[OSM-legal-talk] Triggering ShareAlike in Government

[Paul Norman]

> From: Kate Chapman [mailto:kate at maploser.com]
> Subject: [OSM-legal-talk] Triggering ShareAlike in Government
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> I have a question about what would trigger the ShareAlike in the context
> of government. Let's say for example a National Mapping Agency takes the
> OpenStreetMap road data for their area and then improves upon it. Those
> improvements are shared with the Ministry of the Environment. Is that
> redistribution?

Crown copyright is one area where the law really varies from jurisdiction to
jurisdiction. Here if one ministry sent data to another I doubt it would be
distribution - anything produced by either ministry is copyright by the
Crown. On the other hand, if it was sent from a ministry to a crown
corporation it would be. I'm not sure how this interacts with FOI laws
either - although I may be asking the FOI commissioner some questions about
copyright and FOI.

However, it's worth considering the practical implications of if it is
considered distribution. If it isn't, then both ministries are part of the
same organization and either could release the changes under the SA license.
If it is, then the second ministry could release the data under the SA
license, so again either could release the changes under the SA license. In
both cases, the effect is the same. 

The second paragraph of
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DistributeSubsidiary talks about
how if moving a copy to a subsidiary is distribution it doesn't in practice
matter.