On Sun, Sep 15, 2013 at 12:52 AM, Platonides <platonides@gmail.com> wrote:

== Licensing issue ==
If we can use Google Maps to get object coordinates into the articles is another tricky question (and hard to fix after done). I will wait for Luis opinion, but we should be careful.

I am totally not qualified to answer so everything I say below could be wrong :)

I think it's *not* okay to get the coordinates from OpenStreetMap. OpenStreetMap is licensed under the Open Database License (ODbL) which protected database rights. I don't think ODbL and CC-BY-SA 3.0 are compatible.

Database rights are recognized in Europe (where OSM is hosted) but not in the US (where Wikimedia projects are hosted). It is important to note that database rights != copyright.

>From Wikimedia perspective, we are generally only concerned with copyright and believe that facts like coordinates are not copyrightable. Hence, using Google Maps as a source for coordinates often regarded as okay.

Whether or not one cares about database rights, I think it's not a good idea to violate OSM's license by using OSM as a source for coordinates.

The question about using Google Maps as a source could be argued either way, in my opinion.

Cheers,

Katie

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