[OSM-legal-talk] legal FAQ license

[Frederik Ramm]

Jukka,

Jukka Rahkonen wrote:
> And of course we are using the same rules for taking and giving, or? Same
> amounts of data we consider non-copyrightable and keep therefore in the database
> can be taken out from the new ODbl-OSM database as if they were PD? And even
> store masses of separate extracts into one database because that's what we would
> do ourselves?

I'm not sure I quite understand.

Our new license does have a provision that allows using non-substantial 
extracts without regard to the license. This can be viewed as similar to 
what I described above, although there is a big difference. If one 
million users each make a non-copyrightable contribution to OSM under 
CC-BY-SA then I can take those one million contributions and use them in 
any way I want because if they are not copyrightable then CC-BY-SA 
doesn't have any effect. However if I put those same one million 
contributions into a database protected by ODbL, then they are likely to 
form a "substantial" extract and thus they cannot be extracted outside 
of ODbL terms. (On the other hand, it is well possible that there is an 
individual contribution which is copyrightable but still doesn't form a 
"substantial" extract.)

ODbL's concept "if you take a lot of insubstantial extracts and combine 
them then they again form a substantial extract" does not apply to 
copyright of individual contributions made under CC-BY-SA - if you take 
lots of non-copyrighted bits submitted by various users and combine them 
then they don't suddenly become copyrighted - or maybe they do, but then 
it's your copyright and not that of the original contributors (think of 
tearing a magazine to shreds and then gluing together a nice picture 
from the coloured pieces of paper).

Bye
Frederik

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