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

[Dan Stowell]

Roland,

Thanks for finding the actual text, that's very valuable.

I do think that Amendment 61 is *intended* to help OSM-like projects,
and for me the text is close-to-reassuring. (I would expect OSM to be
judged "non-commercial" since although OSM's data can be used
commercially, OSM and OSMF can't be said to be doing any of that
itself.) What is clearly tricky is relying on the concept of
"non-commercial" to keep OSM safe from that Directive, since, as was
already found in the world of Creative Commons licensing, the
boundaries of "non-commercial" are a bit vague and might be subject to
surprising legal interpretations.

I rang my MEP. Eventually got through to their office, and someone
talked about my concerns and took a note (added me to a list of the
correspondents). Worth doing imho.

Best
Dan
Op vr 7 sep. 2018 om 10:57 schreef Roland Olbricht <roland.olbricht at gmx.de>:
>
> 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
>
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