[OSM-legal-talk] Is this click through agreement compatible with OSM?

[Steve Bennett]

On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 6:56 PM, Gregory Arenius <gregory at arenius.com> wrote:

> I read this as saying that the terms of use, which are there as a hold
> harmless waiver, don't grant any rights.  It specifically states that if the
> city is claiming copyright on the data it will do so in the file or on the
> website that the file is accessed from.  The file in question has no such
> claims.

Ok, well argued.

> My understanding is that I am legally entitled to grant that license because
> the city isn't claiming copyright on the data.  Its public domain and as
> such can be added.  I think the current draft of the CTs was changed to
> accommodate such things.

One thing I'm curious about is the terms about indemnifying the City
of SF against possible harm resulting from using the data. Let's say
hypothetically that some third party uses the data that you
incorporated into OSM, crashed their car due to bad data, and
hypothetically they could sue someone over it. Now the OSM license
disclaims liability (on the part of OSMF?) but does that other
idemnification apply? (Actually I'm not sure what I'm asking actually
makes sense.)

Steve