[OSM-legal-talk] PD declaration non binding?

[Frederik Ramm]

Tim,

TimSC wrote:
> I don't get that impression when I read the wiki. It says it is only a 
> "statement" and making this statement does not change "what people can 
> do with your data". Looking at the wiki, those lines were written by 
> Frederik Ramm. I guess I'll ask him what he intended.

I would very much *like* it if were possible extract from OSM that which 
has been contributed by people who declared their contribution to be PD, 
and then use that as PD.

However, as Richard correctly pointed out, PD content wrapped in a ODbL 
database does not allow this kind of use. One of the very reasons ODbL 
was chosen is that (at least in some jurisdiction) copyright on facts is 
either very weak or non-existent, so ODbL has necessarily been built in 
a way to protect the database even if the content was without legal 
protection. Naturally this applies to PD content as well.

I wrote the passage that you quoted because even if I might have liked 
things to be otherwise, we must not mislead people into thinking that 
just because they click that their content is PD, it can be extracted 
from OSM as such.

Any measure of giving legal force to the PD statement, i.e. allowing 
users to extract a "PD only" subset of data, would have my full support. 
I didn't dare to campaign for it however for fear of alienating those 
who not only want their own contributions to be share-alike, but want 
everyone else's contributions to be share-alike as well.

>> I have suggested to LWG, inter alia, that the Contributor Terms should be
>> rewritten to admit the possibility that it may distribute PD 
>> contributions
>> under a CC0 or PDDL-licensed database.

> I think this is a good idea, for clarity. I am disheartened by those 
> calling for the contributer terms to explicitly rule out PD.

I am too, I had thought that we had surmounted that impasse long ago, 
but now there are again voices for cementing SA forever.

Mind you: If Richard's idea of effectively dual-licensing content could 
be implemented, *then* I would not care if the "main OSM license" was 
share-alike forever, because as a PD advocate I would still have the 
option to convince the main contributors to switch to PD.[*] It is only 
if that option is ruled out - and at the moment it *is* ruled out - that 
I would expect the upgrade path to not rule out PD.

Bye
Frederik

[*] Some might say here: But you *always* have the option of talking 
someone into dual-licensing his stuff specially for you. However if that 
had to be done bypassing OSM in some way (because you cannot take a PD 
contributor's data directly from OSM), then that would be next to 
impossible. Most contributors would not even have their contribution to 
give it to me.