[Imports] Maritime Boundaries from VLIZ?

[Paul Norman]

> From: Michael Krämer [mailto:ohrosm at googlemail.com]
> Subject: [Imports] Maritime Boundaries from VLIZ?
> 
> Hi,
> 
> recently I have noticed that there are at quite a few islands in the
> southern pacific where the only data is the PGS coastline import.
> Refining the coastline can be done from Bing and adding the appropirate
> tags also is not a problem.
> 
> But getting the borders right is a problem. Especially for atolls it's
> probably not a good idea to use the coastline directly as the boundary
> - for an example cf. [1].
> 
> So I have done some searching if there is a source that could be used
> for an import. There are good sources for land borders like the data
> from US DoS. Unfortunately maritime boundaries seem to be more difficult
> to get. But I came across the Flanders Marine Institute that has a
> database ([2]) that sounds promising. Surprisingly I couldn't find any
> reference to the data neither in the wiki nor in the discussions. So the
> next step would be to look more closely into the data. Also I would
> contact the institute if the data could be used for OSM as their terms
> ([3]) are a bit ambiguous for me.
> 
> But before doing so I just wanted to cross-check here if anybody already
> knows more about this dataset.
> 
> Just to make sure: Yes, I am aware of the drawbacks of an import - but
> personally I think international borders are hard to get otherwise.
> Also I'm not considering a bulk import, but more an interactive human-
> driven manual import where needed.

I had a look at their terms, and they're clearly unacceptable for OSM. 

The first paragraph looks okay for the terms. It says the data should not be
used for some purposes, but does not prohibit it. It could be clearer.

The second paragraph does not allow redistribution of the data without
permission. The attribution requirements are also in excess of what OSM
gives. OSM gives attribution through the database, they would require
attribution on the map itself for wherever their data is used.

Looking at http://www.vliz.be/vmdcdata/marbound/methodology.php implies that
some of their data is from the NOAA. I do not know for sure if NOAA data is
public domain, but I think it is. I'm not sure if the NOAA data is useful or
if what would be more useful is the European and UN data which is probably
copyright.