[OSM-talk] What is a produced work

Frederik Ramm frederik at remote.org
Wed Dec 9 09:18:22 GMT 2009


Hi,

Ulf Lamping wrote:
> If you produce a 2 hour film that shows OSM maps for a few mins, is this 
> a produced work or not? For me it's not.

> If you provide an atlas of your city, that contains only maps and street 
> register all derived from OSM data, is this a produced work or not? For 
> me it is.

First of all, any jurisdiction has some kind of "fair use" right, i.e. 
you can do certain things with other peoples' intellectual property no 
matter what they say. For example if I make a film about a mapping party 
and the camera shows people hacking data into JOSM, then nobody in their 
right mind would say that because the data is licensed so-and-so, the 
film has to be licensed like that. In this case it simply doesn't matter 
what the owner of the data wants or thinks.

Your film example might fall in this category.

The next level, with ODbL, would be that of a produced work, where you 
make something that is derived from OSM data but is not a database. Your 
film would perhaps fall in this category if it largely consists of a 
simulated flight over an OSM landscape, for example. But it would not 
make a big difference to you, as ODbL makes little demands of produced 
works. - Your atlas clearly is a produced work.

The level where ODbL affords highest protection is that of a derived 
database, which neither your film nor your atlas are, but if you 
produced an interactive atlas on CD-ROM that renders maps on demand, 
then that would have an underlying derived database, and ODbL would 
require that you ODbL-license that underlying database and make it 
available, on request, to buyers of your CD-ROM.

(Much like the GPL in this case, which does not require people to 
actually publish their source - it is enough to make it available, on 
request, to those who receive your modified software.)

Bye
Frederik





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