I have some questions to licensing and using OpenStreetMap platform for our web project. We want to show markers for some specific places from our database (open to everyone) and then we will have some subscription model that will allow people to have our services included, however that won't affect any map behavior. All users have access to the same map without any exception. We will only use our own database of points.

Our questions are:

  1. Can we use OpenStreetMaps for commercial projects?
  2. Can we have our own copyright for website project/company in website footer, and keep openstreetmap copyright only in maps?
  3. When we create a web project, OpenStreetMaps use CC-BY-SA 2.0, what does it mean for us? Does it mean our web project is automatically also under this license, we must share our database of points on demand or people can copy our website (or parts) or we must share our source code?
  4. In case we have higher OpenStreetMap API usage (or tiles) do we need to pay something or need to register somewhere or host maps on our own? :-)

Thanks for clarification!

asked 16 Jan '19, 16:02

MajkieS's gravatar image

accept rate: 0%

edited 16 Jan '19, 20:13

aseerel4c26's gravatar image

aseerel4c26 ♦


Please don't use answers to ask more questions. If there is a follow up question that you believe needs to be asked, add it to your original question or add a comment.

Please note that we cannot provide you with detailed legal advice on your business plan and concept, that is what your lawyers are for.

(16 Jan '19, 22:12) SimonPoole ♦

Okay. Why did you delete my comment? We do not remember the text of it anymore since it was so long? Can you push it back so we can copy it to main thread?

(16 Jan '19, 22:21) MajkieS

Because it a) wasn't a comment, but an answer, and b) because you had edited it I couldn't convert it (that is due to a bug in the software).

In any case you should read the "community guidelines" specifically the "Collective Database" document, that should answer most of your further questions.

(17 Jan '19, 07:23) SimonPoole ♦

OSM data is free to use for any purpose, including commercial use, use is governed by our distribution licence, the ODbL, see

for more information.

Our copyright and licence concerns itself with the use of our data and derivatives from it, in general software consuming and presenting works based on our data is not affected by the licence, but you will naturally have to provide for attribution in an appropriate fashion.

Besides licensing the data, the OSMF provides a range of services these are not offered on commercial terms and are subject to our use policies, see https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/

It should be noted that theses services are geared towards supporting our contributor community and are typically not the best choice for general purpose use, but you do not need special permission as long as your use remains within the limits of the AUPs. Alternatively you can run such services yourself, or contract with a commercial provider of OSM based services, such, for example, be found here: https://switch2osm.org/providers/

A final point: only the "standard" tile layer provided on openstreetmap.org is provided by the OSMF, for licensing details for the other layers you will need to contact the respective provider.

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answered 16 Jan '19, 16:58

SimonPoole's gravatar image

SimonPoole ♦
accept rate: 19%

edited 16 Jan '19, 17:03

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question asked: 16 Jan '19, 16:02

question was seen: 1,165 times

last updated: 17 Jan '19, 07:23

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