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OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations

theguardian.com

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Re: OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations

#61

Post by sigg3 »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #48
Someone wrote: post #46

I don’t understand the concern about database rights. OpenStreetMap is open (you can download it from https://planet.openstreetmap.org/ ), so why would they be concerned about copyrights?

Most open licences work by manipulating copyright. If you entirely relinquish the rights (a la CC0 or other "public domain" declaration), you can't enforce attribution or share-alike, which OSM wants to do.

It doesn't manipulate copyright, it presupposes it.

The 'left' part of copyleft is about distribution or dissemination, and other rights bestowed. It doesn't challenge copyright at all.

You cannot grant rights for works without ownership, so PD has left the chat, so to speak.

Re: OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations

#62

Post by matthewmorgan »

microtonal wrote: post #23
matthewmorgan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the problem either. If they're worried someone in the EU is going to clone their database, moving there just means someone in the UK can now do it. And Americans have apparently been free to do it from the start.

The EU is a much larger market than the UK. If you are an international company that cloned their database, not offering your product in the UK because you could be sued is a loss. However, not being able to offer your product in the EU is a much bigger loss. So, such companies are much more likely to comply with the license if OpenStreetMap is protected by EU laws than by UK laws.

The EU is far from being a single market as far as services are concerned

Re: OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations

#63

Post by m-p-3 »

kmlx wrote: post #14
mrtksn wrote: post #6

Oh this is about the "Database Rights". In essence, EU, UK and the USA has different opinion on the ownership status and rights of databases. EU: Databases are similar to other copyrightable works, thus you can't simply copy someones database. UK: Like EU but with different flavour. USA: There's no such things as database rights. Apparently, although the positions of UK and EU are similar, since UK is no longer in th…

another fun fact: only the UK, EU and Russia have "database rights". No other country has anything similar. And I'm guessing a good reason why no one else has this has to do with free use and research. Basically, in the EU, UK and Russia I can't even reconstruct your database piece by piece.

Now I'm wondering if you can license a database file under Creative Commons or GPL and grant others the ability to freely copy it as long as they follow the licensing terms?

Re: OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations

#64

Post by CodeGlitch »

sbuk wrote: post #57
Bayart wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak for Britain but a lot of administrative services in France are digital now. I'm rarely trapped in bureaucratic nonsense like I would have been say ten years ago. Most services you'd require on any given day (taxes, welfare, unemployment office, healthcare, ID registration, voting registration, starting a basic corporate structure) are trivially available. The biggest problem now is discoverability as go…

As a Francophile Brit that grew up in France, and with the greatest of respect, you are French. It's a totally different story if you are not French. The bureucracy is horrific, even today. My parents have lived there for 30 years, both are fully integrated into the community, and they still face bureuctratic issues and delays, even digitally because they are not French. I'm not suggesting in any way that France is a…

> I'm not suggesting in any way that France is a particulaly xenophobic nation - us Brits have that sewn up, sadly

Simply not true.

Re: OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations

#65

Post by majewsky »

weinzierl wrote: post #40
majewsky wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in Germany it's more common to incorporate as a registered association (eingetragener Verein, e.V.) for most non-profit activities. For example, the legal entity for the KDE project is KDE e.V. Admittedly, IANAL, and I don't know much about how foundations (Stiftungen) work in German law, but from experience, e.V. has the advantages of being relatively easy to set up and maintain, being super common so lots o…

IANAL as well and what I've heard fits well with what you wrote. I have one anecdote that kind of suits the topic: Florian Effenberger, one of the founders of The Document Foundation" also does Open Source Cooking as a side project. It was set up as an e. V. but not tax exempt. A couple of years ago I've heard Florian say in person that he avoided making it tax exempt because it would be such a hassle. Of course Open…

The core of the problem is the part that I sort of glossed over when I said:

> tax-exempt if you put the right weasel words into the statute

The law lists a finite amount of ways [1] in which an e.V. can act in the public interest ("Gemeinnützigkeit") and thus become tax-exempt. Most of these items are engineered to cover existing e.V. For instance, sports clubs are explicitly covered, as are consumer protection watchdogs.

For any associations doing charitable work in the IT context, the issue is that none of these bullet points in the legal text explicitly cover such activities. There has been some support for the idea of adding free software as a charitable cause to this list, but nothing has come out of it as of yet.

I'm familiar with this topic because I'm volunteering in the Chaos Computer Club. Most local chapters are constituted as e.V. and are tax-exempt under the purpose of public education ("Förderung der Volksbildung") since that one is the easiest to get away with if you do any sort of public events that can be considered education every once in a while (like conferences or talks or such).

[1] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/ao_1977/__52.html

Re: OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations

#66

Post by habi »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #56
bloak wrote: post #2

This is partly about "mutual recognition of database rights": "since Brexit, any database made on or after 1 January 2021 in the UK will not be protected in the EU, and vice versa". It's not something most people need to worry about, but I expect OpenStreetMap won't be the only company affected by that.

So once OSM moves to Europe I can clone OSM database without worries just by residing in the UK? Surely this is a problem already with the USA and the rest of the world? If this protection is not enforced everywhere in the world, it's quite useless. I just need to setup a foreign company to bypass it. This is probably something that is "solved" with a contract: Eg. "By downloading this database you agree to abide to…

> So once OSM moves to Europe I can clone OSM database without worries just by residing in the UK?

