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

[Anthony]

On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 1:50 PM, Ed Avis <eda at waniasset.com> wrote:
> Anthony <osm at ...> writes:
>
>>>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
>>
>>As you have correctly pointed out with regard to the contributor
>>terms, you aren't allowed to grant a license on someone else's
>>copyright without permission.
>
> Correct!  So it matters whether the tiles are produced by OSMF itself
> or by a third party.

Agreed.

>>So a license from, say, MapQuest,
>>granting you permission to use the tiles under CC-BY-SA, only covers
>>MapQuest's copyright, which only extends to the material contributed
>>by MapQuest, not to the preexisting material already in the work.
>
> ...in which case, surely, we have the situation that in general, CC-BY-SA
> map tiles cannot be made from the OSM data, although OSMF itself has the
> power to do so because of the special rights granted by the contributor terms.

Well, depends on what you mean by that.  MapQuest certainly can
(physically) make a map tile from OSM data and put a notice on the
bottom of the screen saying "this map tile is released under
CC-BY-SA".  And I don't see how they'd be violating the ODbL by doing
so.  Besides, even if they *were* violating the ODbL, it's probably
irrelevant, since OSM isn't going to sue them (or anyone) for doing
so.  Furthermore, the license would likely be valid, in the sense that
the fact that they granted it could be used as a defense against
copyright infringement if *they* tried to sue you for redistributing
(etc) the tiles under CC-BY-SA.

On the other hand, I'd say the tiles aren't *really* under CC-BY-SA,
if the underlying data is subject to the ODbL.

>>>since you have not even looked at the original data you cannot
>>>be infringing copyright in that (similar to 'clean room' rules)
>>
>>Depends to what extent map data is copyrightable.  If I write a score,
>>and someone else records a piano rendition of the score, and a third
>>person converts that recording back to a score, that score is still
>>copyrighted by the original author.
>
> Absolutely!  I am not disputing that at all.
>
> I am saying that if you write a score, and then *with your permission and
> authorization* somebody distributes a recording of it under CC-BY or
> other permissive licence, then a person receiving it can exercise the
> rights granted by the licence to turn it back into the original score.

You are merging two separate events into one when you talk about
"distributing a recording under CC-BY", distributing a recording, and
licensing the recording under CC-BY.  The ODbL explicitly allows the
former.  But it is actually silent about the latter.  (It says that
you can't sublicense "the score" under CC-BY, but it says nothing
about whether or not you can license "the recording" under CC-BY.)