[OSM-legal-talk] License Cut-over and critical mass

[Francis Davey]

On 16 July 2010 17:55, Anthony <osm at inbox.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 12:44 PM, Francis Davey <fjmd1a at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> But there is quite a high threshold for protection since there is a
>> requirement that databases so protected "by reason of the selection or
>> arrangement of their contents, constitute the author's own
>> intellectual creation".
>
> At the very least, doesn't the categorization of roads into
> motorway/trunk/primary/secondary/etc constitute "arrangement of the
> contents"?  I find it hard to believe there's *absolutely no originality* in
> OSM.  There's a little bit, even if it is the less interesting (to me)
> parts.

Well, of course it depends on what part of the OSM one is talking
about (that is what is taken), as you say some of it does very much
seem to fit the criteria. There hasn't been very much litigation on
database copyright (actually not all that much on database right
either, though there has been some) so its boundaries are as yet not
entirely clear. Because it is a point of harmonisation across European
law one cannot simply assume that it will be much like originality
criteria extant in (say) English common law - historically England has
tended to set the lowest threshold for copyright of any jurisdiction
with which I am familiar.

I'd guess you were right, but that's about as far as I can go.

-- 
Francis Davey