[Imports] Permission Statement

[Greg Troxel]

Brian May <bmay at mapwise.com> writes:

> 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.

Agreed in principle, but I think "open records" is off base.  The real
issue is copyright, not whether we have a legal right to demand map data
held by the government.



> 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/

Yes, but for the Massachusetts page (where I'm reasonably familiar with
the rules, having been subjected to mandatory trainign), it does not
mention copyright at all that I noticed.

> 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?

I completely fail to understand how you conclude that.  These state laws
and federal copyright laws act independently.  Perhaps more importantly,
creative works (other than old or by the federal government) simply are
copyrighted.

In MA, one can get a copy of public records, and one can disclose the
information, but I see no right to copy, distribute, or to create
derivative works.  As an example my Conservation Commission publishes
trail maps.  Copyright is held by the town under the work-for-hire
doctrine, and there's no license to copy granted, other than the "it's
ok to print this out and use it" implied grant.

> 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.

That view might be right given enough case law, but it is remarkable and
in need of citations.

The phrase "allow governments to copyright" does not make sense since
that's not how copyright works.  If it were "prohibits the government
from enforcing copyright" and "prohibits the government from acquiring
data unless the government is authorized to grant licenses to
redistribute under CC0", that's something else.

> 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.

I don't follow "grabbing".  If there isn't a license, the fact that you
can get at the data doesn't seem to matter.  That would be like copying
frmo google maps because you can.

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

Agreed.  I think most states intend to grant
CC0/PD-with-attribution-requested terms, but the agencies are not
necessarily adequately copyright-pedantic, and a high-level contact
could be useful.

(I and others in .ma.us have discussed licensing with MassGIS and the
conversations have been highly reasonable.)