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Licence and Legal FAQ/Why CC BY-SA is Unsuitable: Difference between revisions

Licence and Legal FAQ/Why CC BY-SA is Unsuitable (view source)

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== Lack of Copyright Protection ==
 
An important case from U.S. law is ''Fiest v. Rural'', which established that facts are not copyrightable. From Wikipedia [1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural]:
 
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OSM meets the originality requirement, as long as it isn't copied from other works and it might be argued that the selection of appropriate tags, or the alignment of geometry to GPS traces or aerial imagery requires a "minimal degree of creativity". This is picked up by the Science Commons FAQ [2http://sciencecommons.org/resources/faq/databases#canicc]:
 
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And from [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=900148]:
And from [3]:
 
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Replacing "idea" with "fact" we can conclude that if there is a canonical form for tags or geometry then we will approach uncopyrightability. Given the "on the ground rule" [4http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Disputes#On_the_Ground_Rule] and "verifiability" rule [5http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Verifiability] imply that the representation of a real-world feature in OSM should be independent of the contributor, it isn't clear that there is more than "a drastically limited number" of expressions.
 
Note that although Mason v. Montgomery [6http://www.coolcopyright.com/cases/fulltext/masonmontgomerytext.htm] recognises the copyrightability of the maps themselves;
 
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Version 3.0 of the CC BY-SA license [10http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode] defines "work" in section 1.h as:
 
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When CC BY-SA OSM data is used to render a map (e.g: tiles) then that map is also CC BYSA licensed. Therefore, combining these rendered items with other data would require that the other data is compatible with, or can be released under, CC BY-SA. This makes it very difficult, or impossible, to use certain data sources in rendered maps.
 
It is also unclear whether that means that OSM data is allowed to be combined with proprietary data, even when no improvements are made to the map. For example; Partitioning OSM data using polygons from a commercial data set (e.g: ONS "super output areas" [7http://www.ons.gov.uk/about-statistics/geography/products/geog-products-area/names-codes/soa/index.html]) for the purposes of analysis and statistical reporting.
 
== Share-Alike ==
 
One of the Use-Cases for the new license, entitled "OSM in Google Map Maker" [8http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Brief_for_proposed_OSM_licence#OSM_in_Google_Map_Maker], says;
 
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== Attribution ==
CC BY-SA 2.0 [9http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode] has the following provision for attribution:
 
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== Uncertainty and doubt over extent of derived work ==
There have been a number of cases where companies have looked to use OSM or OSMderived information, but their lawyers have recommended against use of our maps [11]. Their concerns were due to the unclear boundary between collective and derived works; does the derived work extend only to the base map, the base map plus any overlays, or to the work around it such as a news show or a book? Whilst a community guideline exists on our wiki, the fact that there are tens of thousands of copyright holders means that statements made on the wiki or by OSMF cannot be authoritative, leaving the possibility that any one contributor may claim that there is a failure to properly comply with CC BY-SA. This is a risk that many companies find off-putting.▼
 
▲There have been a number of cases where companies have looked to use OSM or OSMderived information, but their lawyers have recommended against use of our maps [11http://www.npemap.org.uk/FAQ.html#openstreetmap]. Their concerns were due to the unclear boundary between collective and derived works; does the derived work extend only to the base map, the base map plus any overlays, or to the work around it such as a news show or a book? Whilst a community guideline exists on our wiki, the fact that there are tens of thousands of copyright holders means that statements made on the wiki or by OSMF cannot be authoritative, leaving the possibility that any one contributor may claim that there is a failure to properly comply with CC BY-SA. This is a risk that many companies find off-putting.
== References ==
[1] Feist v. Rural, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural [2] Science Commons FAQ, http://sciencecommons.org/resources/faq/databases#canicc [3] Copyright, Originality, and the End of the Scenes a Faire and Merger Doctrines for Visual Works, Michael D. Murray, 2006, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/ papers.cfm?abstract_id=900148 [4] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Disputes#On_the_Ground_Rule [5] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Verifiability [6] Mason v. Montgomery Data, http://www.coolcopyright.com/cases/fulltext/ masonmontgomerytext.htm [7] http://www.ons.gov.uk/about-statistics/geography/products/geog-products-area/ names-codes/soa/index.html [8] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/ Brief_for_proposed_OSM_licence#OSM_in_Google_Map_Maker [9] Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.0, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bysa/2.0/legalcode
 
[10] Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-sa/3.0/legalcode [11] NPE maps FAQ, http://www.npemap.org.uk/FAQ.html#openstreetmap
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