[OSM-legal-talk] CC-BY-SA / Non-separatable combination of OSM+other

[Rob Myers]

On 02/02/11 15:59, Jonathan Harley wrote:
>
> By referring to a collective whole, it seems to me that the license is
> asserting that such a thing can exist. I think Peter is right - as long

Oh I see, I didn't realise that's the wording of the licence.

That's an unfortunate turn of phrase then. :-) I'll suggest it's changed 
for CC 4.0.

2.0 UK states:

""Collective Work" means the Work in its entirety in unmodified form 
along with a number of other separate and independent works"

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/uk/legalcode

Flattened layers are not separate or independent.

2.0 unported gives some good examples of what is meant by a "collective 
work":

""Collective Work" means a work, such as a periodical issue, anthology 
or encyclopedia"

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode

The examples are of discrete, spatially separated aggregations of 
separate entities.

Flattened layers are unambiguously derivative works.

> as the CC-BY content is unmodified, it can be assembled with other
> things to form a collective work. The CC-BY licenses do not say that
> they still have to be separate and independent after assembly, just before.

It says precisely that they must be unmodified, separate and independent 
after collection.

Otherwise they are derivative works.

>> Layers combined destructively (such as in print) are modified, and so
>> are an adaptation.
>>
>
> Firstly, the topmost layer is clearly unmodified by this kind of
> combination.

The derived work that exists as a result of combining it with the 
underlying tiles makes it an adaptation as per UK BY-SA 2.0 1.c

> If a CC-BY tile is below the top layer, then yes, you could
> argue that it is either modified, or no longer being used whole, by
> parts of it being hidden. But if we're talking about using OSM data,

I do argue that, and it is the case. But I also argue that it is being 
combined with other material to create a derivative work, rather than 
placed alongside it to make a collective work.

In either case it is an adaptation and therefore a Derivative Work.

> which is made up of points, as long as they're unmodified before
> "assembly" - ie rendering - then I still think it's a collective work

But the rendering of those points, as a derivative of them, is under BY-SA.

> and only has to be attributed, not restricted to the same license.

If it was a collective work then yes.

> ODbL is much clearer about this, but has this same effect - produced
> works have to be attributed but it doesn't attempt to force a license on
> them, only on the database they came from.

ODbL is explicitly a database copyleft. It does "force" a licence on the 
producers of produced works, and the attribution is "forced" on the 
produced works as a way of advertising this.

(IANAL, TINLA).

- Rob.