Licensing Working Group/Minutes/2024-07-08

From OpenStreetMap Foundation

OpenStreetMap Foundation, Licensing Working Group (LWG) - Agenda & Minutes
8 July 2024, 18:00 UTC

Participants

  • Kathleen Lu (Chairing)
  • Dermot McNally
  • Simon Hughes
  • Tom Lee

Absent

  • Tom Hummel
  • Guillaume Rischard (OSMF board)

Administrative

Adoption of past minutes

Previous action items

  • 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.
  • 2020-10-08 Simon Poole and Guillaume Rischard to look at the translation issue of the copyright policy page
  • 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.
  • 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
  • 2022-09-15 Dermot McNally to send an email to the companies mentioned on Ticket#2022011910000082 and Ticket#202201261000014
  • 2022-09-15 Guillaume Rischard to respond to the email Ticket#202208041000024 and redirect to the right person.
  • 2022-10-13 Guillaume Rischard to take the Ticket#2022100310000013 issue to the board (related to legal consequences for “unlicensed surveying”)
  • 2022-11-10 Guillaume Rischard to pass the message to the board member who wrote to the LWG about Open Database License (ODbL).
  • 2023-03-06 Kathleen Lu to write back to Iiro Laiho (Inquiry re Finnish satellite imagery) and have them clarify that the attribution is ok. The LWG to update the attribution.
  • 2023-04-03 Guillaume Rischard to ask Grant Slater regarding passing LWG tickets to OWG.
  • 2023-04-03 Dermot McNally to find wording that makes it clear to the recipients of the love letters that the letters come from mappers.
  • 2023-04-03 Guillaume Rischard to send the Attribution Guidelines (Case of German Federal Mapping Agency buried attribution)
  • 2023-04-03 Tom Lee to reply to the OSM Serbia community on GitHub asking for additional details (Ticket#2023030810000178 - Serbian Geodata)
  • 2023-04-03 Dermot McNally to put Benito Romualdo Palma Temoaya in touch with the Mexican community (Ticket#2023032410000272 – Asesoría)
  • 2023-11-13 Tom Lee to create a draft statement by the next LWG meeting that could be used by the board to encourage governments to publish under CC0, ODbL, OGL or with a waiver to OSM. [Topic: Ordnance Survey Ireland waiver - Update by Dermot McNally]
  • 2023-11-13 Tom Hummel to read https://open.nrw/system/files/media/document/file/opennrw_rechtl_gutachten_datenlizenzen_lowres_web.pdf https://open.nrw/verwendung-von-open-data-lizenzen [Topic: Ticket#2023110610000184 - Importing Austrian governmental data]m to add to add the following two templat
  • 2023-11-13 Tom Hummel to contact Falk, a lawyer from the German local chapter, and get his opinion on the general stance of mid-level governmental agencies. Estimated to have a response by early December. [Topic: Ticket#2023110610000184 - Importing Austrian governmental data]
  • 2024-01-08 Kathleen Lu to contact Lawdit and enquire about the cost estimate for opposing the trademark registration by UMBRAOSM.
  • 2024-01-08 Kathleen Lu to reply to Kirill Fedotov that the new MapBuilder designs for OSM account sign-ups look good.
  • 2024-01-08 Tom Hummel to reply to the last email about rescheduling the meeting regarding the Austrian governmental datasets , cc Dermot McNally and try to schedule a new date.
  • 2024-01-08 Kathleen Lu to reply to the reporter that, per horizontal layers, what was done with the Organic Maps feature related to https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps/pull/6523/commits/51b3fc992e66e49b4c9a77e3d3fb05d99027baf5 is fine for data about hotel booking, and enquire about further concerns.
  • 2024-01-08 Kathleen Lu to contact OWG regarding Matomo tracking (Q5: is there a delay after which old IP addresses are anonymised and Q6: For how long is Matomo tracking information retained by OSMF). LWG to answer questions one to four, providing the reasoning.
  • 2024-01-08 Kathleen Lu to forward this request for permission to use the OSM trademarks on the domains: osm.tips, osmtips.de, osmtips.eu, osmtips.org, osmtips.com to the board.
  • 2024-01-08 Guillaume Rischard to send an attribution love letter to OpenGeoHub, regarding OpenLandMap.
  • 2024-01-08 Guillaume Rischard to talk with Tom Hummel, before the latter talks to Falke.
  • 2024-01-08 Guillaume Rischard to provide a summary regarding the German federal cartography agency issue at the next meeting.
  • 2024-02-12 Guillaume Rischard to ask UMBRAOSM for a copy of their filling change request. [UMBRAOSM UNIÃO DOS MAPEADORES BRASILEIROS DO OPENSTREETMAP]
  • 2024-02-12 Kathleen Lu to email OSMtips and send them the template for project and domain grandfathering applications. [Topic: 2)OSM.tips and related domains]
