[OSM-talk] Voluntary re-licensing begins

David Groom reviews at pacific-rim.net
Thu Aug 12 23:47:12 BST 2010


>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Cartinus" <cartinus at xs4all.nl>
> To: <talk at openstreetmap.org>
> Cc: <legal-talk at openstreetmap.org>
> Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2010 5:52 PM
> Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Voluntary re-licensing begins
>
>
>
> On Thursday 12 August 2010 13:45:49 David Groom wrote:
>> 1) The last sentence of clause (1) of the contributor terms requires YOU
>> to have EXPLICIT permission from the rights holder. Please consider if 
>> you
>> have this EXPLICIT permission, if you do not have it then you CAN NOT
>> agree to the contributor terms
>>
>> 2) There is a large amount of contributors who have traced imagery from
>> sources such as Yahoo
>
> Yahoo aerial imagery is supplied under some terms (sorry too lazy to look 
> them
> up right now). Sometime in the past someone(s) from within the OSM project
> asked them if tracing from those images to make a map was possible within
> those terms. They answered: Yes, this is possible.
>
> Now can somebody explain to me why this would not be explicit permission?
>

Firstly,  as you say "sometime in the past".  So Yahoo gave permission when 
the project has a CC-BY-SA licence.  The contributor terms allow the 
switching of the licence to a non-CC-BY-SA licence.  So how can I possibly 
say that on the basis of an agreement made some time ago Yahoo now agree to 
contributors agreeing to the CT terms.

Secondly, the real point I was making was that the CT terms state "... You 
represent and warrant that You have explicit permission from the rights 
holder to submit the Contents and grant the license below ...".  And I 
simply do not have explicit permission.  I don't have explicit permission 
because:

a) The permission was not made to me, but to a more general body of people; 
so the permission I have is IMPLICIT.
b) Ignoring the Yahoo data, but taking any data that may have had a PD or 
CC-BY-SA clause that has be used in import, since these are general 
permissions given and they do not explicitly mention granting rights to use 
in OSM, I cant possible agree that I have EXPLICIT permission to use them. 
I have permission by virtue of they are PD or CC-BY-SA, but not EXPLICIT 
permission to do so.

David








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