I am considering to use some images that show maps for a trivia quiz mobile app.
Those maps do not require detailed point of interests inside cities, but those are the maps of larger areas that show locations of countries, cities, moutains, rivers etc., I am considering to get some simple base map images, change the appearence of them, and put some texts and arrows on them and use them as png or svg files embedded in the mobile app.
(For example, the app page shows a map image with texts of “A”, “B”, “C” on different locations, and in a textbox outside of the map, there is a question string saying “where is Paris? choose from A~C”)
As the base map images, the map data from OpenStreetMap is a natural candidate, but the copyright and license terms are the concern for using OSM. That is why I am posting here for the confirmation (if other place is better for this confirmation, it would be helpful to know that)
When I see the copyright page (OpenStreetMap), I found there are two requirements as below:
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Provide credit to OpenStreetMap by displaying our copyright notice.
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Make clear that the data is available under the Open Database License.
The first one is straightforward to me. I understand it is required to put “C OpenStreetMap contributors” string on each of the map images or write that string somewhere inside the app (ex. the credits page) as mentioned in the guidelines ( Licence/Attribution Guidelines - OpenStreetMap Foundation (osmfoundation.org))
The second point is not so clear for me and this is the concern for me. Firstly, I am concerned how and where (ex. whole app or particular data) the “Open Data License” is applied and how this license may bring any risks to my full ownership of the (commercial) app and the contents , in other words, I am concerning about any “copyleft” risk caused by using OpenStreetMap derived images. Does this license mean, if an app uses images that originally derived from OpenStreetMap data, the app is required to disclose the entire source code to be opensource (ex. on github)? Or the trivia quiz contents (partially or wholly) can be freely copied (by screenshot or other ways) and distributed by the users? This is the point I would like to confirm.
Secondly, what are needed to do to comply the second point? If there are good examples for similar mobile app use cases, I would like to know that. Also, if there are any previous bad examples that caused any issues in the past, it is also helpful (only if any)
Thank you for your advice.