Licensing Working Group/Minutes/2022-10-13
OpenStreetMap Foundation, Licensing Working Group (LWG) - Agenda & Minutes
13 October 2022, 17:30 UTC
Accepted on 10 November 2022.
Participants
- Tom Hummel
- Kathleen Lu (Chairing)
- Guillaume Rischard (OSMF board) (joined 21’ after start)
- Simon Hughes (joined 21’ after start)
- Tom Lee (joined 26’ after start)
Guest
Absent
- Dermot McNally
LWG members
Minutes by Dorothea Kazazi
Administrative
Adoption of past minutes
- 2022-09-15 Accepted
- 2022-08-04 Accepted
Previous action items
- 2017-03-02 Simon Poole to determine existing obligations towards sources listed on the copyright page.
- 2017-05-04 All/Simon Poole to review import guidelines with regards to licence “approval”.
- 2018-03-08 All to look at the Working Groups collecting personal information.
- 2018-04-12 LWG to follow-up on the iD editor, as the number of changesets is now included on the changeset comments thread.
- 2019-01-10 Simon Poole to draft text to developers of apps related to geo/mapping, having OSM in their names or using variations of our logo.
- 2019-02-14 Simon Poole to summarise the advice regarding information requests from law enforcement and send it around.
- 2019-12-12 Simon Poole to discuss trademark registration strategy (more countries, additional classes, etc) with lawdit
- 2020-01-09 Simon Poole to include text about downstream produced works to the FAQ.
- 2020-03-12 Simon Poole to send to Mateusz the link with the research by Kathleen Lu on attribution on various apps.
- 2020-09-10 Simon Poole to set-up call with Kathleen Lu and our UK lawyer about trademarks.
- 2020-10-08 Jim Vidano to work on updating the privacy policy in relation to OSMF's use of a commercial CDN, and Kathleen Lu will have a look at it.
- 2020-10-08 Simon Poole and Guillaume Rischard to look at the translation issue of the copyright policy page.
- 2020-10-08 Simon Poole to send his Moovit contact to Guillaume Rischard.
- 2020-10-08 Simon Poole to send a summary of which action items need to be done.
- 2021-01-14 Guillaume Rischard to report on Board status re identification of outside counsel
- 2021-02-11 Kathleen Lu to check LWG-specific membership requirements on the OSMF website and Conflict of Interest policy and provide to Dorothea any updates for the website.
- 2021-03-11 Guillaume Rischard to sort out various email issues -
Making sure Dermot McNally is on the main legal mailing issue, making sure everyone is getting OTRS email notifications for the legal queue. - 2021-07-08 Guillaume Rischard to meet with Dermot McNally about using OTRS.
- 2021-07-08 LWG members to provide comment on the HOT draft trademark agreement on the next meeting.
- 2021-07-08 Jim Vidano to look at next steps for Opensnowmap.org paperwork after the trademark request has been approved by the board.
- 2021-07-08 Dermot McNally to ask Tobias for expected outcome regarding the request for change of the text of the standard tile license.
- 2021-08-12 Tom Hummel to suggest text to be published regarding OSMF's legitimate interest in processing personal data.
- 2021-08-12 Dermot McNally to reply to Tobias about simplifying the text of the tile licence.
- 2021-08-12 Dermot McNally to make the pull request on Github openstreemap-website regarding attribution requirements for OSMF tiles
- 2021-08-12 Dermot McNally to communicate back to contacts regarding Australian data attribution and suggest filling the waiver template.
- 2021-08-12 LWG to identify OSMF legal texts that might be needed under German law to be in German.
- 2021-09-09 Jim Vidano to ask Simon Poole whether he has previous emails contacting companies that were not displaying attribution.
- 2021-09-09 Guillaume Rischard to check past emails (e.g. last year ones related to case in Germany where they settled in court) for any sent to companies not complying with attribution requirements and to send what he finds, including links to the Github repositories with the lists of not complying organisations, to the Signal group.
- 2021-09-09 Jim Vidano and Dermot McNally (2021-12-09) to create a draft template email for the community to contact organisations regarding non compliance with the attribution guidelines
- 2021-09-09 Dermot McNally to reply to Jean-Marc Liotier (board of directors) with the LWG decision to create a template email for minor cases of non-compliance with the attribution guidelines available to the community and the LWG to directly contact bigger companies.
- 2022-01-13 Simon Hughes to download a copy of the Copyright FAQ page and mark anything that is not matching the attribution guidelines or is confusing and circulate that to the LWG.
