[OSM-legal-talk] Mass import of TeleAtlas data

[Albertas Agejevas]

Hello,

I hope this is the right place for these matters.

I have found evidence that user Pranas seems to have uploaded lots of
Google Maps/TeleAtlas data into OSM.  For example, look at this intersection:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=55.70241,21.13717&spn=0.004323,0.01016&t=h&z=17
http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=55.702474&lon=21.136877&zoom=18&layers=B00FTF

TeleAtlas has a roundabout here, whereas there is no such thing in
reality, and the satellite image confirms this.

I fixed this place around 11 hours ago.  I suspected this data is
copied from somewhere, but haven't figured out it's Google Maps.

Here's one more place with data obviously copied:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&ie=UTF8&ll=56.00042,21.08855&spn=0.017158,0.040641&t=h&z=15
http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=56.00042&lon=21.08855&zoom=15&layers=B00FTF

The Google's satellite data is accurate, the streets on the map aren't there in reality.

If more evidence is needed, in mid-July I mapped a new street in
Klaipėda, Šiaurės prospektas.  Pranas seems to have deleted it and
replaced it with obsolete TeleAtlas data.  The previously existing
part of Šiaurės prosp. is titled Kosmonautų g., the name that very
much smells of the Soviet times 20 years ago.  Again, I mapped the new
street again last night, but the incorrect version is still visible in
Mapnik maps:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=55.728765,21.132352&spn=0.008639,0.02032&z=16
http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=55.728765&lon=21.132352&zoom=15&layers=B00FTF

It appears that since the end of July Pranas has transfered whole maps
of numerous towns and cities in Lithuania from Google Maps: in the
range of 17000 nodes and 3000 ways.

Most of the imported ways are marked highway=residential, regardless
of whether they actually are residential, or go through industrial
areas, or are the primary roads through the city.

The sad thing is that Pranas seems to have deleted the legitimately
created data that was already there.  So it is not enough just to
scrap all work added by Pranas, but ways deleted by him need to be
resurrected.

Albertas