  • 2024-02-12 Kathleen Lu to email OpenLandCover and suggest template https://osmfoundation.org/wiki/Project_Licence_and_Domain_Grandfathering_Application [Topic: 3)Query from Mateusz re OpenLandCoverMap]
  • 2024-02-12 Simon Hughes to provide the difference in number of POIs between the old and new datasets provided by Geolytica to TomTom. [Topic: Geolytica]
  • 2024-02-12 Kathleen Lu and Tom Hummel to talk with Sarah. [Topic: OSMF transfer plan scope of work quote from law firm]
  • 2024-02-12 Kathleen Lu to write back to EWG to ask for clarifications. [Topic: EWG enquiry about https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/GDPR/Affected_Services update]
  • 2024-02-12 Jim Vidano to contact the website with an attribution love letter https://osmfoundation.org/wiki/Licence/Attribution_Reminder_Templates [Topic: Ticket#2024011610000011]
  • 2024-02-12 Kathleen Lu to write back to inquirer that we will add to the copyright page, and that they should notify the Danish data authority that they will be represented on the /copyright alongside all our other prominent sources (there not being anything listed on the front page). Or you can get a CC waiver. Also cc Tom Lee [Ticket#2024020610000298]
  • 2024-02-12 Tom Lee to reply [Topic: application for forward geocoding addresses in Germany]
  • 2024-03-04 Dermot McNally to reply to Markus and suggest setting-up a meetingwith the Austrian government. Tom Hummel would be interested to join. [Meeting with Brigitte Lutz/Austrian gov and OSMF Austria LC]
  • 2024-03-04 Jim Visano to finalise the letter to https://www.casaseneleste.com and bcc the LWG. Kathleen will add the letter to the LWG shared folder.
  • 2024-03-04 Kathleen Lu to write back that this OGL Ontario lecence is okay, please add to https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contributors#Canada before using [ODbL compartibility with Open Government License - Ontario]
  • 2024-03-04 Kathleen Lu to write back that this OGL Nanaimo is okay, please add to https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contributors#Canada before using [ [ODbL compartibility with OGL Nanaimo License - Ticket#2024030210000114]
  • /2024-04-08 Kathleen Lu to reply to Sarah indicating that the LWG is not completely confident in the firm. Therefore, there is a risk of investing money and time in something that may not be the most effective use of resources. However, both the board and the LWG can monitor the situation closely. Additionally, any delay would also come with associated costs. [OSMF transfer plan scope of work quote from law firm]
  • /2024-04-08 Kathleen Lu to write back that based on the slides, NNG seems to try to adhere to ODbL and the community guidelines. [Query from HERE forwarded by the Board]
  • /2024-04-08 Kathleen Lu to reply about the LWG's assessment of Croatia's open licence https://prod-data.gov.hr/en/open-license [Croatia open licence]
  • /2024-04-08 Kathleen Lu to reply about the LWG's assessment of York's Open Data licence https://insights-york.opendata.arcgis.com/documents/york-region-open-data-licence Ticket#2024030710000016 [Assessment of York Open Data licence Ticket#2024030710000016]
  • /2024-04-08 Kathleen Lu to reply. [University of Washington GIS data and layers and university policies Ticket#2024032010000456 Ticket#2024032010000456]
  • /2024-04-08 Kathleen Lu to reply about the LWG's assessment of Open Government License – Toronto [Assessment of Open Government License – Toronto]
  • 2024-05-13 Tom Hummel to ask the Belgian lawyers about tax-deductability of donations. [Topic: OSMF move to the EU]
  • 2024-05-13 Guillaume Rischard to ask Luxembourg lawyers for details on the UK side of migration. [Topic: OSMF move to the EU]
  • 2024-05-13 Guillaume Rischard to review the translation of the community guidelines by OSM France. [Topic: Local Chapter query about translation of community guidelines]
  • 2024-05-13 Kathleen Lu to write back and say that some French speaking members will have a look at the translation but we don’t have resources to officially bless the translation. Suggestion to OSM France to host the translation themselves and we might link to it from the website or wikiformat it, to host it at the OSMF website as an unofficial translation. [Topic: Local Chapter query about translation of community guidelines]
  • 2024-06-10 Guillaume Rischard to have a meeting with Tom Hummel, after the former's request, in order to formulate the question to Lawdit. [Topic: OSMF move to the EU ]

Any updates on reported attribution cases?

Reports in OTRS:


Trademarks – any updates?

