[OSM-legal-talk] [talk] New site about the license change

[Anthony]

On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 7:07 PM, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Anthony wrote:
>>>
>>> If Creative Commons had been more friendly towards the data licensing
>>> issue,
>>> a similar window could have been opened in a hypothetical CC-BY-SA 3.1
>>
>> If Creative Commons wanted to support the export of sui generis
>> database protection, there wouldn't have been a need for ODbL in the
>> first place.
>
> It was Creative Commons who started the process of looking for a license
> that led to ODbL. It's just that Creative Commons left that process along
> the way.

They left what process?  The goal of the process was not to find a
license like the ODbL.  The goal of the process was to address the sui
generis database right within the CC framework.  CC chose to address
the right by including it in the definition of work and
unconditionally waiving it.  They did this because including the right
otherwise might have the effect of exporting sui generis database
protection to countries without it.  The folks at ODC took the exact
opposite position, and created a license for the explicit purpose of
trying to export the sui generis database right to countries which did
not have it.

On this issue I actually think CC-BY-SA made the wrong decision, and
that they should have allowed the sui generis database right to be
exported (in the updated version of CC-BY-SA).  This would have made
the ODbL unnecessary, at least for OSM's purposes, and would have not
opened the door to all the *other* changes that came along with the
addition of the sui generis database right (i.e. the ability to make
proprietary maps from OSM data, the requirement to offer the
Derivative Database or an alteration file along with Produced Works,
the DbCL, the contributor terms, incompatibility with Nearmap, data
loss, etc.)

But regardless of whether they were right or wrong, I can't imagine
them supporting the sui generis database right on one hand (by
facilitating OSM's switch to a license which relies on it), and
refusing to support it on the other (by only recognizing the right in
their licenses long enough to waive it).