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

Rob Myers rob at robmyers.org
Thu Nov 18 17:58:42 GMT 2010


On 11/18/2010 05:25 PM, Ed Avis wrote:
> Rob Myers<rob at ...>  writes:
>
>> We can produce a CC licenced set of map tiles from ODbL data. But we
>> cannot use those to make a Lady Gaga score or the original ODbL
>> database.
>
> Actually, you can use them to produce a Lady Gaga score, if you somehow
> managed to do so independently without ever hearing her music before.  That

Magic aside, the likelihood of a "substantial portion" of the precise 
structure and content of the OSM database being independently created is 
close enough to zero that this is unlikely to be a concern.

> would be independent creation.  It would, of course, require that nobody had
> added bits of Gaga-music to the OSM database without prior permission from
> the record company.
>
>> If we do, the original rights still apply to the recreated
>> work. CC licencing is not a way of circumventing that.
>
> The point is this.  The CC text says that it grants you a copyright licence
> in the work.  Clearly,

Well, not clearly. CC licences don't cover what they cannot.

> that applies to all copyright interest in the work and
> not selectively to just the pictorial part of it (even if that concept existed).
> If you follow the terms of the licence, you are not infringing copyright.

You are not infringing the copyright on the produced work, no.

> If you're familiar with the Ordnance Survey OpenData release in the UK, it's
> exactly the same situation.  The original OS master database is copyrighted.

It is not, as with the OS data the licence on the database is expected 
to apply directly to derived works.

> Perhaps you are to some extent 'recreating' it by tracing from the Street View
> tiles, but that doesn't matter; you have a copyright licence from the Ordnance
> Survey to use those tiles, so as long as you don't cheat by looking at the
> original database, you can trace and derive whatever you like from them as long
> as you stay within the copyright licence granted.

But the ODbL isn't about some platonic idea of a map, this is about the 
precise structure and numbers in the database.

>> What would prevent us from using an ARR map tile to magically recreate
>> the original ODbL database?
>
> If I received a printed map 'all rights reserved' and then produced a derived
> work from it such as a tracing, I'd probably be infringing the rights of the
> copyright holder of that printed map.  On the other hand, if I had a licence
> (from a suitably authorized person) to make derivative works and distribute
> them under certain terms, I would be able to do that.

And if the proprietary licence said "you can do what you like with 
derivatives but you cannot do what you like with the original", how 
would that be different from the ODbL?

>> If we look at the licencing of "My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts", which
>> licenced individual track elements CC but not the original compiled
>> work, that's probably closer.
>
>> Exactly. And the copyright (or DB right) in the original data is an
>> entirely separate issue.
>
> Yes - it's quite separate - you do not receive any licence to the original data
> but you do get a licence to all copyright interest in the small bit of map
> you received; since you have not even looked at the original data you cannot
> be infringing copyright in that (similar to 'clean room' rules), and if you do
> things with just the extract you received then you are covered by the licence
> you received with that extract.

Sure, the licence to the produced work. So how is a substantial portion 
of the original database structure and contents going to be accidentally 
recreated in this scenario?

I don't think it will be possible to accidentally "reverse engineer" the 
DB, and if you intentionally "reverse engineer" it, you cannot claim 
independent creation.

- Rob.



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