[OSM-legal-talk] Someone ought to do something ... dealing with violations of OSM's geodata license

[Michael Collinson]

This is a general question for discussion from the License Working 
Group. I may also ask on the main list as the constituency is different.

There are now 1 to 2 reports every month of folks violating OSM's 
license by using OSM's data or maps without any or without adequate 
CC-BY-SA attribution and they take several weeks to fix on average.  
These are mostly websites but include poster advertising, a TV 
advertisement and a TV show. This has sort of landed in the LWG's lap by 
default but we feel we are not dealing with the issues adequately and 
some issues not at all.  We welcome suggestions on a better system. Our 
main function is the internal license change, and until that is done, we 
really don't have the resource to handle external matters like this.

Here's a run down of what happens at the moment:

- At the very minimum, we want to keep make a public record of alleged 
violations to show that these things do not pass un-noticed and to 
provide a central point for collating frequency and the nature of the 
problem.  So far, if the LWG hears a report, we document the basics in a 
"Hall of Shame" section of our weekly meeting minutes, 
http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Working_Group_Minutes

- A member of the OSMF board or LWG  takes up the particular issue. This 
depends very much on personal enthusiasm. It requires initial tact - 
most instances are neglect/cannot be bothered rather than purely wilful. 
It requires persistance and follow-up,  - we generally get an "oh we 
will fix it immediately" ... and then they don't. It requires careful 
coordination within the OSM/OSMF community to provide a united front. It 
may require research - for example, how exactly should a TV ad provide a 
CC-BY-SA atttibution? And lastly, future cases may involve bumping up to 
formal legal help and legal action.  Not easy for one person to do.


Mike
LWG