You can already download https://planet.openstreetmap.org/ completely for free. There are certain obligations for usage of the data though, you have to abide to the OpenStreetMap License: https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright/en

Re: OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations

#67

Post by zvr »

m-p-3 wrote: post #63
kmlx wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

another fun fact: only the UK, EU and Russia have "database rights". No other country has anything similar. And I'm guessing a good reason why no one else has this has to do with free use and research. Basically, in the EU, UK and Russia I can't even reconstruct your database piece by piece.

Now I'm wondering if you can license a database file under Creative Commons or GPL and grant others the ability to freely copy it as long as they follow the licensing terms?

The license for this would be (very) similar to "Community Data License Agreement – Sharing". See all variants at https://cdla.dev

Re: OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations

#68

Post by mpweiher »

user5994461 wrote: post #51
sgc wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we have precedent for this? Can you truly not sue if you enter an agreement with someone to provide them with data that restricts their rights to use it, but the data is actually in the public domain? What about implicit agreements like TOS on a website? These are pertinent concerns for which I have never found a definitive answer.

The first precedent passed in French appeal court and European court just a few months ago. I shall probably do a blog post to cover the case or nobody ever will. It acknowledges software license (the GPL in that case) as a contract granting obligation to both parties and enforced it as a contract. The claims around copyright/counterfeit were pretty much dismissed (you can't pursue on both copyright and contract grou…

Interesting.

It still doesn't make sense to me, because even if it is a contract, then the only reason for me to enter into that contract is because I have to do so in order to use the software (or database), due to the fact that it is protected by copyright.

If the software/data is not protected by copyright, I am free to use it without entering into any contract with anyone.

Reviewing the OSM Legal FAQ, it appears that they are very much based on copyright and licensing.

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Legal_FAQ

Re: OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations

#69

Post by user5994461 »

mpweiher wrote: post #68
user5994461 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first precedent passed in French appeal court and European court just a few months ago. I shall probably do a blog post to cover the case or nobody ever will. It acknowledges software license (the GPL in that case) as a contract granting obligation to both parties and enforced it as a contract. The claims around copyright/counterfeit were pretty much dismissed (you can't pursue on both copyright and contract grou…

Interesting. It still doesn't make sense to me, because even if it is a contract, then the only reason for me to enter into that contract is because I have to do so in order to use the software (or database), due to the fact that it is protected by copyright. If the software/data is not protected by copyright, I am free to use it without entering into any contract with anyone. Reviewing the OSM Legal FAQ, it appears…

From my perspective.

If the website/data is clearly associated with a contract (a license is a contract), it is in that case:

As a consumer, maybe it doesn't matter because there are many exceptions and loopholes for consumers (similarly to how EULA are void for a variety of reasons).

As a company however, company don't get consumer exceptions and are not given the benefits of the doubt, if a company decides to source data/software from somewhere, the company must have done the groundwork to ensure it can use the data and under what conditions. (In case I'm not clear, that means the company automatically read and agreed with the contract when using the data).

>>> due to the fact that it is protected by copyright.

Careful here. I think you might do the mistake of assuming that it's all about copyright and it might be wrong. (One angle is to try to void the contract, claiming that the data/database can't be subject to copyright and the contract has no ground).

Contracts like the GPL and Openstreetmap are not (only) about copyright. They are full fledged contracts with many pages, many clauses, that put obligation on both parties. They really are complicated contracts. They have a variety of grounds inside and outside of copyright.

The Appeal court and CJEU basically dismissed copyright/counterfeit claims in the first precedent few months ago, saying it's a contractual matter (short version, there's some nuances to it).

>>> Reviewing the OSM Legal FAQ, it appears that they are very much based on copyright and licensing.

License is a US legal concept that doesn't exist in Europe. In Europe there are only contracts, US licenses are interpreted as contracts (and if they don't satisfy the local requirements to form a contract they are void).

Re: OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations

#70

Post by mpweiher »

user5994461 wrote: post #69
mpweiher wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. It still doesn't make sense to me, because even if it is a contract, then the only reason for me to enter into that contract is because I have to do so in order to use the software (or database), due to the fact that it is protected by copyright. If the software/data is not protected by copyright, I am free to use it without entering into any contract with anyone. Reviewing the OSM Legal FAQ, it appears…

From my perspective. If the website/data is clearly associated with a contract (a license is a contract), it is in that case: As a consumer, maybe it doesn't matter because there are many exceptions and loopholes for consumers (similarly to how EULA are void for a variety of reasons). As a company however, company don't get consumer exceptions and are not given the benefits of the doubt, if a company decides to sourc…

The problem is before the contract even gets a chance to be applicable.

If the data is there, I can just take and copy it. In fact, in order to display the data in my browser, multiple copies have already ben made.

The only reason that there's a limit to what I am allowed to do with that data, vs. what I can do with that data, is copyright. So if the data is protected under copyright, you can limit my copying and, for example, require me to agree to a contract in order that I may be allowed to copy it (and thus use it).

However, if the data is not protected under copyright, there is nothing stopping me from doing all the things to the data that I can, and so I can just ignore the contract you would like me to agree to.

> Contracts like the GPL and Openstreetmap are not (only) about copyright.

But they are based on copyright. Without copyright protection, nobody needs to enter into that contract.

> License is a US legal concept that doesn't exist in Europe.

This is not true. https://www.brennecke-rechtsanwaelte.de/Lizenzrecht-eine-Ein...

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