[OSM-legal-talk] Licenses for Produced Works under ODbL

[Jonathan Harley]

On 01/11/12 04:20, James Livingston wrote:
>
> On 30 October 2012 20:46, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org 
> <mailto:frederik at remote.org>> wrote:
>
>     On 10/30/12 08:19, Igor Brejc wrote:
>
>         Some then say that these in-memory data structures are also
>         Derivative
>         Databases. In what form can you then offer such a Database to
>         someone
>         that requests it?
>
>
>     I don't think there's a way how one could require the making
>     available of such a transient structure without making OSM data
>     processing totally impractical.
>
>
> I'm pretty sure I was the one who mentioned that issue last time the 
> question came up, or at least one of the few who did. The main issue 
> is that there isn't really a clear line between a permanent database 
> and a transient structure. Consider some scenarios:
>

The license says you must either give people the derivative database, or 
the method of making it. If you can't give away the derivative database 
(because it was transient), then you must surely give the method (source 
code).

> [snip]

> Also important is that as someone who receives a copy of the Produced 
> Work, you can't tell how it's produced. What is to stop someone doing 
> (1) and then when you ask for the database just saying "it was all 
> done in-memory, there's no database"?
>

The risks if they were found out, perhaps? (Bad PR, losing their job, 
going to jail for fraud etc.)


>
> Turning it the another way, say you had OSM data and another database, 
> which you had separately rendered to images. I'm pretty sure that you 
> could then overlay one image on another and serve the combined one to 
> people (provided you satisfy the attribution requirements for the OSM 
> data). If on the other hand you combined the two databases and then 
> rendered the images, you would have a Derived Database you need to 
> release.

That depends on the way you did the combination. If the second data set 
remained independent of the OSM data then you would have a Collective, 
not Derivative Database.

> How is anyone else supposed to tell the difference? If they ask you to 
> release the combined database and you replied "They were rendered 
> separately and then combined, I don't have to release it", is there 
> anything to do?

That's a question of license enforcement, isn't it? I don't have an 
answer, but in the case where people are going to break the license and 
lie about doing so, it probably doesn't matter what the license says.

J.

-- 
Dr Jonathan Harley   :    Managing Director    :   SpiffyMap Ltd

md at spiffymap.com      Phone: 0845 313 8457     www.spiffymap.com
The Venture Centre, Sir William Lyons Road, Coventry CV4 7EZ, UK