that does not make the 
proprietary data CC-BY-SA. So I fail to see where exactly the sudden 
outcry comes from.

> This has some positive sides, i.e. you could use CCBYNC data inside a 
> map (which is a product) whithout that data loosing its NC status, on 
> the other hand basically anyone can do whatever he wants now with OSM 
> data, whithout giving a penny back. For me this is unacceptable and I 
> won't agree to the new license, and also tell other people to stay far 
> away from odbl.

Whoever makes a finished product from OSM data has the choice of license 
for that finished product. It could be CC-BY-SA (if you like that), or 
if you don't like commercial users you can license it CC-BY-SA-NC (a 
liberty that nobody who creates stuff from OSM has at the moment). Or it 
could be a commercial copyright license - which will only hold if your 
product really adds that much value, otherwise, since the raw OSM data 
is available openly, anyone else can come and make the same product at a 
lower price, or for free.

> For me Odbl means that the quest for free data has failed, if you push 
> Odbl license, you push data that is incompatible to CCBYSA terms as we 
> know them.

ODbL clearly is a free and open license (whereas, for example, the 
CC-BY-SA-NC is clearly not). I don't know if your personal quest has 
failed but it cannot have been a quest for free data.

You are mixing up the data (which will always remain free under ODbL, 
and even under stricter rules as before), and stuff produced from data 
(which in many cases will *not* be data!).

OSM is a project about free geodata, and ODbL serves that purpose well - 
much better than CC-BY-SA.

OSM never was a project about "free creative works produced from 
geodata", and thus, CC-BY-SA was the wrong license from day one - it 
just took us 6 years to notice. That what we do now to fix this is 
"incompatible to CC-BY-SA terms as we know them" should not come as a 
surprise; after all, CC-BY-SA is about creative works and we are not.

Bye
Frederik