[OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Community vs. Licensing

[James Livingston]

On 30/08/2010, at 3:24 PM, jamesmikedupont at googlemail.com wrote:
> I think that was already sorted out under the issue of wikipedia point
> importing,
> the OSM data is under the jurisdiction of England and has to obey
> english copyright law. no?

No, people are bound by the copyright law where they are or use the data. For example if someone wants to sue me for violating copyright, they'll have to do it under Australian law.

The only thing where England comes into play is that the Contributor Terms specify that they fall under English law. The ODbL deliberately doesn't contain a choice-of-law clause.


> If there is no single law, then we can just extract the changes again
> back in usa and put them back in no? Then it is a two way street.

No.

For example there are books which are out of copyright in Australia (due to length of time since publication) but still on copyright in the US. If I use that now public domain work to create something new in Australia, I can't give it to people or sell it in the US without the risk of being sued for copyright infringement. It's fine if I only distribute it places where the book's was out of copyright, but not if it goes to places where it's still in copyright.