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

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

TimSC wrote:
>> Yes, a database right exists. The "author" of the database is probably 
>> the person/organisation who created the schema, wrote and enforced the 
>> criteria for acceptance into the database. (You see my point that "the 
>> community" may have a stake in this.)

I have heard more than one lawyer talk about database right as 
protecting the rights of the entity that has expended effort to create 
the database. (The EU database directive assigns the DB rights to the 
entity that made the "qualitatively and/or quantitatively substantial 
investment in either the obtaining, verification or presentation of the 
contents".)

This is clearly meant for situations where one entity invests a lot of 
effort to create the database. To me, it is quite unclear who that 
entity would be in the OSM sense. Allright, someone provides the servers 
but is that "substantial" to the project? If it is found out that half 
of the data has been entered using an editor that RichardF has written, 
and let's assume that in doing so he has expended more effort than OSMF 
has in maintaining the servers - would that suddenly make him the holder 
of database rights? How much would one individual have to contribute 
before he could legally claim to also hold part of the database rights?

Lots of questions.

> In that case, is it legally sound if I download my own contribution due, 
> to database rights? Would this interfere with relicensing of the data?

We had this discussion a while ago, sadly I cannot find it. I asked if I 
could, under ODbL, download anyone else's contribution if they offer it 
under PD and then use it as PD; Matt Amos said no, due to the same 
reasons we have explained in this here thread; I then asked if I would 
download my own contribution in case I had mislaid my original data, and 
Matt said - IIRC - he believed I could.

I don't think that this is true from a database directive standpoint, or 
more precisely: My downloading "my own" data is nothing else, legally, 
than my downloading "someone else's" data, since the database directive 
only recognizes the effort spent by the creator of the database. 
However, OSMF is unlikely to sue me for breach of license if I download 
and re-used my own data. In fact they would have a hard time proving 
that I did it.

Bye
Frederik