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

[Rob Myers]

On 11/18/2010 06:46 PM, Ed Avis wrote:
> Rob Myers<rob at ...>  writes:
>
>>> The point is this.  The CC text says that it grants you a copyright licence
>>> in the work.
>
>> Well, not clearly. CC licences don't cover what they cannot.
>
> Yes - but the licence does cover copyright in the particular work that you
> received (in this case a printed map, say).  That is what I want to establish.
> And it covers all of the copyright for that particular work, not just a subset
> so that you're granted a licence to the pictures but not the words.

The example that springs to mind is if I write a BY-(SA) review of a 
story or a poem and I include quotes from the work I am reviewing under 
fair use or fair dealing.

I am fairly certain that I am not giving people who receive my BY-SA 
review a BY-SA licence to the quotes that are contained in it.

> It doesn't, obviously, cover anything not contained in that work.
> So it couldn't possibly include the exact tags used in a landuse=brownfield
> area - just the shape of the area and the fact that it is brown.

Yes that makes sense.

>>> 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.
>
> Could you clarify what you mean here?  The OpenData release does not include
> any access to the original database.  I have never seen the OS's master database
> or the terms under which it is licensed; as far as I am concerned the Street
> View tiles are just some image files released under a permissive licence.
> If I trace from them and make a derived work, I need to stay within the licence
> granted - but I need not care at all what the terms are of the original DB.

Sure, my point was that the licence and the copyright relationship to 
the derived work are direct: the BY-style licence applies to your use of 
the OS data and to work produced using it rather than having the 
mothership/lander relationship of the ODbL and a BY-SA produced work.

>> But the ODbL isn't about some platonic idea of a map, this is about the
>> precise structure and numbers in the database.
>
> Ah, no I don't mean the precise numbers, obviously it would be a practical
> impossibility to recreate the exact database and if somebody did that you
> would suspect that they had been peeking at the original DB all along.
> I just mean the subset of the information that is recoverable from the tiles.

Ah, this is where I think I misunderstood what you are saying.

I don't think that what you refer to here as a subset of the information 
would count as a Derivative Database as it wouldn't reproduce (part of) 
the content of the original database.

This would depend on the accuracy and structure of what is "recovered", 
I think.

But I will check odc-discuss and ask about this.

>>> 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?
>
> Perhaps it wouldn't be different, but that is not what happens here.
> You don't receive the map tiles under ODbL.  You receive them under CC-BY,
> shall we say, without additional restrictions.  If that is the case, then
> you can make derivatives such as tracing and distribute them under the
> licence terms you received.

You do not receive the tiles with any extra restrictions with an ODbL 
produced work either. If the ODbL attempted to impose them that would 
clash with BY. What you receive in the attribution for the BY work is a 
"source offer" that does not, in itself, affect your ability to use the 
BY work.

>>> 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 am only referring to tracing from the map tiles themselves.  Perhaps you
> are right that it would be practically impossible to recreate the original
> database from that - in which case we come to the same conclusion, albeit
> from different premises: that the tiles can be distributed under CC-BY without
> additional riders, and people can freely trace over them to make their own
> CC-BY licensed map.  (As long as they don't cheat by looking at the source
> data!)

Yes I think we probably do end up in the same place on this. :-)

- Rob.