OSM US trademark renewal

Kathleen submitted samples from the OSM US merchandise website to our attorneys for the renewal of the US registration.

Trademark watch notices

We will get the invoice for the watch notices soon.


Reportage

Ticket#2024050910000143 - Open Government License 2.0, Niagara

Looked fine. Kathleen added it to the list.


OSMF move to the EU

Not discussed.


Application for new membership – Alexander Zatko

Not discussed.

Query from Microsoft - referral from OWG

This was discussed around 56’ after start. Simon had to disconnect.

Issue: Whether as a project we could legally give Microsoft access to Matomo under a non-disclosure agreement, in accordance with the privacy policy.

  • This is about web analytics for the sign-up process, which is a multi-step process that people drop off.
  • There was a concern that an NDA would be insufficient.

On data

  • Matomo does not display the full IP address, discarding the last two bytes, so it doesn't seem like we're giving them anything personal.
  • If a user is logged in, the user is anonymized in Matoma, showing a hash version.
  • Geolocation is performed before discarding the last two bytes of IPv4 addresses.

Action item

Kathleen to reply that the LWG does not see any personal data in Matomo, it looks like all aggregate or anonymized data and whether the OWG disagrees.

July 11 update: email sent


Query from OSMF: GDPR and affected services

Not discussed.


Law enforcement request

LWG requested for minutes to not be published.


Query from OWG – Questions by Facebook for data use checkup

  • We haven't answered to the Operations Working Group (OWG).
  • The LWG had concluded that the questions are technical and not legal, so OWG is better placed to answer them.
  • OWG seems to have tried answering them, so we should tell them if their answers are fine or not. They left blank the ones they don't know the answer.

> Do you have a data controller located in the EEA (European Economic Area) or the UK that will be responsible for all data Meta shares with you?
Yes. OSMF.

> Have you provided personal data of users to public authorities and national security requests in the past twelve months?
No.

> Which of the following policies or process do you have in place regarding a request from public authority for personal data? Check all that apply.
> Required review of the legality of these requests.
> Provisions for challenging these requests if they're considered unlawful.
> Data minimization policy - the ability to disclose the minimum information necessary.
> Documentation of these requests including your responses to the requests and the legal reasoning and actors involved.
> None of the above.
> We are prohibited by law or company policy from answering this question.

We have

  • Required review
  • Data minimisation
  • Documentation

> For which category of services was this data processor process the personal data of users received from Meta? Select all that apply.

  • We have no data processors that receive Meta information, because we only get their info for logging in.
  • There was a question about the Content Delivery Network (CDN).

Other point mentioned: We don't seem to have provisions for challenging requests.

July 8 update: Kathleen gave responses to OWG to fill in.


Queries from Local Chapter: OpenStreetMap France

The text that Simon Hughes offered to translate didn't match with the revised legal FAQs that we drafted and posted.

There was a bit of confusion on the text that the French Local Chapter translated.

  • The French Local Chapter translated the community guidelines. They provided a link to a Framapad (online pad), and on the top it says that it has a translation of the community guidelines and links to the guidelines.
  • Guillaume sent three exports of the french translation documents.
  • The French Local Chapter put all of the guidelines in one document and there is a URL at the top of each section, that says which was the original page. They probably did that for proofreading purposes. When we put it on their official website, the formatting would obviously get fixed up.

Suggestion: Consider translating the FAQ.

Simon Hughes offered to put a TomTom person to translate the FAQ.

Action item

Kathleen to reply that we're still reading through, but assuming it looks ok, we can host the french translation on the OSMF website.


GTFS

The previous meeting focused on the Swiss GTFS case, as it was simpler and Simon Poole was present, but there was a second case which was briefly talked about.

Suggestions

  • Contact the people making these inquiries to understand what the actual problem is
  • Consider drafting a sample dual licensing dedication for GTFS users, saying that the geographic data elements inside of these files are dual licensed under the Open Database License (ODbL) and something less restrictive.

Other point mentioned: Agencies publishing data as GTFS want the data to be widely used or it could be a public obligation.

Concern: There is substantial risk, based on the nature of the GTFS format, what data they will be tempted to include. Our data could end up shared more liberally than people want to.

On routing: If it's a produced work, all they need is attribution. If they're already using OSM as a base map, they already have attribution. When they distribute, they can include the attribution with the API.

Consensus seemed to be: The LWG is ok with the dynamically generated routes to be considered a produced work.

On second GTFS use case

In more recent versions of GTFS you have not only points representing bus stops, but the actual road network connecting them.

Concern: Inclusion of OSM data in GTFS for bus route geometries.

Issue: The strings attached to any downstream database from them.

