[cc-community] Is the CC-BY-2.5-AU license applicable to geodata?
Rob Myers
rob at robmyers.org
Sat Oct 9 11:00:07 EDT 2010
On 10/04/2010 11:00 PM, Anne Fitzgerald wrote:
> Hi It is best to ignore the earlier discussion re the legal position
> of OpenStreetMap as that was complicated by the database rights in the UK
> and some other European countries. Only the UK and European countries
> have database rights, which causes complications for European
> contributors to common projects.
The database right isn't a problem for projects within Australia it's
true, but the ODbL exists to cope with *ambiguity* and *variations* in
copyright and other restrictions on the free use of data and of
databases around the world. The EU database right is just one example of
this. Even in Australia, copyrightability of data is currently the
subject of a high court appeal.
> To simplify the laws of jurisdiction greatly, it is unlikely that a
> person contributing to any such project outside the European Union would
> have database rights. The only rights they have is copyright (unless
> they have also entered into a separate contract that extends their
> rights and/or obligations).
With databases they may or may not have copyright. It depends where they
are and what they are doing. This is part of the problem.
> Creative Commons was developed to apply to copyright. It is an
> up-front licence of copyright.
Creative Commons (or possibly Science Commons) state that the
BY/SA/NC/ND licences should not be used for data.
> In Australia (which recognises moral rights for authors) and probably
> in most other countries it is best to use CC-BY. CC0 reverts to CC-BY
> in Australia, and can cause confusion, so it is best to use CC-BY.
CC0 is an indicator of intent if nothing else, and not every use of an
Australian work will be in Australia.
So it's better to do what one feels is the right thing morally speaking.
> If there are numerous contributors of CC-licensed material to a
> common work, a good example of how to manage attribution of a
> multitude of contributors is the way it is done on Wikipedia, which
> is probably thelargest CC-licensed work in existence at the present
> time. Set up a page so it is possible to see who has made
> contributions and when (whether under the contributors' real names
> or their online tags/usernames).
Yes this is a good way of handling attribution. OSM uses the attribution
link method as well and this will continue under the ODbL.
In theory people can ask for attribution to be given to the project
rather than themselves (BY-SA generic 4c: "and/or Licensor designate
another party or parties (e.g., a sponsor institute, publishing entity,
journal) for attribution ("Attribution Parties") in Licensor's copyright
notice"). But I've not seen that happen.
- Rob.
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