Question regarding commercial use

[Sven Benhaupt]

Hello,

I'm working for a small delivery company and they're using an internal Java-based desktop software for managing their deliveries and customers. We have the lat/lon coordinates (from a commercial geocoding service) of our customers and my boss asked me if it's possible to display them over an OSM map inside our desktop software.

My approach would be to setup an own map tile server on Linux with Apache and mod_tile. Then I would write a small map viewer in Java which downloads the map tiles and displays them in our software. I would then write a drawing routine which displays the coordinates of our customers (as red dots) over the OSM tiles.

Now I have the following two legal questions:

As far as I have understood from the "Common License Interpretations" wiki page, this is would be a "collective work" since the OSM layer is kept separate and independent from our own data (and our own data has not beeen created by looking on the OSM map). Is this correct? When I attribute/credit the OSM maps correctly inside my map viewer (text & hyperlinks) would this be a legal use of the OSM map data?

If so - would it also be legally ok if I would create a "print map" functionality inside my map viewer (also with correct attribution)?

If not, I would of course have to use a commercial map data provider since I absolutely want to stay legal.


Thanks in advance & big respect to all the OSM contributors,
 svn

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[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Sven Benhaupt wrote:
> My approach would be to setup an own map tile server on Linux with
> Apache and mod_tile. Then I would write a small map viewer in Java which
> downloads the map tiles and displays them in our software.

There's code in JOSM that you can re-use for that (the slippy map
chooser or the slippy map plugin).

> As far as I have understood from the "Common License Interpretations"
> wiki page, this is would be a "collective work" since the OSM layer is
> kept separate and independent from our own data (and our own data has
> not beeen created by looking on the OSM map). Is this correct?

That would be my interpretation too.

> When I
> attribute/credit the OSM maps correctly inside my map viewer (text &
> hyperlinks) would this be a legal use of the OSM map data?

I would say so.

> If so - would it also be legally ok if I would create a "print map"
> functionality inside my map viewer (also with correct attribution)?

Yes, but the printed map is not a collective work any more; at least
under CC-BY-SA the printed map would have to be licensed CC-BY-SA,
*including* the depicted vehicle routes/positions. OSM has no problem
with that, and your delivery company probably hasn't either (remember,
CC-BY-SA does not mean you have to put it up on a web site or something,
just that anyone who legally gets hold of such a printout may do
whatever he or she likes with it).

So for example if you should decide to produce and publish a yearly
report on your business and you include a OSM map with the routes of all
your delivery vehicles then others would be allowed to trace off and
publish these routes.

Bye
Frederik

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[Sven Benhaupt]

2009/10/26 Frederik Ramm <frederik@...>

Thanks a lot for your quick answer, this was very helpful for me.

> If so - would it also be legally ok if I would create a "print map"
Yes, but the printed map is not a collective work any more; at least
under CC-BY-SA the printed map would have to be licensed CC-BY-SA,
*including* the depicted vehicle routes/positions. OSM has no problem
with that, and your delivery company probably hasn't either (remember,
CC-BY-SA does not mean you have to put it up on a web site or something,
just that anyone who legally gets hold of such a printout may do
whatever he or she likes with it).

Ok, this is also what I understood. But as far as I'm informed the OSM project will change it's licensing soon (ODbl) - will it then still be legal to use the OSM data the way we want to use it?


Regards,
 svn

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[Matt Amos-3]

On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 5:11 PM, Sven Benhaupt
<sven.benhaupt@...> wrote:

> 2009/10/26 Frederik Ramm <frederik@...>
>
> Thanks a lot for your quick answer, this was very helpful for me.
>
>> > If so - would it also be legally ok if I would create a "print map"
>> Yes, but the printed map is not a collective work any more; at least
>> under CC-BY-SA the printed map would have to be licensed CC-BY-SA,
>> *including* the depicted vehicle routes/positions. OSM has no problem
>> with that, and your delivery company probably hasn't either (remember,
>> CC-BY-SA does not mean you have to put it up on a web site or something,
>> just that anyone who legally gets hold of such a printout may do
>> whatever he or she likes with it).
>
> Ok, this is also what I understood. But as far as I'm informed the OSM
> project will change it's licensing soon (ODbl) - will it then still be legal
> to use the OSM data the way we want to use it?

yes. if the change to ODbL goes through it is likely that the OSM
tiles will remain CC BY-SA, or possibly move to a less restrictive
license. in either case, what you are proposing will still be legal -
and i think we want it to always stay that way.

cheers,

matt

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