[Osmf-talk] Taking a stand against EU directive "Copyright in the Digital Single Market" (upload filters etc.)

[Roland Olbricht]

Hi,

> I still have questions. With what material specifically at the OSM map 
> there could be a copyright issue?
[...]
> Or Carto icons? Like some symbol could be copyrighted? Or just more 
> diverse automated legal claims with not enough volunteers to handle 
> them? Or something completely different, but of what I am unaware?

Thank you for raising the issue.

First of all, as I had difficulties to find the document, the EU 
proposal in question is
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52016PC0593
plus the substantial amendments
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+REPORT+A8-2018-0245+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN
The language can be changed in the upper right corner.

Please note that in amendment 61, "open source software developing 
platforms" are made exempt, but this does not cover OpenStreetMap or 
other open data providers. This is one of the problems. In the sentence 
before, "online encyclopaedia" (which we often compare to) are 
explicitly restricted to "non-commercial" (which is much stricter than 
"not-for-profit"). The OSMF is a de-facto "not-for-profit" organisation 
(not sure whether also de jure) but surely not a "non-commercial" 
organisation. We allow on purpose commercial use of the data; it is at 
the heart of open data. Hence, we must plan for being affected.

About OSM. OSM has and always had a whiter-than-white approach on legal 
matter, thus there simply is no substantial amount of 
copyright-endangered matter.

This does not prevent bad actors from suing. The phenomenon is known in 
the US as "patent trolling". The business model of the bad actors is to 
intimidate and settle.

The problem exists as well in the EU. A popular case has been
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RedTube#Cease_and_desist_case_in_Germany
Note that, although the attorney in question has been sentenced for 
nefarious claiming, many defendants never got back their money.

So far, you could simply ignore such bad actors. Giving that, according 
to the proposal

"online content sharing service providers [...] shall conclude fair and 
appropriate licensing agreements with rightholders, unless the 
rightholder does not wish to grant a license"

Thus, everybody claiming a no-matter-how-absurd copyright ownership now 
must be heared. In partifular people that claim to have an "upload 
filter" implemented may want to charge you, no matter whether the 
software does anything useful. Outright dismissing nefarious claims may 
cost the OSMF substantial amounts of money, because you never know for 
sure what happens in court.

To the question whether the problem is real: I do see such software in 
the logfiles of Overpass API, making random queries, probably from links 
from elsewhere. From that I would estimate that dozens to hundreds of 
people out there linger for an opportunity to extort money out of OSM as 
well. You need to win each individual lawsuit, which may turn out to be 
a substantial uphill battle.

So, there is all reason to phone an MEP. Please refer to the legal 
uncertainty; OSM is one of many examples for falling through the cracks 
of an exemption list. Please do not refer to the "upload filters"; they 
may be a problem, but there are much more and more dangerous nefarious 
copyright claiming business models lingering outside.

Best regards,
Roland