[odc-discuss] Ordnance Survey Data In Produced Works

Wed Sep 29 03:37:40 UTC 2010

Thanks for the question!

Slight delay as was waiting on impending announcement from UK gov on new licensing terms.  Something should be out soon but will go ahead and respond as will still be relevant.

On 17 Sep 2010, at 11:50, Rob Myers wrote:

> Heya.
> 
> The Ordnance Survey (OS) makes their data available under a licence that
> they explicitly state is CC-BY compatible:
> 
> http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/opendata/licence/docs/licence.pdf
> 
> (At:
> http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/opendata/licence/ )
> 
> Let us assume that this licence gives us sufficient rights to
> incorporate the data into a DbCL/ODbL database as long as attribution is
> maintained.
> 
> The OS licence states that you must:
> 
> "acknowledge the copyright and the source of the Data by including any
> attribution statement specified by the Data Provider."
> 
> Let us assume that ODbL section 4.3 satisfies this requirement.
> 
> The OS licence also states that you must:
> 
> "include the same acknowledgment requirement in any sub-licences of the
> Data that you grant, and a requirement that any further sub-licences do
> the same;"
> 
> It is the second half of that requirement that I am curious about. Does
> the ODbL ensure that its notice from section 4.3 is maintained on
> every derivative/adaptation of every Produced Work? If so, what in the
> ODbL ensures this? If not, would that mean that OS data cannot be
> incorporated into a DbCL/ODbL licenced database as the condition of
> their inclusion could be violated by a user of a Produced Work? Or if
> this is not a problem, what have I misunderstood? :-)

Two immediate thoughts:

-- one is that the above is written assuming that you'd be totally relicensing the OS licensed data under the ODbL, whereas there's always the option that you could have both licenses directly apply to users.
-- the second is that unless otherwise "specified by the Data Provider" the requirement to keep notices intact (including the OS license notice) in 4.2c together with the 4.3 notice for produced works would seem to "acknowledge the copyright and the source of the Data".

Note that the DbCL is essentially public domain as it's very liberal, so if this is to require attribution over just the contents of an ODbL database, then perhaps the DbCL is not appropriate in this context? One alternative is always to have multiple licenses for the contents.

Thanks

~Jordan

> 
> Thanks.
> 
> - Rob.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> odc-discuss mailing list
> odc-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/odc-discuss

____
Mr. Jordan S Hatcher, JD, LLM

More at: <http://www.jordanhatcher.com>
Co-founder:  <http://www.opendatacommons.org>
Open Knowledge: <http://www.okfn.org/>