[OAM-talk] a dramatically simplified technical proposal

[Richard Fairhurst]

Christopher Schmidt wrote:
> I think that the public-domain only data will be a 'small cool skin'  
>  of imagery, but it should still be there and usable. In addition,  
> if you can  deal with other licenses -- for print works, and many  
> others, Attribution
> probably works relatively well -- then you can have access to more imagery.

Really, there's two different licensing issues here:
- licensing of the imagery
- licensing of derived vector works ("tracings")

I can see the merit in OAM offering variously-licensed imagery. As you  
say, lots of providers will insist on attribution, and solving that is  
a fairly trivial technical issue with few ramifications for the  
end-user.

But I don't feel that we should accept any restrictions on the latter.  
Preventing people from tracing is a Bad Thing that requires  
hard-to-understand contracts over and above the clear intent of  
copyright law. There isn't even the ODbL defence (where contracts are  
necessary for a level playing field internationally) - I don't know of  
any jurisdiction where tracing non-original features from imagery  
inherits a copyright.

Even if the tracing tries to enforce a share-alike component through  
contract (e.g. "your derivations must be licensed CC-BY-SA") it will  
almost certainly end up being incompatible with other share-alike  
licences, because you're creating data (needs a data licence) from  
something that'll _probably_ have a creative works licence.

cheers
Richard