OpenStreetMap Attribution for Products You Sell

• Commercial use is allowed. OpenStreetMap data is free to use, including for products you sell.
• Credit is required when the piece is used publicly, and selling it counts.
• Put the credit in three places: the listing or point of sale, the packaging, and on the item itself where you can.
• Use this text: "© OpenStreetMap contributors, openstreetmap.org/copyright".

OpenStreetMap data is published under the Open Database License (ODbL). A map you make from that data, such as a laser cut map, is what the license calls a Produced Work. The OpenStreetMap Foundation's FAQ says you can license a Produced Work under any terms you like, and there are no fees to use the data.

So you own your design and can sell the piece. The one firm duty is attribution: people who see the work should be able to tell that the map data came from OpenStreetMap and that it is available under the ODbL.

The OSMF Attribution Guideline has a section for artwork, household goods and clothing. It is the one that covers laser maps.

Physical merchandise with an aesthetic component using OpenStreetMap data must provide attribution on any packaging, at the point of sale, and, to the extent possible, somewhere on the item itself. For example, merchandise may provide attribution text in the vicinity of the image, or on the item's label or tag. The text must be readable and include the URL openstreetmap.org/copyright printed out.

OSMF Attribution Guideline, Artwork, household goods, and clothing

The text must be readable, so don't engrave it at a size nobody can read. The URL has to be printed out in full, because a physical object can't carry a link.

The guideline says attribution must be to "OpenStreetMap" and must make clear the data is under the ODbL, which the copyright page explains. The historical forms "© OpenStreetMap contributors" and "© OpenStreetMap" are acceptable. You may also qualify it, for example "Map data from OpenStreetMap," since you rendered the data to your own design.

• Listing or card: Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, openstreetmap.org/copyright
• Back of the piece: © OpenStreetMap contributors openstreetmap.org/copyright

In MappSmith, the "Message on the back" field is an easy place to put the credit so it is engraved with every piece.

The ODbL is a share-alike license, which worries some makers. It applies to the data, not to your finished piece.

• Your piece and your design can be sold under any terms.
• If you change or add to the data itself (a Derivative Database) and use it publicly, that data must be shared under the ODbL.
• On request, a recipient of a Produced Work can ask for the OSM data and any Derivative Database you used to make it.

For a maker who uses map data as it comes and designs a piece from it, share-alike rarely comes into play. Attribution is the part to get right.

OpenStreetMap is not the only source in many map pieces. Elevation and lake depth come from other publishers, which may have their own terms and credits. In MappSmith, elevation comes from Copernicus DEM data and lake depths from public lake surveys. Map styles from other services (for example ones built on Google data) are not OpenStreetMap and carry different terms. Check the terms of every source you use before you sell.