[OSM-legal-talk] CTs and the 1 April deadline

Robert Whittaker (OSM) robert.whittaker+osm at gmail.com
Tue Jan 4 18:06:42 GMT 2011


On 4 January 2011 16:22, Richard Fairhurst <richard at systemed.net> wrote:
> John Smith wrote:
>> That might work for ODBL which has attribution requirements, although
>> if produced works are exempt from attribution requirements
>
> They're not. ODbL 4.3 requires attribution on produced works.

ODbL 4.3 requires that the source database be attributed, not any data
sources that went into making that database. It also provides no
explicit requirement for any downstream users to attribute the source
of the produced work, the source database, or the sources that went
into making that database in any derivative works they may create. The
OS OpenData license includes specific attribution wording that, under
ODbL, there would be no obligation to provide that specific wording
with a produced work, or any derivative works arising from it.

However, it may be argued that the indirect attribution on a produced
work, via the OSM link back to the OSM list of sources page would be
sufficient for OS OpenData. But that still doesn't get round the
problem of no attribution requirement on derivatives of produced
works. I guess the only way round this would be to argue that the
"uses, views, accesses, interacts with, or is otherwise exposed to the
Produced Work" part of ODbL 4.3 also extends to all derivatives of
produced works. But I think that's quite a stretch. The license
specifically states the "Produced Work" and not "Produced Work and any
derivative works".

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Use_Cases#Use_of_maps_in_Wikipedia_and_Wikitravel
would seem to contradict your later assertion that produced works can
only be licensed under an attribution license. (Note that the clause
4.6 mentioned there has since been removed from ODbL.)

>> and the CT allows for license changes to non-attribution licenses
>
> It doesn't. CT 4 promises attribution and, as part of the Terms themselves
> rather than the licence, cannot be overruled by a future licence change.

That requirement is only for OSMF to provide attribution when they
distribute the OSM data. It does not force OSMF to require other
downstream data users to provide similar attribution when they
distribute derivative works / databases. So this clause would not stop
OSMF releasing the data as PD as long as OSMF still maintains an
appropriate attribution page themselves.

-- 
Robert Whittaker



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