[OSM-talk] ODbL-clean Coastlines

[Paul Norman]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Russ Nelson [mailto:nelson at crynwr.com]
> Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2012 2:21 PM
> To: talk at openstreetmap.org
> Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] ODbL-clean Coastlines
> 
> Paul Norman writes:
>  > > It's particularly galling that anonymous users who haven't accepted
> or  > > declined are having their copyright respected. If you don't post
> your  > > land *with your name and address* in New York State, you
> cannot  > > successfully pursue a claim of trespass.
>  >
>  > Copyright applies when you author something, regardless of if you
> state your  > name on it.
> 
> I can make any kind of claims of ownership of land that I want. Unless I
> go to the county clerk's office and register my claim under my name,
> they won't enforce my claim against anyone else.
> 
> But all theories of law aside, as a practical matter, if someone hasn't
> bothered to decline, they're not going to bother to sue.

There are people strongly opposed to the license change who have not
declined.

OSMF has the exact same rights for redistributing contributions from someone
who has not responded as someone has declined.

> You have to
> consider what copyright law is for: it's a temporary monopoly granted to
> protect revenue. If there's no potential for restricting distribution
> under CC-By-SA, and there's no potential for restricting distribution
> under the OdBL, what loss in revenue has anybody suffered? What nutcase
> is going to bother to sue anybody over distributing under one free
> license versus a different free license where neither one has the
> potential for proprietary distribution?
> Nobody's making money here, and it costs money to sue. A LOT of money.
> No lawyer is going to take your case on unless there are punitive or
> actual damages.

Copyright holders have plenty of options short of suing. I believe in some
jurisdictions damages are automatic if the copyright is registered.

> Worst comes to worse, you claim innocent infringement because you
> thought you were distributing under fair use, you delete the offending
> data, and life goes on. In other words, the worst a lawsuit is going to
> cost the OSMF is THE HARM IT'S VOLUNTARILY DOING TO ITSELF.

You think that OSMF could claim that distributing contributions that it
knows it only has a license to under cc-by-sa under a different license
could be fair use?

Also remember that these people are not anonymous to the OSMF. They've got
registration information on them just like they do on every other user. It's
just not displayed in what they make public through the API and planet
files.