[OSM-legal-talk] Someone already had a look at the Bing Terms of Use?

[Russ Nelson]

Dave F. writes:
 > On 06/12/2010 09:55, Frederik Ramm wrote:
 > >
 > > The situation is sufficient for me to use Bing imagery for tracing. 
 > > I'm not looking at the legal side of it, I'm just looking at the size 
 > > of the PR disaster should Microsoft attempt to backtrack in any way.
 > >
 > > PR is more important than legal.
 > 
 > I'm just catching up with this thread & can't believe what I've just 
 > read. You bleat & whinge about people talking legal in other threads & 
 > yet here, in legal, you admit that your advice to others that's it's OK 
 > to trace Bing (under any license) has no foundation other than a guess & 
 > a feeling.
 > 
 > I'm looking for concrete evidence & it would be better if you kept quiet 
 > until you had some

The USA has a legal principle that says "If Alice says ``Y'all have
permission to do this'', Bill goes ahead and does it, then Alice has
no recourse other than to withdraw permission."  Specifically for
licenses, it's called "Reliance".  And if Alice has said "Y'all can do
this forever," guess what? She has given up her ability to withdraw
permission. 

So, by Reliance, Microsoft *could* tell us to stop, but they can't
retroactively withdraw the permission they gave us in the past.  Since
Microsoft is a United States company, they need to abide by U.S. law.
The real question here is: whether Microsoft believes that a posting
on the official Bing blog is usable in court.

-- 
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