[OSM-legal-talk] [talk-au] Statement from nearmap.com regarding submission of derived works from PhotoMaps to OpenStreetMap

[Robert Whittaker (OSM)]

On 18 June 2011 10:22, Francis Davey <fjmd1a at gmail.com> wrote:
> OK. So what I mean by "some of the questions don't make sense" is
> exactly this. I'm afraid you and lots of others who ask questions use
> a lot of short-hand (lawyers sometimes do this too). The problem is
> then I don't know what assumptions are built into that short-hand and
> what exactly you are trying to say.

I think the question being asked arises from the following
hypothetical chain of events:

1/ Person A has a database that he licenses under ODbL.

2/ Person B takes the database and creates a produced work from a
derivative database. He complies with ODbL by releasing the derivative
database under ODbL, and also licenses the produced work (eg map
tiles) under either (i) PD/CC0 or (ii) CC-By.

3/ Person C takes the produced work under PD/CC0 or CC-By, and creates
a derivative work from it by 'reverse engineering' the map tiles to
recover (some of) the data in the original database. Since the
produced work was licensed to him under (i) PD/CC0 or (ii) CC-By, he
then is able to release the database under PD/CC0 or CC-By
respectively.

Now looking at this process, it seems to me that there are three possibilities:

1/ Everyone has fully met all their licensing obligations /
agreements, and so this represents a loop-hole in ODbL; or

2/ Person B didn't actually have the ability to release the produced
work under  either PD/CC0 or CC-By, presumably because of the database
rights contained in the data within them or something arising from the
ODbL contract; or

3/ It's possible for some rights to be contained in a PD/CC0 or CC-By
image that aren't under the PD/CC0 or CC-By license, thus limiting
what you can do with the image in terms of reverse engineering the
data behind it. Hence Person C is unable to release the results of the
reverse engineering in the way suggested, despite the license on the
image seeming to allow them to do this.

Thinking of the example someone gave or the copyright in sound
recordings being separate from the copyright in the music / lyrics,
I'm guessing the answer is some sort of combination of 2 and 3; along
the lines that person B needs to specify that while the images are
under the license specified, the underlying data isn't.

Robert.

-- 
Robert Whittaker