- 2022-04-14 Guillaume Rischard to ask Tom Hughes to see how many translations of the Copyright and Copyright FAQ page are live. Topic Needed: Update to Copyright FAQ page to match new attribution guidelines
- 2022-04-14 Guillaume Rischard to talk to Grant Slater (Senior Site Reliability Engineer) about cutting tile access to Impresa Italia. Topic Impresa Italia - Missing attribution case of commercial site using our tiles
- 2022-04-14 Guillaume Rischard to update agenda with Navionics (Garmin) success. Topic Fixing attribution success
- 2022-06-09 Guillaume Rischard to check with Amanda regarding the return-to address she used to the letter about printed maps with false copyright
- 2022-06-09 Guillaume Rischard to check with the rest of the board about the advice on CWG with LWG to rework the copyright page.
- 2022-09-15 Dermot McNally to send an email to the companies mentioned on Ticket#2022011910000082 and Ticket#202201261000014
- 2022-09-15 Guillaume Rischard to ask Eugene Villar (board member from Philippines) about any evidence of OSM trademark use in Philippines that can be submitted.
- 2022-09-15 Guillaume Rischard to respond to the email Ticket#202208041000024 and redirected to right person.
- 2022-09-15 Kathleen Lu to write to Tom Hughes and ask if the issue he was concerned with was https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/pull/989#issuecomment-110209086
Application to join LWG by Tom Lee
Vote
Accepted on 2022-10-13 with 3 votes in favour: Dermot McNally (via chat), Simon Hughes, Tom Hummel
2 abstained: Kathleen Lu, Guillaume Rischard.
Reportage and action item updates
Dermot’s Belgian love letter
Kathleen: Test sending?
Ticket#202208041000024 - licence of JOSM code
| Background provided by LWG |
|---|
| Ticket: I am a Java programmer working on the Java open source MIPAV imaging program at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Your file at https://josm.openstreetmap.de/browser/josm/trunk/src/org/openstreetmap/josm/gui/mappaint/mapcss/ExpressionFactory.java#L1 would be extremely useful for a dialog using user supplied DoubleBinaryOperation expressions. However, the top of the file says // License: GPL. For details, see LICENSE file. The GPL and LGPL licenses are incompatible with our public distribution of MIPAV. Would it be possible to use the material from your page without a GPL or LGPL license? |
Guillaume replied via OTRS.
via listserv - Israel Hiking Map, Apple sign-on query
| Background provided by LWG |
|---|
| We (Israel Hiking Map) are using OSM identity as part of our app in order to facilitate login and user capabilities. Since we have an iOS app, Apple is requesting the ability to sign in using Apple identity. Notes by Kathleen Lu: * ''TOS = Terms of Service" Previous LWG minutes: |
See https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/issues/2799#issuecomment-1274094650 please add anything relevant to this response.
Kathleen Lu replied to Github ticket. Operations Working Group (OWG) can take it further if they wish.
Response to Ticket#2022080910000043 in Dutch?
| Background provided by LWG |
|---|
| Geachte, Als parcoursbouwer van onze wandel vereniging heb ik de OpenStreetMap al verschillende jaren geleden gedownload en deze dan in BaseCamp gezet. Previous LWG minutes: |
Sent. We received a response today. Offered to add link in printout.
Evidence of trademark use in Philippines
| Background provided by LWG |
|---|
| Mail from Ellis Sweetenham: We have today received the attached notification that the Openstreetmap registration in the Philippines is reaching its deadline to provide evidence of actual use within the 3rd year of registration. The deadline to submit this is the 10 January 2023. Please confirm if you have used the mark in the Philippines and what evidence you hold. Previous LWG minutes: |
Action item: Guillaume Rischard to check that Eugene Villar has replied to him.
Any updates on reported attribution cases?
Reports in OTRS
- Ticket#2021081210000057 — printed maps with false copyright; no response yet
- Ticket#2022011910000082 – interparcel.com
- Ticket#2022012610000149 - https://poster.printmijnstad.nl/editor/city
- Ticket#2022033010000217
- complaint that Aberdeen city council may not be attributing correctly - https://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/news/consultation-starts-street-improvements-ashgrove-road
- Note that Aberdeen credits Ordnance Survey, so possible OS is using OSM as one of many sources and the full attribution is not getting carried through
- Ticket#2022032710000125 - https://www.evri.com/find-a-parcelshop
- Hermes UK changed name to evri. So this is an old issue.
- Ticket#2022062610000078 -
- Härryda, Sweden, uses Open Street Map for an app they developed. Inside the app there are no license references to OSM.
- You can see the app on the Google Apps store here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=se.harryda.medborgar.app&gl=US
- Ticket#2021120810000146 mondialrelay.fr not attributing correctly
Guillaume’s email to Goose Maps
https://apps.apple.com/app/goose-maps/id1632620335
They replied.
