[Aust-NZ] OSM Licensing - [was Fwd: RE: Aust-NZ Digest, Vol 36, Issue 8] [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

[Robert Coup]

On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 12:14 PM, Bruce Bannerman <B.Bannerman at bom.gov.au>wrote:

>
> There was a study several years ago that from memory found that a database
> could potentially be subject to copyright. I recall that they were
> particularly looking at UK Ordnance Survey data.
>

I'm not disagreeing, and in Australia & NZ datasets have traditionally been
seen as being covered by copyright. However, the Australian Federal Court
recently ruled that the content of the Yellow & White pages didn't have
copyright:

http://www.copyright.org.au/news/news_items/cases-news/2010-cases/federal-court-finds-white-and-yellow-pages-not-subject-to-copyright/

So all is not clear...

Needless to say, if there's no Copyright, then Creative Commons licenses
have no meaning at all. ODbL works in some aspects of contract law to
attempt to resolve this, but that creates its own issues.


> Part of the problem is that we are working in a global community with
> differing laws on IP in respective countries (and hence differing
> understanding of the issues).
>

And in common-law countries, differing interpretations on the laws forming
legal precedents over time...

Rob :)
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