[OSM-talk] licence plan - Question about supplying own data

[David Earl]

(lost track of who said this, but...)
>> Very unlikely, derived individual coordinates are facts. I've asked
>> multiple lawyers about this personally.
>>
> Are you saying that facts that are derived from a Produced Work are  
> not covered by the reverse engineering clause?
>>
>> If I derive the location of all the street corners of a city from a  
>> rendered map then that is just a collection of facts and not a  
>> reverse engineered recreation of the original database?  If so, it  
>> doesn't seem like the reverse engineering clause is worth the paper  
>> its written on.

Ordnance Survey seems to take a different view, which is precisely the 
reason OSM exists. In a way it doesn't matter whether you, I, or even a 
bunch of lawyers think the opposite if OS can sink OSM just by sucking 
OSM into a massively expensive legal action.

But "all the street corners" may individually be facts, but the 
collection of them is a database which you've recreated. The whole point 
about database IP protection is that there is value in the collection 
when any individual piece of content is either not protectable or not 
worth protecting.

It would be really nice if a court would actually decide (in a case 
involving someone who can afford to defend themselves) whether someone 
geolocating their photo from an OS base and publishing it (or even 
quoting a grid reference in a book) infringes OS IP, and especially 
where derivation starts. I did actually try asking OS this once - I put 
a set of scenarios to them ranging from quoting a grid reference to 
tracing lines, and all I got back was "it's too complicated to answer, 
we'd be delighted to offer you a license for your circumstances".

David