[OSM-legal-talk] OS Opendata & the new license

80n 80n80n at gmail.com
Fri Sep 24 14:06:03 BST 2010


On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 1:16 PM, Rob Myers <rob at robmyers.org> wrote:

> On 09/24/2010 01:04 PM, 80n wrote:
>
>>
>> I cannot grant you rights that I do not have.  I do not have the right
>> to "do any act restricted by copyright" so I can't give it to you even
>> if I wanted to.
>>
>
> Then it's unlikely that you can contribute BY-SA either, as BY-SA covers
> the copyright restricted acts of copying, modification, derivation,
> translation, and sublicencing.


>From OS I have a "a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive"
licence.  But for the CTs I need a "worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive,
perpetual, *irrevocable*" license.

I don't have the right to grant an irrevocable license.

For CC-BY-SA I have to grant a "worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive,
perpetual (for the duration of the applicable copyright) license" which is
revokable and term limited.  The OS OpenData license permits me to do that.
And what's more they explicitly state that the license is intended to be
compatible with CC-BY-SA 3.0.



>
>
>  I'm beginning to think that many people, including members of the LWG it
>> seems, do not comprehend this point.  There's certainly no guidance on
>> this when the CTs are proffered.
>>
>
> The CTs state:
>
> "You agree to only add Contents for which You are the copyright holder"
>
> Which seems fairly clear to me.


It then goes on to say "If You are not the copyright holder of the Contents,
You represent and warrant that You have explicit permission from the rights
holder" which is the relevant clause.  It's obviously not clear enough for
some people.


>
>
>  There must be quite a number of people
>> who have signed up to the CTs erroneously already.
>>
>
> I doubt it. It's possible that some people simply haven't read them, but
> it's much less likely that someone with the experience to have signed their
> rights away lacks the experience to read the CTs.
>

I think there's plenty of evidence to suggest that most people don't read
them.  Here's an amusing example of such:
http://www.pcpitstop.com/spycheck/eula.asp

80n
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