[OSM-talk] ODbL-clean Coastlines

[David Groom]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Russ Nelson" <nelson at crynwr.com>
To: <talk at openstreetmap.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2012 9:21 PM
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. You

The argument "hey,  we understand we don't know if we have any right to use 
this data, buts lets leave it in and hope no one complains" doesn't sound a 
particularly moral one to me.  It also seems to set a rather dangerous 
precedent.

> 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.
>
> 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.
>

Your worse case sounds so harmless.  Of course it's possible to sketch an 
alternative worse case scenario:

At some time in the future after being asked to delete the offending data, 
the data is deleted and ... ...

a) all those contributors who had  made edits to that data after 1 April 
2012 get very annoyed because they see the results of their work deleted., 
and when they query this they are told "hey, its a risk we thought we'd 
take, and by the way we may have to delete a load more data in the future, 
so be careful what bits of OSM you edit".

b) users of OSM data get very annoyed because having seen masses of data 
disappear once, they suddenly see masses of data disappear again, and when 
they query this they are told "hey, its a risk we thought we'd take, and by 
the way we may have to delete a load more data in the future, so be careful 
which bits of OSM data you use".

David

> -- 
> --my blog is at    http://blog.russnelson.com
> Crynwr supports open source software
> 521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315-600-8815
> Potsdam, NY 13676-3213  |     Sheepdog
>
> _______________________________________________
> talk mailing list
> talk at openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>