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

[Rob Myers]

On 11/17/2010 04:25 AM, Mike Linksvayer wrote:
>
> A bigger problem, in my mind, would be facilitating a fracturing of the
> copyleft universe.

ODbL "Produced Works" may be BY-SA. In practice this amounts to an 
increase in the amount of share-alike data available to the cultural 
works area of the share-alike universe rather than a fracturing of the 
data share-alike universe that BY-SA doesn't cover to the same extent at 
the moment. A one-way compatibility across different forms.

Imagine GPL game engines and BY-SA game content in parallel. Or GPL 
operating software for [insert eventually successful share-alike 
hardware licence here] hardware. Each licence effectively covers the 
work it is designed to, and the two work well in parallel.

That is how the ODbL and BY-SA can complement each other.

> I realize that there's an argument that data and
> content are separate magisteria, but I'm pretty skeptical.

CC does appear to have treated data and cultural works as separate 
magisteria to *some* degree, with Science Commons as a separate 
initiative with its own ethical and practical norms, and what I've seen 
of the discussion of DB right during the CC 3.0 revision process.

But certainly where copyright does apply to databases or their content 
it won't respect the difference (OSM handles this with the DbCL). And 
even if we try to create a conceptual rather than a legal dividing line, 
some data may be culture (or creative work or whatever).

The best example of where data is culture I can think of off the top of 
my head is the Radiohead "House of Cards" video. The data for that is 
BY-NC-SA. It could be ODbL with a BY-NC-SA video, but videos derivative 
of the data rather than the video itself could have any licence. As a 
copyleft proponent, I don't think that's ideal, but I think that a 
better share-alike for the data in parallel is a good thing.

- Ron.