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Comment by JacobKfromIRC | Hacker News Reader

The license seems to already require this: https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright/

Maybe I am misunderstanding the summary, but it says: "If you publicly use any adapted version of this database, or works produced from an adapted database, you must also offer that adapted database under the ODbL." <https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/summary/>

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Yeah the problem is what's considered an adapted database. If it was strict it would mean apps like Alltrails (which is 90% openstreetmaps data) would need to list their trailmaps as open databases, but they don't.

The problem is that factual details aren't copyrightable in the first place, so no amount of licensing will prevent organizations with enough money to pay a lawyer from understanding this and using the data as they see fit. And on the flip side, those organizations can pay those same lawyers to write scary boilerplate to make it seem like their map data is “proprietary” and therefore “protected by copyright” even though it isn't.

Maps Traditionally have a few intentional errors because those are copyright, in turn meaning if one is found you can sue for copyright violations.

I know that's the common story, but I have never seen any actual court cases confirming that theory; certainly the recoverable damages from such copying such an error would be minuscule.

Wikipedia has an entry that lists a few court cases, mostly showing that this strategy, as you surmise, fails to stand up in court.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry

They probably aren't really using the OSM data.

For example, if I use Google Maps to drive to a new neighborhood and then take a bunch of notes about the new neighborhood, my notes are not subject to the terms and conditions of Google Maps.

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