[Labs-l] Licensing: CC vs. ODbL vs. ???

Fri Sep 28 04:11:32 UTC 2012

On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 3:48 AM, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 8:59 AM, Andrew Bogott <abogott at wikimedia.org>
> wrote:
>
> >     Currently the labs Terms of Use says " all content must be freely
> > licensable under an applicable creative commons license."  That seems to
> > exclude OSM data, which surely is not our intent.  I note that the item
> just
> > before that (about software licenses) uses a more expansive term, "
> > OSI-approved open source licenses."  Is there a similar umbrella term
> that
> > we can use for content that would include CC-like licenses without
> > restricting users to actual, literal CC licensing?
>
> Per our licensing policy, the definition at
> http://freedomdefined.org/Definition is our canonical equivalent of
> the OSI for free content licenses, so it would make sense to use it as
> a reference point in the same manner, e.g.
>
> "all content must be licensable under an applicable free cultural
> works license as per the [http://freedomdefined.org/Definition
> Definition of Free Cultural Works]".
>
> Disclosure: I co-authored both the WMF licensing policy and the DFCW.
> Legal should be able to confirm that the language above is workable.
>

While I am sure the ODBL license is acceptable, I've always been slight bit
confused what we (if anything) we need to do to comply in our various uses
of OSM on Wikimedia projects.

My understanding that the data itself is ODBL (similar to share alike, but
for data) and produced works (the tiles themselves) can be something else
and the OSM tiles (design, the creative part) are still CC-BY-SA.

"You must also make it clear that the data is available under the Open
Database License, and if using our map tiles, that the cartography is
licensed as CC-BY-SA"

http://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright

I have also never been able to get a clear answer from Mike Godwin or
Geoff.  I think it would be super useful to have a Wikilegal page about
this to help clarify any doubts and be able to point people to it:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal

Questions might arise in cases where we remix OSM data with other stuff,
and anything particular we shall do to comply?  If there are any questions
for OSM's lawyer, I am happy to put him in touch with Geoff and is more
than happy to help.

Of course, there's also the argument that what's in OSM is just facts and
facts are not copyrightable ;) and it's just a difference between OSM being
based under European / UK law with database rights and Wikimedia is not.
 I'd love to hear Wikimedia legal team opinion more generally about
database rights.

Cheers,
Katie

> Erik
> --
> Erik Möller
> VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
>
> Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
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-- 
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