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

[Rob Myers]

On 09/05/2010 06:01 AM, Anthony wrote:
>
> If all the roads in North America are connected, and they make up a
> single entity (the road network of North America), should that entity
> be considered "individual"?

I think that's probably too high level to be considered individual.

Like I say, having the "individual" refer to contributions may solve 
this, or it may be the case that a more rigorous definition might be 
more convincing (although that would carry its own risks).

>> The DbCL creates a level playing field or baseline for the ODbL to build on.
>
> So the DbCL says you can do anything you want with anything in OSM.

Anything you want with the individual contents of the DB, as long as you 
don't strip attribution.

If you are OSM, who are gathering together all these contributions, this 
includes incorporating them into something larger that may potentially 
gain its own rights and have further conditions applied based on them 
(or contract law in their absence ;-) ), such as an ODbL database.

This is probably why the "individual" is important, to make it clear 
what level of organization of the data the DbCL is being applied to.

> And then the ODbL says you can do certain things provided you meet
> certain conditions?

Yes. DB right covers the whole, and copyright may cover the DB or the 
aggregated contents.

To take an artistic or musical copyright-only example, if you take 
dozens of public domain clip-art images or dozens of copyright-free 
music samples and combine them into a wonderful new work you can claim 
copyright on the new work. The fact that there's no copyright on the 
individual elements doesn't preclude you claiming copyright on the 
whole, in fact it's what enables you to do so.

If the clip-art or samples were produced recently the copyright on them 
would interfere with your ability to assemble the work and claim your 
own copyright. A CC-BY licence or a CC0 waiver on them would ensure that 
you are able to use them without having to worry about anyone else's 
copyright claims preventing you from asserting your own copyright.

I think that it's the same with OSM: DbCL ensures that OSM can apply 
ODbL to the result of combining all the individual contributions.

(IANAL, TINLA.)

- Rob.