[OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 04/16/2011 09:21 PM, Kevin Peat wrote:
> Thanks for your thoughtful answer. It is certainly a lot more detailed
> than anything I have read before. My first impression is how can a
> process with so many grey areas possibly result in a cleanly licensed
> dataset?

I assume that decisions will only be made globally where things are 
crystal clear, or where lawyers have been consulted beforehand (e.g. in 
my "created_by does not count as creative enough to warrant copyright" 
example).

Regarding all other cases: In OSM we must *always* rely on our community 
when it comes to the question of whether our dataset is cleanly licensed 
or not. The laws of probability dictate that a certain amount of our 
data will always be not-cleanly-licensed, today as well as at any time 
in the future. Today, users can use a copyrighted map to enter data even 
though we tell them not to, and the license change will not make that go 
away. When, in the course of the license change, community members are 
asked to judge if a certain object meets the criteria for inclusion, 
they can lie, or err, just as they can with respect to their sources 
today. We can take measures to reduce that risk, we can educate them, we 
can advise caution, but we can never eliminate the risk.

Because we cannot avoid the occasional mistake in licensing, we have to 
be responsive if someone claims that their rights have been violated; we 
have to investigate, respect their rights, and delete the infringing 
data if the claim is legitimate. This has happened a number of times in 
the past and will certainly continue to happen.

I don't expect the license change to change the size or amount of such 
problems, but if they arise they can be fixed.

Bye
Frederik