Add contributor info for Czechia for copyright web page

[tkas]

The Czech Local Chapter is in negotiation with State Administration of
Land Surveying and Cadastre about possibility to use their newly
opened data in OSM. We have the agreement with request to put them as
a source of data on the copyright web page:

https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright/en

Czechia: Contains data from the State Administration of Land Surveying
and Cadastre licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International license (CC BY 4.0).

and mainly czech version of this page:

Česko: Obsahuje data z produkce Zeměměřického úřadu licencovaná pro
opětovné použití pod licencí Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0).

I expect this pull request to handle the EN main page and the CZ language version will be later prepared via https://translatewiki.net/.

[gravitystorm]

Thanks @tkas for your pull request.

Changes and/or additions to this page need to be approved by the OSMF LWG. Please contact them directly to discuss your situation.

https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Licensing_Working_Group

When LWG are happy with your proposed changes, a member of LWG can then comment on this pull request accordingly, to let us know the changes have been formally approved.

[tkas]

When LWG are happy with your proposed changes, a member of LWG can then comment on this pull request accordingly, to let us know the changes have been formally approved.

OK, I'm coordinating this with Mikel Maron, he asked me to prepare the pull request, so I guess he will guide me through further steps as well. Thanks.

[simonpoole]

It really needs to be clear that this is a very very very bad idea, and every additional entry on the "copyright" page makes it more difficult for everybody else negotiating with similar organisations to deflect requests to be added there instead of on https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contributors (pending a better solution).

Pointing @mikelmaron to the above.

PS: have they agreed to sign the CC BY 4.0 waiver, just out of curiosity?

[mikelmaron]

@simonpoole good point. @tkas please pivot as Simon suggests

[tkas]

Yes, they send us signed letter approving us to use their CC BY 4.0 data for OSM. As they explicitly mention the requirement to be present on the copyright page and the text to be put there, moving to other URL make the approval useless. We will need to discuss this internally and either give up or restart the whole process.

If is very unpleasant, that there is no information, that no new entries will be added to the copyright page or better the copyright page is modified to put all references to other place. Second point is, that putting this kind of stuff to wiki, that can be edited by anybody, is viewed as not equal to the copyright page by these institutions.

[pnorman]

Yes, they send us signed letter approving us to use their CC BY 4.0 data for OSM. As they explicitly mention the requirement to be present on the copyright page and the text to be put there, moving to other URL make the approval useless. We will need to discuss this internally and either give up or restart the whole process.

If they've signed the CC BY waiver, this contradicts the requirement they want for attribution on a specific page, but I'd go with their statement denying usage and not use the data.

[simonpoole]

If is very unpleasant, that there is no information, that no new entries will be added to the copyright page or better the copyright page is modified to put all references to other place.

I kind of agree, though it is unclear where that information should be located. In any case the template waiver only points to the wiki page https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Licence/Waiver_and_Permission_Templates/Cover_letter_and_waiver_template_for_CC_BY_4.0 Note that Creative Commons was of the opinion that the CC BY 4.0 wording didn't require any special permission in scenarios in which central attribution is the only practical option, we chose to still ask for it because we respect our data providers and don't want to rely on fine detail in the licence they may have missed, as @pnorman wrote if they don't want to give permission this would be something that would lead to us not wanting to use the data. See https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2017/03/17/use-of-cc-by-data/

Second point is, that putting this kind of stuff to wiki, that can be edited by anybody, is viewed as not equal to the copyright page by these institutions.

The current way of providing attribution for 3rd party sources is broken and needs to be replaced, however that is not an opinion universally held. But I agree, see https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/2017/Project_Ideas#Third_Party_Source_Management_System and https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/rethinking-the-import-catalog/99309/1

Further discussion on the specifics of attribution location would probably be better on the forum.

[datastory]

I agree with @pnorman that this doesn't make much sense from a legal standpoint, and I'd like to take it further: most of the data in question don't seem to meet the criteria for creative contribution, which means they wouldn't qualify for copyright protection. The only remaining question is a sui generis right, but considering the current EU framework for reusing data generated by the public sector, these rights can't be used to restrict data usage. Consequently, the CC BY license declared by the Czech cadastral bureau holds no validity and as a result, we can integrate the data into OSM without any questions asked.

But there's a copyright website listing providers of public sector data from other EU countries. Given that the EU generally follows similar intellectual property and data reuse laws, one might question the purpose of such a resource. One possible explanation I see is that it serves as a diplomatic tool to smooth up negotiations with public sector bodies, ensuring swift access to data for integration into OSM, thereby making it accessible to everyone.

And that is precisely why we're requesting an update. The data in question constitute a substantial collection of geodata, including regularly updated aerial imagery datasets, it's the Czech equivalent of the UK's Ordnance Survey. Incorporating this data into OSM would greatly enhance the mapping of Czechia. It's puzzling why public sector providers from other countries are featured on this list, yet Czech providers can not.

Certainly, we could take @pnorman's suggestion and publicly highlight the bureau's refusal on a wiki page to shame them into reconsidering their licensing approach. However, considering my five-year-long legal case to open this data, involving multiple court instances including the constitutional one, I'd recommend experimenting with this strategy on a less valuable dataset first ;)

[simonpoole]

It's puzzling why public sector providers from other countries are featured on this list, yet Czech providers can not.

Nearly all of the sources in question were added years ago when having OGD was the exception not the norm. The one "later" case I know of was a mistake and should have not been added.

PS: it isn't as if a working solution for all sources is a mountain of effort, it just needs somebody to either do or finance it.

[gravitystorm]

I'm going to step in here and ask that this conversation continues elsewhere. Either among DWG, or on the forum, or wherever you all think is most suitable.

Both the specific case of Czechia attribution, and the general case of where attribution does go today or should go in the future, is not on topic here, and floods our other contributors with lots of notifications on a topic that we cannot action and are not in charge of!

So please, if you comment is not "I'm here representing the DWG and the DWG has formally approved this PR" or something very similar, please find a better place to discuss.

(P.S. good luck @tkas I hope this gets figured out).

[kathleenlu09]

LWG voted on this today, and this PR is approved.

[gravitystorm]

There's one small typo here. If you could fix that (and combine the fixup into the original commit) that would be great.

I'm happy to do this for you if you prefer. However, you haven't allowed maintainers to update this PR, so if I do it for you it will look like this PR was rejected ☹️

[gravitystorm]

All looks good to me @tkas ! Thanks for your help and your patience.