[OSM-legal-talk] Best license for future tiles?

Anthony osm at inbox.org
Wed Nov 17 20:02:58 GMT 2010


On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 2:30 PM, 80n <80n80n at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 6:32 PM, Anthony <osm at inbox.org> wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 1:19 PM, 80n <80n80n at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Anyone care to point to the language in ODbL that would stop someone
>> > tracing
>> > from a Produced Work? I really havn't been able to find it.
>>
>> If tracing (a map) is considered copying (and that's a question of law
>> which is not exactly clear), then the question is not what in the ODbL
>> stops you from tracing, the question is what in the ODbL allows you to
>> trace.
>>
> ODbL specifically and explicitly gives you the right to create a Produced
> Work with which you can do whatever you like.

Let's assume, for these purposes, that the person doing the tracing is
not the same as the person who created the Produced Work.  Is that
fair?

What gives the person doing the tracing the right to trace?  Is the
Database copyrighted?  By tracing, are they copying a copyrightable
portion of the Database?  By tracing, are they extracting a
substantial portion of the Database?  If so, what gives them
permission to do that?

> The only restrictions are those specified in 4.3 as quoted above.

The person creating the Produced Work is specifically prohibited from
sublicensing the Database.  So any license granted by the producer of
the Produced Work is not a license on the underlying Database itself.

> If there were other restrictions you wouldn't be able to create a Produced
> Work that was publishable under PD, CC0, WTFPL, CC-BY-SA etc.

You have permission to license the produced work, not the underlying
database.  See 4.8.

Can you publish a Produced Work under CC-BY-SA?  Personally, I don't
think you meaningfully can.  The only semi-reasonable argument I've
heard that you can, came from an ODbL lawyer who basically said, yes,
you can publish a Produced Work under CC-BY-SA, because CC-BY-SA
doesn't apply to databases anyway.

I think Ed Avis is right on that one, though.  "It's allowed to make
proprietary, all-rights-reserved
map renderings, but if you want to produce a truly CC-licensed or
public domain one you can't.  (This refers to the no-tracing
restrictions; an attribution requirement is more reasonable.)"



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