[OSM-legal-talk] Importing from an application's user generated content

[Frederik Ramm]

Michael,

On 01/28/2016 07:42 PM, Michael Ledford wrote:
> I believe that
> updating the OSM database upholds share-alike. 

Share-alike means that you have to make your derived database available
under ODbL on request. If you regularly make sure your database contents
go into OSM then you could potentially say, if such a request occurs,
"it's all in OSM", but it would be legally clearer if your database was
simply available for download from your server somewhere.

> The concern I have
> revolves around taking the user data and using that to update the OSM
> database. Is there any problem with this under the contributor terms?

Legal concerns could arise if your users, while *claiming* to make you
the owner of whatever they contribute, don't actually have the *right*
to do that (because e.g. they copied the data from a copyrighted source).

Generally, OSM wants to be able to identify constributors. I.e. if I see
a contribution from user X adding POI Y, I want to be able to write to
him "hey, are you sure that restaurant is named Benito's because I was
there a month ago and it was called Burritos". If your workflow
decouples mappers (your users) from their data (POIs you upload to us)
then it's more like an import and might be subject to more scrutiny. (Cf
imports mailing list.)

Worst case, if the data you upload contains copyrighted material and we
cannot easily enough identify which of your data is tainted and which is
ok, then *all* data you uploaded might have to be removed again.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"