Guillaume Rischard and Tom Lee tried the app.
Watch
- Map is shown on the Apple watch – no attribution to OSM currently.
- Can install watch app directly.
- They can add OSM attribution to onboarding screen, and everyone has to go through it in order to use it the first time.
Companion phone app
- Companion app for the settings.
- You don’t have to have the companion phone app to be able to use the GooseMaps app on Apple watch.
Appstore
- The Appstore does not mention OSM either.
Appstore mentions trial period and then you have to pay a subscription.
Decision: Kathleen to reply that adding OSM to onboarding screen would be a promising solution and will ask for screenshots.
Guillaume - HOT trademark agreement update
No update.
Update to Copyright FAQ to match new attribution guidelines
| Background |
|---|
| There is a need to update the Copyright FAQ page to match the Attribution guidelines.
Previous LWG minutes
|
- Simon Hughes' draft on Copyright FAQ page – final?
- https://files.osmfoundation.org/f/153001
- Tom Hummel will update the wiki
Good idea to link to import guidelines.
Suggestion to link to general import page.
Live editing of the document during the meeting.
Updated FAQ ready to be published.
Action item: Tom Lee to add the FAQ to the OSMF website. Dorothea to provide access.
56’ Simon Hughes had to disconnect.
Trademark Notices
Any other business
Query to legal-questions.
Query regarding Community Data License Agreement (CDLA) version 2.0
| Background provided by LWG |
|---|
| From Marc Prioleau (Meta/ex-Facebook) and also previously:
Forwarded message --------- From: Kathleen Lu Date: Thu, Mar 24, 2022 at 2:21 PMSubject: Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Community Data License Agreement - Permissive - Version 2.0To: Licensing and other legal discussions. <legal-talk@openstreetmap.org> It is my personal opinion that CDLA 2.0 is compatible with OSM. The reason is, as I noted in the original analysis, CDLA 1.0 was always hypothetically compatible, "However, one should be very careful in checking that all forms of attribution in a CDLA-licensed dataset can be preserved if importing into OSM's format." This was because CDLA 1.0 had overly specific requirements for attribution: (b) You must cause any Data files containing Enhanced Data to carry prominent notices that You have changed those files; and (c) If You Publish Data You Receive, You must preserve all credit or attribution to the Data Provider(s). Such retained credit or attribution includes any of the following to the extent they exist in Data as You have Received it: legal notices or metadata; identification of the Data Provider(s); or hyperlinks to Data to the extent it is practical to do so. Version 2.0 does away with those clauses entirely in favor of "mak[ing] available the text of this agreement with the shared Data," a much looser and more general standard. Note that there is no requirement that one must make the text of the agreement *immediately* available, thus the offline scenario is not an issue. I can put an update to https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/CDLA_permissive_compatibility on the agenda for LWG's next meeting, but it may be a couple of months before we get around to formal edits as there are other items we are working on. Regards, ---
On Wed, Mar 23, 2022 at 4:38 PM Vincent Veldman <Vincent@veldman.me> wrote: and "make available text" is open for interpretation I'd argue. the way I see it - "make available text" means you need to ensure the text itself is always available no matter what type of usage by any user of OSM data. I.e. if a user does an office representation, or even friends on a hiking trip have some offline in the middle of nowhere field trip using OSM data..OSM must ensure the text is available to them and "user" well everyone looking at the presentation might or is then using that data as well. OSM has a very open/wide perspective to allow anyone to use that data we have to consider that here for a moment. Which basically means - since OSM is also for offline use - you must always distribute the actual text of that agreement with every single possible scenario of anyone worldwide using OSM data. I do foresee at least some practical issues here - which would then turn into legal issues. Yes I know the argument:"Who's going to verify that?" So let's do a random scenario out of possible millions scenarios where people might end up using OSM data. Because I would see some serious problems with ensuring that - for all we know someone uses JOSM to dump data from OSM servers for whatever offline use they plan to do with it. And there you already have the data, from OSM perspective, shared with someone for offline use and the text isn't available anymore with that data I think - since OSM data is under a really very "allowing almost everything" license agreement - even a license such as you described here would still need a waiver for OSM - that simply a link to the text on the OSM waivers list page or whatever that page is officially called - would be sufficient. Note I'm not a lawyer - just brainstorming here where I came up from my perspective with a possible scenario as example - where this might become a legal issue - at least in some countries that take "written text" very literally.. From: Cj Malone On Tue, 2022-03-22 at 02:05 +0100, Vincent Veldman wrote: I think this is because it's written like a software license whereyou'd include a license in a tarball. But linking to the license from planet.openstreetmap.org or thecopyright page is still "making the text of the agreement available,IMO. Cj Previous LWG minutes |
Action item: LWG to look at answer and indicate whether they agree.
