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

[James Livingston]

On 20/07/2010, at 9:10 AM, Emilie Laffray wrote:
> To the best of my knowledge, violating a contract and making the data available doesn't make the data public domain.

Indeed.

The relevant question is then "Is hosting a copy of ODbL licensed material (e.g. a planet dump) on your website without requiring people to agree to a contract a violation of the ODbL?". If you aren't violating the ODbL by hosting the data without requiring contract agreement, then that is a easy way to get around the license if copyright and database right don't apply or exist.


> Richard Fairhurst pointed out some legal issues about this. To quote him from higher up in the thread: 
> Under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999, "a person who is not a party to a contract (a 'third party') may in his own right enforce a term of the contract if... the term purports to confer a benefit on him".

It's already been discussed way back on legal-talk, but not having a choice of law clause in the ODbL (with good reason) makes enforcing the contract part of it more interesting. I don't know how you'd go trying to use that to enforce the ODbL if the neither of the first nor second parties are in England.