[OSM-legal-talk] legal FAQ license

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

M∡rtin Koppenhoefer wrote:
> reading the legal FAQ for the license change:
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License_FAQ
> 
> there is a paragraph that looks strange to me:
> 
> "... - we may take the view that those who have made small
> contributions, but cannot be contacted, would relicence their data
> under the new licence. We will enable them to contact us at a later
> date."
> 
> this part looks like a problem to me, as it is opt-out instead of the
> always proclaimed opt-in, or have I misunderstood this?

I think you have understood this all right. In my eyes there's a wide 
band between clearly non-copyrightable edits on one side (which we could 
legally keep in OSM even if the person who added them said no - but 
we're unlikely to exercise that right) and edits that are clearly 
"works" on the other (which are thus copyrightable in some countries). 
In between there may well lie some edits that are extremely unlikely to 
qualify as a "work" in terms of IP law, but where we would still remove 
them if the person who added them were to ask us to do it. For these, I 
think the "opt-out" mechanism is morally acceptable.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"