[Osmf-talk] Regarding tile licensing

[Christoph Hormann]

On Tuesday 18 June 2019, Simon Poole wrote:
>
> So you are suggesting that we should license on terms that the ODbL
> itself does not require. It doesn't really compute that the OSMF
> should be held to a different norm in that respect than anybody else.

No, i just explained why i think the problems of using CC-BY for 
licensing tiles do not equally apply with the currently chosen 
CC-BY-SA.

> As said, per definition a Produced Work is not a database and doesn't
> "contain data", if the work in question is a database then it is
> licensed on ODbL terms (see the Produced Work guideline for our
> position on this).

But as a user of CC-BY licensed map tiles i don't care (and don't need 
to care) what the ODbL says.  

And frankly that the wording of the ODbL can define away the fact that a 
produced work can contain and normally contains semantic information 
from a database it is generated from seems a bit naive.  And it does 
not actually do that - as i read it the ODbL circumvents this problem 
by simply not defining what a Produced Work is in an immutable way.

The solution IMO is quite simple - you can allow use of the tiles as a 
map rendering under CC-BY but mention that the rendering is produced 
from ODbL data (to say this is required by the ODbL attribution 
requirements anyway) and that therefore the information depicted in the 
tiles is - as a database - subject to the ODbL rules.

If on the other hand you want to offer the tiles under terms where the 
user does not under any circumstances have to bother with the ODbL i 
think you have to choose or write a license that is compatible with the 
ODbL as a data license.

> Assuming that
>
> a) the work in question (OSM data) is a database
>
> b) it is published in the EU or a territory that recognizes EU data
> base rights and by virtue of that those rights are mutually
> recognized (in any other situation we do not need to have this
> argument), and we are considering reuse and distribution in the same
> territories
>
> then according to Section 4 of CC BY 4.0 any database including the
> work is Adapted Material and according to 2 a. 5. B. may only be
> distributed on terms that do not  "restricts exercise of the Licensed
> Rights by any recipient of the Licensed Material."* So while CC BY
> 4.0 does not specify a required licence, you cannot restrict the use
> of any database that includes such data more than what CC BY 4.0
> requires (aka providing attribution).

What you seem to be saying is that if i get a collection of map tiles 
from osm.org (presumed CC-BY for the sake of this argument), OCR the 
labels and detect and vectorize the buildings, fix a number of errors 
in the names, add some missing buildings, re-render my own map from 
them and publish that i have to allow others to use this map under 
terms no more restrictive than CC-BY.

I doubt that because it would effectively defeat the whole purpose of 
CC-BY to not be a share-alike license.  But even if that was the case 
it would still not be functionally the same as the ODbL share-alike 
requirement because CC-BY quite definitely does not require me to 
publish intermediate data generated on the way to produce Adapted 
Material - which the ODbL however does.

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