[Imports] Permission Statement

[Brian May]

On 3/12/2020 1:47 PM, Mike Thompson wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 10:50 AM Greg Troxel <gdt at lexort.com 
> <mailto:gdt at lexort.com>> wrote:
> >
> > Brian May <bmay at mapwise.com <mailto:bmay at mapwise.com>> writes:
> >
>
> >
> > Being able to access a public record is one thing, and possible
> > copyright issues are another.   The page does not mention copyright, and
> > it's the same thing in Massachusetts.
> Exactly, "publicly available"  may not be the same as "public domain." 
> For example, most books are copyright, but they are publicly available 
> (anyone can buy them or check them out from the library and read them, 
> but you can't copy them and redistribute them).
>
> The Colorado open records law actually does allow, but doesn't 
> require, state agencies to copyright some things. In this case the 
> agency is neither claiming copyright, nor are they stating the data is 
> in the public domain.  However, if the statement from the agency is 
> acceptable to the OSM community, I will proceed with creating the plan 
> and ask for community feedback on it.
>
> Mike
>
>
We (OSM-US) should really have a state by state guide on open records 
laws per state. That would make the "license check" process easier. Look 
up the state, get an answer. At least a quick answer to start from.

This site seems to do a decent job of explaining public records per 
state in a standardized format - https://www.rcfp.org/open-government-guide/

But the state statutes are where you find the details and final answers. 
If copyright is not mentioned at all in the statutes, then its public 
domain, right?

In my view, if the state statutes do not allow governments operating 
within the state to copyright public records OR don't mention it at all, 
then you don't need to ask the government data provider for permission 
at all, like in Florida.

In this case, sounds like Colorado allows governments to copyright, but 
this government chose not to. From what I've seen, the only time they do 
try and exert copyright is if they are trying to make money on the data. 
And even then, it seems like there's ways of skirting that, e.g. 
grabbing data from a public facing ArcGIS Server.

This seems like a topic for the OSM US Board to provide direction on.

Brian
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