There are differences in how data (incl. map data) is treated under US law and how UK/European law treat data and data collections/databases
Wikipedia is operates under US copyright law, w/ servers and the foundation US based (not sure how the Amsterdam servers fit under laws). In the US, facts such as listings in the phone book and geocoordinates are not copyrightable. I think wikipedians deriving these facts from google maps or google earth is okay under us law
On the otherhand, openstreetmap is based in the uk with servers in London, and operates under uk/european law. I know that databases and data collections do get some protection under law there. Thus openstreetmap regards databases of coordinates (eg google) as having protection and disallows google maps as a source for osm
Although deriving geocoordinates from google maps for wikipedia (under us law) is okay, I would prefer not doing so and use osm, NASA worldwind and other public domain or open licensed sources. (gps okay too, though that gets into other questions). But the deed is done in regards to coordinates and I see enough consensus among wikipedians about facts not being copyrightable, so I'm not so interested in debating that
The best way to link osm to wikipedia is not to import wikipedia coordinates. Rather there is an osm wikipedia tag to enter the name/ URL of an associated wikipedia article
Aude
Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 1, 2010, at 11:21 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 1 April 2010 14:58, Alison M. Wheeler wikimedia@alisonwheeler.com wrote:
- Taking an image from a satellite or aeroplane image requires no
copyrightable skill: Camera points down, takes images at fixed focus at regular time intervals. Images are published.
Minor detail - although this is a valid point philosophically, as I understand it the current state of things is that such imagery is in fact considered to have a valid copyright, even if the creative input is "let's send up a plane and set this automatic camera going" or "let's build a robot with a camera and start it in a given place" or "let's send a probe to Saturn and have it take pictures." NASA images are PD not because of no creativity, but because they're US Federal Government works.
- d.
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