[OSM-legal-talk] UK mapping authority switches to Open Government Licence (was: CTs and the 1 April deadline)

David Groom reviews at pacific-rim.net
Fri Jan 7 14:47:12 GMT 2011


> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Mike Collinson" <mike at ayeltd.biz>
> To: "Licensing and other legal discussions." 
> <legal-talk at openstreetmap.org>
> Sent: Friday, January 07, 2011 1:56 PM
> Subject: Re: [OSM-legal-talk] UK mapping authority switches to Open
> Government Licence (was: CTs and the 1 April deadline)
>
>
> At 08:36 PM 6/01/2011, John Smith wrote:
>>On 7 January 2011 05:25, Mike Collinson <mike at ayeltd.biz> wrote:
>>> Nope. Clause 4 survives any license changes in the future, it is nothing
>>> to
>>> do with the end user license:
>>>
>>> 4. At Your or the copyright owner's holder's option, OSMF agrees to
>>> attribute You or the copyright owner holder. A mechanism will be
>>> provided,
>>> currently a web page http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Attribution.
>>
>>This would only be useful if there is a chain to follow it back to
>>OSM, this is specific to OS/Nearmap type situations, they don't
>>require explicit attributions with map tiles, but they do require
>>attribution can be found, and while OSM offers to attribute on their
>>website, downstream may not be subject to the same requirements which
>>is where clause 3 breaks or contradicts clause 4.
>
> Thanks, now I understand. You are entirely correct that there is no
> perpetual guarantee of a chain to follow back to OSM (and thence to a 
> third
> party).  Clause 4 only provides what I call level 1 attribution as 
> described
> below.  It can survive and is practical and courteous to implement even if
> the distribution license, (i.e. a successor to ODbL), eventually went
> completely PD, which is why there is no contradiction or breakage by 
> clause
> 3.
>
> In the case of the UK OS, there is a switch from a potential requirement 
> for
> level 4 attribution to a clear requirement for level 1, so the Open
> Government Licence is definitely good news for handling highly granular
> data.

Mike

with regards to the OS OpenData, the bit in the licence which I am unsure 
about are the following lines, taken from 
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/opendata/docs/os-opendata-licence.pdf

"You must always use the following attribution statement to acknowledge the 
source of the Information : 'Contains Ordnance Survey data  Crown Copyright 
and database right 2011'"

"The same attribution statements must be contained in any sublicenses of the 
information that you grant, together with a requirement that any further 
sub-licences do the same"

Unfortunately the line above seems to me to extend the attribution 
requirements required for OpenData to a much higher attribution requirement 
than that required by the OGL .

Regards

David

>
> In the case of Nearmap, it is my understanding, Ben might like to comment 
> or
> contradict, that level 1 is livable with. The real concern being the
> possible that future OSM generations might want to drop share-alike.
>
> In the case of CC-BY, there is some opinion that level 4 is a clear
> requirement.  Since the Australian government, virtually alone, publishes
> data under this license, I have therefore written to the Australian 
> Attorney
> General's Office requesting explicit permission to use attribution level 1
> and 2 with level 3 on a best effort basis.
>
>
> Mike
>
> Third-Party Attribution Levels
>
> Level 1:
>
> OSM(F) acknowledges third party sources on its website or however
> technology/social trends change in the future.  There is no attempt to get
> end users of OSM data to do the same.  This is what CT clause 4 does, and
> only this.
>
> Level 2:
>
> When any OSM data is "published", i.e. copied from an OSM(F) website via a
> planet dump or API, XAPI call, there is something physically present in 
> the
> material transferred that acknowledges third parties.  It is LWG policy to
> implement this.  That something might be a complete list of third party
> sources used any where by OSM plus their preferred attribution language. 
> Or
> it might be a link back to the level 1 attribution statement.  At the
> current level of network bandwidth, the first is impractical for API calls
> for single nodes. The LWG is therefore adopting the link mechanism 
> initially
> and this work is almost complete.  When working and provenly practical, 
> the
> LWG will be happy to make a minor CT update adding it to clause 4.  Note
> also that encouraging tagging with a "source" tag is also useful in this
> regard, however it is only a best effort as not all contributors will  and
> source tags may get change or get deleted over time.
>
> Level 3:
>
> End-users re-distributing a copy of the OSM database or a derivative
> database are required to maintain any third-party attribution information
> intact. Messy in the case of very small extracts and in source tags, but 
> not
> impossible. However, I would not like to force future generations of 
> OSMers
> to require this in perpetuity, (in reality about 135 years given the 
> current
> age of many contributors).  Consistent source tagging, and appending to
> source tags rather changing them, helps this on a best-effort but not
> guarenteed basis.
>
> Level 4:
>
> End-users have to acknowledge third-parties in maps they make.  I am
> vehemently opposed to this for any form of highly granular data.  Even if
> individual contributors are excluded, requiring a list of several hundred
> sources is not practical and will become worse when OSM data itself is 
> just
> one of several sources used to make a map. Regretfully, imported CC-BY's 
> "at
> least as prominent" for each source exacerbates this situation.
>
> For a longer but outdated discussion see "5. A look at third party
> Attribution", LWG minutes 12th Oct 2010:
>
> <http://docs.google.com/View?id=dd9g3qjp_87d3bmhxgc>http://docs.google.com/View?id=dd9g3qjp_87d3bmhxgc
>
>







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