Published minutes and OTRS* tickets containing email content from emails to LWG: Dorothea to remove email addresses and names.
* OTRS is an issue/ticket tracker used by several Working Groups of the OpenStreetMap Foundation.
Ticket#2022080510000087 - Compatibility of Italian Open Data License 2.0
| Background provided by LWG |
|---|
| Dear OSM Legal Team,
would you please evaluate the compatibilty of the "Italian Open Data License v2.0": https://www.dati.gov.it/content/italian-open-data-license-v20 This is the license recently used by the Italian AGID (Agency for Digital Italy) and has already been used in various imports into OSM. Since the license requires attribution I have serious concerns about the legality of those imports. Kathleen: - The attribution provision (“ indicare la fonte delle Informazioni e il nome del Licenziante, includendo, se possibile, una copia di questa licenza o un collegamento (link) ad essa.” – Google translation: “indicate the source of the Information and the name of the Licensor, including, if possible, a copy of this license or a link to it.”) appears to be fairly relaxed and similar to the UK OGL 3.0’s requirements, which are inbound compatible with ODbL. |
LWG licence compatibility page - previous evaluation of UK 2.0 and 3.0
Points mentioned during discussion
- Translated text seems close to the UK open-data-license-v20.
- Canada licence has some additional statements.
- Italian licence seems a bit less restrictive.
- There seems to be no difference between approval and endorsement in this context.
Suggestion: clean up/format LWG licence compatibility page.
Guillaume Rischard joined 21 minutes after start.
Discussion continued 59’ after start.
Ticket#2022081410000104 - Lizenzprobleme in Indien
| Background provided by LWG |
|---|
| Ich schreibe als Mitglied der indische OSM-Community.
In der indischen OSM-Telegram Gruppe (Martijin von Exel ist seit einigen Tagen dort Mitglied) gibt es momentan Diskussionen über die Interpretation der staatlichen Lizenzbestimmungen und weiterer gesetzlicher Vorgaben. Leider ist kein Kontakt zu einem Anwalt vorhanden, der in diesen Fragen kompetent ist. Es wurde versucht, Anfragen an die zuständigen Behörden zu stellen. Jedoch meist erhält man keine Anwort oder es kommen Fragen wie „Before I answer, what is your profile and your intention?“ Zusammengefasst: Anfragen von unbekannten Privatpersonen werden einfach ignoriert. Im Bundesstaat Kerala hat es Kontakte gegeben und auch erfolgreiche Zusammenarbeit.
All diese Probleme hat Google natürlich nicht, die haben sich alle Rechte schon vor Jahren mit Geld erkauft. Die rechtliche Lage in Indien ist offensichtlich speziell und mit europäischen Verhältnissen nicht vergleichbar. Hilfreich wäre nach meiner Meinung, wenn über die Lizenz Working Group Anfragen verschickt werden, um zu klären, ob die Verwendung der Daten zu für OSM brauchbaren Bedingungen möglich ist. Mögliche Ansprechpartner von OSM wären:: Links zu den wichtigsten staalichen Unterlagen können wir zusammenstellen.: Ich hoffe, die Lizenz working group kann uns behilflich sein. Und ich schreibe in Deutsch, da mein Englisch doch sehr beschränkt ist.: --- Automatic translation: In the Indian OSM-Telegram group (Martijin von Exel has been a member for a few days) there are currently discussions about the interpretation of the state license regulations and other legal requirements. Unfortunately, there is no contact with a lawyer who is competent in these questions.
An attempt was made to make inquiries to the responsible authorities. However, most of the time you don't get an answer or you get questions like
"Before I answer, what is your profile and your intention?"
In summary: Requests from unknown private individuals are simply ignored. Here are some problems: Of course, Google doesn't have all these problems, they bought all the rights with money years ago. The legal situation in India is obviously special and cannot be compared with European conditions. In my opinion, it would be helpful if inquiries were sent via the License Working Group to clarify whether the use of the data is possible under conditions that are useful for OSM. Possible contacts from OSM would be: We can put together links to the most important government documents. I hope the license working group can help us. And I write in German because my English is very limited. |
Kathleen Lu's note: We can try to help, but this sounds hard...Can we have volunteers for a working group to correspond with this group via direct email?
Licence question for future app
| Background provided by LWG |
|---|
| I am an OpenStreetMap contributor and OSMF member and I have an idea for an app. But I have a license question that I'd like to clarify before starting to code.
