[Imports] NavAds fuel stations import, take 3

[Christoph Hormann]

On Sunday 06 May 2018, Ilya Zverev wrote:
>
> I wonder, how did we in our pursuit of copyright purity came from "do
> not copy from google" to "do not even decide what not to map if there
> is a google tab in your browser"?
>
> It IS using GSV for making decisions. But not for taking any data.
> Google does not have copyright on your decisions based on images it
> shows. Thoughts are not copyrightable.
>
> [...]

The problem comes from systematically extracting data from non-free 
sources.  If you verify a certain individual fact by looking at Google 
Street View there is no legal problem with that.  But if you do it for 
a thousand fuel stations (or a thousand different mappers do it each 
for one fuel station) that is potentially systematic extraction of data 
from a non-free source Google might object to.

Regarding database rights there is no principal difference between 
extracting a simple yes/no fact and tracing a complex geometry.  Unless 
you are in scope below the threshold of extracting a substantial part 
(and case law is still fairly thin on what that is) you need to expect 
the database owner to have legal grounds to object to any such use.

Of course you can say you cannot determine from the data that simple 
yes/no decisions have been extracted from a certain data source so it 
would be impossible for Google to actually prove their data has been 
used.  Not sure if i would want to rely on that though.

And of course Google will most certainly not risk opening that can of 
worms anyway (there probably has never been a better example of someone 
sitting in a glass house than Google w.r.t. database rights) but that 
is not really a good basis of making such decisions either.

Long story short:  Any potentially systematic use of non-free sources 
without explicit permission should probably be avoided and integrating 
GSV as a verification option in a verification tool would bear a strong 
potential for systematic use.  If mappers individually occasionally 
consult GSV during their mapping work that is not something we as an 
open data project should support but that is ultimately between them, 
Google and their TOS and the Contributor terms and the obligation 
stated in there to not use any not allowed sources.

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/