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

[Francis Davey]

On 18 November 2010 10:19, Ed Avis <eda at waniasset.com> wrote:
>
> That's what you say, and I hope it is true.  But others claim different things;
> some say that even once the work such as a printed map has been produced and
> distributed under CC-BY-SA or even CC0 terms, it is still tainted somehow, such
> that some legal force field prevents you from freely tracing it or otherwise
> turning it into machine-readable form.
>
> If this definitely isn't the case then it would be good to see a definitive
> statement to that effect, preferably attached to the licence itself.
>
> I know it sucks to have to refute every canard that somebody somewhere comes up
> with about the bogeyman ODbL, but this is in my view one of the big problems with
> the licence: it's so vague and complicated that if you ask three people about
> what it permits you get four answers.
>

One problem is that where there is no contractual relationship (as
there wouldn't be further down the chain of derivation/copying) the
extent to which ODbL is enforceable depends on what (if any) IP rights
a particular jurisdiction recognises in the licensed work and how that
jurisdiction treats them. I can tell you (because this is one of my
fields of expertise) that treatment varies widely (you knew that
almost certainly) which means that answers will vary across space.

Some of this is also developing. It was only this year that a UK court
recognised (new style) database copyright in football fixtures lists.
That was by no means a foregone conclusion. Multiply that sort of
uncertainty across the world and you will find it difficult to get
straight answers.

-- 
Francis Davey