What the app is supposed to do is explained in the README linked above, so I will focus here on the legal aspect: The app will take information from an OSM object and automatically create a Wikimedia Commons file description page from that. For example: OSM object: The user takes an image of the building. The app takes the object tags and other information from OSM to automatically make an image description page: Beispielstrasse 12, Berlin.jpg How can I do that without violating ODbL? Will it be enough to add an attribution template to the page like "The original file description on this page was automatically created from OpenStreetMap data and is licensed under ODbL 1.0"? Or will it be a problem that all Wikimedia Commons pages are licensed under Creative Commons? Kathleen Lu's note: I don’t think this is a compatible use, but I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking creatively about it. |
Ticket#2022092110000125 - Updating link
| Background provided by LWG |
|---|
| Dear OSM Foundation team,
Please update the URL to "opennrw_rechtl_gutachten_datenlizenzen_lowres_web.pdf" on https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Licence/Licence_Compatibility#German_DL-DE/by-2-0 from (gives 404): https://open.nrw/sites/default/files/atoms/files/opennrw_rechtl_gutachten_datenlizenzen_lowres_web.pdf Your license overview is an important document and will be continuously read, hence this URL update would be handy as well. Kathleen Lu's note: Oct 13 – I have updated the link. |
Ticket#2022091610000028 - 1. Creative Commons Attribution for Intergovernmental Organisations 2. using data with no licence
| Background provided by LWG |
|---|
| I have a question about two things.
One is Creative Commons Attribution for Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY-IGO) that I have found here https://data.humdata.org/faqs/licenses Can we use this dataset to enrich the OSM data or we need a waiver and if we do can you provide a sample as you did for CCBY4.0 for example? Kathleen Lu's note: yes, because this license still contains the problematic “you may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.” Since the actual license text is based on CCBY3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/legalcode) they should use the 3.0 version of the waiver as a template (but changing the name). The second question is about using data that has no license. For example I will take medical instiution, but this also refers to any other type. So, on the official website of some medical institution there is a list of all healtcenters with working hours etc. There is no licence specified. I have asked the institution if they are OK for us to use their data and they agreed, they do not want to put license on their data, but are OK for everyone to use it. Do we need some written permition or just pointing to the website as a source is good enoght? If we need some permition do you have a template for this also? Kathleen Lu's note: Very basic information about a location and its hours on that location’s website would have very limited, if any, IP rights. In this specific example, for simply the working hours and addresses of the health centers from the health centers’ website, there are probably no rights that could be licensed because 1) there is no copyright in the factual information, and the organization/selection is so limited there is probably no copyright there either, and 2) database rights generally vest when there is substantial investment in preparing the database, so I think a health center listing its own address and hours would not qualify. |
Ticket#2022100310000013 - Ryan Crownholm's case
| Background provided by LWG |
|---|
| I recently heard about the case of Ryan Crownholm. If you haven’t, here’s a primer —
https://ij.org/client/ryan-crownholm/ Given what’s happening in Ryan’s case I wonder if there is any potential impact here for OSM contributors. Should we be worried about legal consequences for “unlicensed surveying”? I’m not trying to solicit legal advice here but I think it could be helpful for the foundation to comment publicly about this situation, and if you think it’s necessary,maybe file an amicus brief? On the other hand maybe you think there is nothing to worry about here? Curious to hear your thoughts. |
Looks like filed by pro-bono organisation.
Suggestion: The board could make a statement and we could also sign an aminus.
Action item: Guillaume Rischard to take the issue to the board.
Ticket#2022100810000086 - Store data request
| Background provided by LWG |
|---|
| Can I store all the map data on osm to the filecoin network?
Kathleen Lu's note: I cannot see why there would be a need to store OSM on filecoin. |
Decision to ignore.
https://twitter.com/filecoin/status/1377467507871789061?lang=en
Ticket#2022101110000098 - Film maker email
| Background provided by LWG |
|---|
| Film maker wants to use OSM map in documentation, ~5x 30s pieces with maps, offers to advocate for a donation to OSM within at cbp.org.
LWG note: Shall we recommend any amount? |
Suggestions to point them to
- https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Join_as_a_corporate_member
- https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Donations
- https://donate.openstreetmap.org/
Action item: Tom Hummel to point to the Corporate Membership page or the donation page.
Discussion about donation page
- Make is easier to companies to donate.
- Provide better instructions.
- The payment is processed by PayPal but you don't need to have a PayPal account or sign-up for one if you are paying by credit card
Next Meetings
10 November 2022 - 1830 UTC
08 December 2022 - 1830 UTC