[Osmf-talk] OSM and open data global aerial/sat images

[Christoph Hormann]

On Monday 15 January 2018, Martin Koppenhoefer wrote:
>
> [...] After all,
> as individual contributors can't sue any more since the license
> change in 2012, 

That is not completely correct.  There are at least two aspects of the 
law that would allow you to still engage legally as an OSM contributor:

* since copyright is not completely transferrable in Germany you could 
still make a 'Strafantrag'.  This would of course depend on there being 
a violation of copyright and not just of database rights - which is 
fairly questionable in most cases.
* as a competitor in business you can take legal action against license 
violations of your competition as unfair business practice.

These formal things aside - i don't think the OSMF should open a 
business branch 'litigation' - even if this could be quite profitable.  
But occasionally denouncing blatant violations publicly would likely 
have a significant positive effect on the diligence of people in 
following the license in general.  The reason why companies like Planet 
Labs do this is because they can and because they have next to no risk 
in doing so.  The bad publicity of publicly shaming them as a copyright 
violator would likely be damaging enough that even just a ten percent 
risk in this happening would probably be a big enough problem for not 
taking this risk in the first place.

Side note:  The aspect most ODbL violators do not seem to have on the 
radar - a true blind spot so-to-speak - is that even without public 
shaming the knowledge of such behavior can have a significant influence 
on the reputation of the company in the professional community.  So if 
you are a company in a field of business where the pool of competent 
people or other companies you need to be able to successfully run your 
business is small (the 'everyone more or less knows each other' 
domains) such behaviour can have a ruinous effect on your image as a 
potential employer or business partner.

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/