[OSGeo-Discuss] defining a Geospatial Integration Showcase to be launched at FOSS4G 2009

[Tim Bowden]

On Fri, 2008-10-24 at 10:22 +1000,
nicholas.g.lawrence at mainroads.qld.gov.au wrote:
> > Please do not encourage new data releasers to release geodata under
> > creative commons licenses. It has ben a source of major disagreements
> > with regard to openstreetmap, and I don't think it's any better for
> > anyone else.
> 
> > Geodata is not creative. Creative Commons licenses are written for
> > creative works. Even the Creative Commons people I've talked to don't
> > think geodata should be covered under anything other than 'CC Zero'.
> 
> > http://www.opengeodata.org/?p=262 sums this up quite well: if you
> > haven't read it, *Please do* before advising anyone who has not already
> > released data on license issues.
> 
> Creative commons licences rest upon copyright law.
> If a legal juridstiction determines that copyright is not applicable
> to geodata, then both copyright and the creative commons license
> go away.
> 
> nick

Presumably the original work was published under a cc license where it
was considered copyrightable, and obviously not placed in the public
domain.  In a jurisdiction where that copyright isn't recognised, does
that mean there is no legal right to acquire the work (as the license it
is published under can't be honoured due to it not being legally
enforceable or recognised) or is the work considered to automatically be
in the public domain (at least in that jurisdiction) as a straight
collection of facts?

With either answer, the outcome sought by using cc is not achieved hence
the problems with using CC.

Another twist is that in AU (and probably other commonwealth
jurisdictions at least) while facts can't be copyrighted but the
representation or presentation of facts can be, at least to a limited
extent (or such is my very limited understanding).

Regards,
Tim Bowden
-- 
Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake
when you make it again.