  • We have the share-alike.

On the second use case

  • Use of GTFS by Google Maps, Apple Maps, city map or transit would mean thay a substantial amount of the OSM dataset would be used (e.g. for per city). It would not be an ephemeral routing query.
  • The person who emailed us seems to be focused on station geometry. They could be interested in local points, and local routing. While that's a tiny percentage of what's in OSM, it's everything that OSM has for that use case in a particular locality.
    • It is likely to be more than 100 points.
  • It seems very unlikely that they will be able to incorporate ODbL licensed data into their releases and the existing user agreements they've got.

Other points mentioned

  • From a substantive standpoint, it is unsuitable for reverse engineering a substantial part of the OSM database.
  • While routing instructions are considered a produced work, the actual geometries would be considered a derivative database.

Action item

Kathleen to reply to sender, mentioning the routing and that geometries are likely to be derivative databases.


Switzerland – Licensing GTFS shapes.txt files

Kathleen to write to https://otrs.openstreetmap.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom;TicketID=52392

Answered on July 11.


Queries from Local Chapter: Email from Jochen/Falk/FOSSGIS

  • We should be trying to form opinions of the things that the regulators should consider, e.g. the obligation for keeping things correct and up to date.
  • We could to push for something, but we have to write it.

Kathleen asked Dermot if he can draft something.

Suggestions

  • talk about this offline.
  • the LWG could make a recommendation to the board.

Decision: talk offline.

Action item

Dermot to read the email again and see if he can draft something.


Queries to legal-questions

Ticket#2024051410000571 Use of OSM logo on 3D printed products

On how the LWG feels about the use of the trademark

  • Looks cute.
  • The motivation of the sender seems pure and he wants to do the right thing.
  • It feels like the kind of thing that we like to grant permission for.

On deviation from the OSM logo

  • The image they sent diverges from the OSM logo, due to technical constraints.
  • We can approve deviations.

Other points mentioned

  • There was a previous request by someone else who said that they would donate all profits. The LWG sent the request to the CWG.
  • It's not in the LWG's role to have an opinion whether such requests are good for the project or not.

Suggestions

  • Send such requests to the CWG and, if they are unsure, they can ask the LWG.
  • Grant this licence, if CWG approves.

Action item

Kathleen to forward the email to CWG with a note that we can accommodate a license for this use case, if they like it.

July 11: forwarded


Ticket#2024062110000127 Impressum

Websites in Germany, or targetting websites in Germany, are legally required by German law to have an "Impressun", making a declaration of who they are (name) and where they are (address).

OSM Foundation website has one: https://osmfoundation.org/wiki/About/de#Impressum

  • www.osm.org is not hosted in Germany
  • Link would have to be under www.osm.org, but not top-level.

Suggestion: Add one to www.osm.org or link from www.osm.org to the OSMF one.

Decision: Discuss this with Tom Hummel.

July 11 update:
per chat, Tom H will reply; since Brexit, OSMF is not affected, because Directive 2000/31/EC no longer applies to the UK; same goes for ECJ decisions. However, once within the EU, a link is not enough, see BGH I ZR 90/20 »Influencer II« Under the Directive, OSMF itself is likely required to have a legal notice, because it could be regarded as a “commercial” service. The ECJ reads the adjacent legal requirement “normally provided for remuneration” as commercial to the extent that it is an economic activity at all, and “does not require the service to be paid for by those for whom it is performed”. (see par. 40 f, http://data.europa.eu/eli/dir/1995/46/oj ) This interpretation is in line with art. 56 f AEUV, where the definition originates. (Kluth, in: Calliess/Ruffert, EUV/AEUV, 4. Aufl. 2011, Art. 57 Rn. 14)


To trademarks@ - PROTEUS project

  • They wanted permission to use the OSMF logo in their mini-app.
  • Email seemed well-intentioned.

Suggestion: they can use the logo, if they add a disclaimer “Uses data from OpenStreetMap Foundation. Not affiliated with or endorsed by OpenStreetMap.”

Consider whether the CWG could have a role in deciding in these cases.

July 11 update: Sent


To trademarks@ - OpenFreeMap

Probably fine for them to be grandfathered in.

On attribution

  • Attribution: Copyright Open map tiles. Data from OpenStreetMap.
  • The attribution guidelines made it clear that both the copyright symbol and the word contributors were optional.

Ok, edit template as needed

July 11 – sent to Board for signature.


Next Meetings

Monday 12 August 2024, 1700 UTC
Monday 09 September 2024, 1700 UTC
Monday 07 October 2024, 1700 UTC
Monday 18 November 2024 (back to winter hours - 1800)
Monday 09 December 2024, 1800 UTC