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

[jamesmikedupont at googlemail.com]

On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 10:57 AM, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> A good counter example is the use of OpenStreetMap after the
> Haiti disaster.. it is based on the same kinds of data that is put into
> doubt in a different context.

That was done only after OSM received explicit permission to use that data.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Haiti/Imagery_and_data_sources#GeoEye

We did not receive this permission for the flooding in Albania that I
am working on, if we could use the images then that would make our
work much simpler.
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/AlbanianFloodingCrisisCamp

Just because it is good publicity for a company to donate data to a
high profile disaster does not mean that you can use other data for
other smaller disasters.

How would these companies be in business if you could just extract all
the vector data from the sat photos as you wish? If that was so, I
could also extract the street data from the google earth using a
contour program, or extract certain colors and create and compare
streets based on that.

That is against against OSM policy.

A friend of mine has created a bullet point list of the major issues
here, I will include it for further discussion:

* Using data from google maps is a contract law issue, not a copyright issue
** Anyone mass publishing google derived data could be in breach of
Google's T&C's
** Anyone using the information afterwards isn't in breach of contract
** Re-use is dependent on the jurisdiction and copyright the
information is released under.

* Wikipedia has strong policy on accepting images only freely usable
** The same can't be said for data, wikipedia has data from dubious sources
** Data uploaded from google services may be in breach of google's
terms on mass distribution

* While facts aren't protected under copyright under some jurisdictions
** Databases of facts can be protected under EU law and wikipedia
operates in various EU jurisdictions
** By not having a strong policy on all content wikipedia may open
themselves up to being liable


mike