[OSM-legal-talk] ODbL: Produced Works other than maps

[Arne Johannessen]

Hi Frederik, Andy,

IANAL, but am still in a position to offer an opinion for discussion.


Andy Allan wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 9:45 AM, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org>  
> wrote:
>>
>>    until now, most of us (I believe) have viewed the ODbL's "Produced
>> Works" concept as relating to something like a PNG image made from  
>> the
>> OSM database. [...]

Note that just rendering the OSM database in PNG format doesn't  
necessarily create a Produced Work.


>> I wonder what other forms of "Produced Works" there are. What, for
>> example, about lists?

Sure, lists can be Produced Works. The ODBL explicitly mentions  
'[text] resulting from using [...] the Contents'.

Also lists can, in principle, be created in such a way as to qualify  
as an (analog or digital) database, although satisfying legal  
requirements for the list creator acquiring new sui generis rights on  
such a list would be very difficult if it is directly derived from OSM.


>> If I produce from OSM a list of all bakeries in
>> London, with addresses, and put that up on a web page - is that more
>> something like a PNG image (a Produced Work), or is it already a
>> database excerpt

Such a list most certainly is a Substantial database excerpt and as  
such definitely is at least created from a Derivative Database.  
Publishing it on a public web page constitutes Public Use, so the  
notices as per section 4.2 ODBL are required.

Whether or not the list is also a Produced Work is hard to say. The  
use cases in the OSM wiki appear to suggest that the ODBL doesn't  
answer this question for vector images.

FWIW, I'd tend to say the list isn't a Produced Work if it's just a  
pretty-printed database dump (think yellow pages).


>> (a little Javascript magic might allow you to sort the
>> table or to filter out certain elements - certainly characteristics  
>> of a
>> data base)?

If the list is scriptable enough to make this possible for the  
*entire* database extraction, it definitely is *not* a Produced Work  
IMHO.


>> If the latter - would things be any different if I offered the  
>> list  (a)
>> not on a web page, but as a PDF document which has less database-like
>> capabilities, or (b) in printed form?
>
> The distribution mechanism has got nothing to do with it being a
> database, as far as I know.

That's correct; if the data on the web page is a database excerpt,  
printing it to PDF or on paper doesn't change that fact. Therefore  
posting the bakeries list's print-out on, say, an university's notice  
board would require the usual ODBL attribution.


> [...] So I could arrange pebbles on a beach to
> represent the binary encoding of planet.osm.bz2 (how many pebbles are
> needed is an exercise for the reader) and that would still count as a
> database.

Heh :) nice example.

In terms of the ODBL, it would probably constitute a Derived Work (due  
to the artistic rendering) based on a Derivative Database (in this  
case, an extraction of the whole of OSM's contents).

So you as the creator of the pebble arrangement would have a  
traditional copyright on the arrangement, but you'd also need to put  
up a sign at the beach stating that the arrangement contains  
information from OSM and that it is made available under the terms of  
the ODBL.

(BTW, how would one tag such a pebble arrangement? Perhaps something  
like recursive=yes... ;-) )

-- 
Arne Johannessen