[OSM-legal-talk] Would The ODbL and BY-SA Clash In A Database Extracted From a BY-SA Produced Work?

Anthony osm at inbox.org
Fri Sep 3 18:09:25 BST 2010


On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 12:53 PM, Rob Myers <rob at robmyers.org> wrote:
> AFAICT the DbCL reduces the effective copyright level of the contents of the
> database to that of facts.
>
>> It's a great answer by Jordan Hatcher.  It rests on the assumption
>> that OSM consists solely of factual data (or, at least, that any
>> extract from a Produced Work would consist solely of factual data).
>> But that's probably a good assumption in many cases (e.g. tracing
>> roads without copying the categorization of those roads).
>
> Given the DbCL I'm not sure that the contents being non-factual would change
> things. But if you are concerned about this you should ask on odc-discuss.

I guess.  Although it's not really the ODbL that gets me confused but
the CT, where it says "DbCL 1.0 for the individual contents of the
database".

Even more specifically, "the individual contents".  What constitutes
"individual"?  A row in the database?  Is a way an individual piece,
and if so, what does that mean (does an individual piece which is a
way mean just the ordered node references, or does it include the
lat/lons of the nodes which are referenced).  Etc.

Clearly an individual way could, in theory (not in OSM practice), be
copyrightable (http://thisworldisnotforsale.com/cgi-bin/james/040821_taking_Line_For_Walk/singleLineFaces400x331.jpg).
 If such a database were released with "DbCL 1.0 for the individual
contents of the database", would the way be DbCL, or would it be ODbL?
 Would it make a difference if the way were split into 1,000 different
connected ways?



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