[Foundation-l] Copyrighted maps and Derived works from copyrighted sources.

jamesmikedupont at googlemail.com jamesmikedupont at googlemail.com
Thu Apr 1 12:28:06 UTC 2010


Guys,
Lets get back to one point : terms of service.

We are talking about copyright here the whole time, but the contract
agreement in the terms of service are much more binding, they override
your copyright.

If the terms of service do not allow mass database extraction, WP is
violating that on a large scale.

The online maps are provided to you under very strict rules and to
access them you must agree to them.
The whole idea of many map providers is that you can only view these
great maps using their software and their software keys.

If wikipedia is condoning a mass import of data from such a source
that goes against that contract, how can you justify it? How can other
people trust the judgement of wikipedia on this issue?

What if we start to write articles about street and include all the
buildings and boring parts of the streets in the WP or some
subproject, where would it stop? What would protect a database of
streets against such a swarm of fact collectors?
mike

On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 1:21 PM, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> The position of a bridge, a building, a statue is a fact. It cannot be
> copyrighted and the only reason for attribution of a map used to obtain such
> a coordinate is to allow other people to verify the process. Coordinates are
> available on many Wikipedia articles, they come from a wide variety of
> sources and are provided by a large number of people. There is no way of
> knowing what these people used to provide the information with. It is highly
> irrelevant.
>
> I had a look at your references to entries in mailing lists. The only thing
> I find is people having an opinion but not providing arguments. Facts, among
> them coordinates found in Wikipedia articles, are part of a CC-by-sa
> resource and once extracted from Wikipedia it is no longer possible to claim
> copyright and insist on a particular licensing scheme. When articles that
> include coordinates are projected as an overlay on a map be it OpenStreetMap
> or Google Maps / Earth such an overlay uses the maps as a backdrop to
> provide orientation in the real world.
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> On 1 April 2010 12:07, jamesmikedupont at googlemail.com <
> jamesmikedupont at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> On this note, there is no real discussion of the copyright and
>> licensing issues on this page:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Obtaining_geographic_coordinates#Google_tools
>>
>> It says :
>> There are various ways to obtain geographic coordinates. Note that
>> regardless of the source of coordinates, it is good practice to
>> evaluate whether they appear reasonable at first glance.
>>
>> Be sure to read the licensing information carefully so that data
>> providers receive an appropriate attribution.
>>
>> So how are these coordinates being attributed?
>>
>> mike
>>
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