[OSM-legal-talk] Fwd: Albania GIS Data

[Richard Fairhurst]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Paul Mastin" <paul at it-comms.com>
> Date: 22 September 2008 06:32:22 BDT
> To: <legal-talk-owner at openstreetmap.org>
> Subject: Albania GIS Data
>
> Hi,
>
> My name is Paul Mastin.  I am currently a U.S. Peace Corps  
> volunteer living and working in Laç, Albania.  I have been  
> exchanging emails with someone regarding copyright issues behind a  
> set of GIS data I have acquired for Albania.  I have pasted the  
> relevant parts of this email into the message body.  We would like  
> to incorporate the dataset, but I do not know if there are  
> copyright implications!?!
>
> Thanks!
>
> Paul Mastin
>
> >> Let me give you some background about what we are trying to do.  We
> >> started this out back about a year ago.  We like camping/ 
> backpacking
> >> and were unable to find anything that is remotely accurate  
> enough for
> >> these purposes.
> >>
> >> So, I started out looking into various data sources that existed  
> for
> >> Albania.  These are what I found:
> >>
> >> 1) Russian era / Albanian government produced topo maps ->  
> difficult
> >> to find, people claim excessive copyrights, etc
> >> 2) USAID produced GIS data -> difficult to obtain, the general  
> issues
> >> that are encountered when working with the US Government, data
> >> sources are unknown, but I can posit a non-authoritative guess…
> >> 3) Privately produced GIS data that allegedly exists, but... never
> >> found anything concrete in this area
> >>
> >> I greatly admire your copyright efforts.  Very laudable.  I forget
> >> sometimes that things in the real world actually do function  
> somewhat
> >> normally.  Now, this being said, this is where we will need to
> >> discuss some things.
> >>
> >> 1) I am not a copyright expert
> >> 2) I have read your site's copyright pages in the wiki, and will
> >> likely need to discuss some things with you about how I go about  
> some
> >> things and what I will need to do to make sure that everything  
> is on
> >> the up and up.  I previously wasn't too worried about this, just
> >> using what I can find... the free as beer saying from your site.
> >>
> >> Here are what I have been able to get.
> >>
> >> 1) A complete set of 50k / 100k Russian maps.  The copyright on  
> this
> >> is tenuous.  The survey data is from a 1930's survey completed  
> by the
> >> Italians.
> >> The source of the other data is assumed to be from the Russian  
> era in
> >> Albania.  There are some companies in the U.S. that sell these maps
> >> and claim a copyright.  My set was obtained from Jonathan de
> >> Ferranti, who in turn obtained them from a source in Russia.  I can
> >> forward you his emails to me regarding the copyright issues.
> >>
> >> 2) USAID data.  This was obtained by a Peace Corps volunteer from a
> >> previous group.  He passed them down to me.  I also believe that he
> >> has published these on the internet.  I will contact him to get his
> >> thoughts on the copyright.  USAID provided them for use in  
> producing
> >> tourism maps.
> >> The
> >> exact sources of the data are unknown.  They were originally in the
> >> Albanian projection, which is a derivative of the Polkovo?? 1942
> >> datum and the GK Zone 4 projection.  When I georeferenced the maps
> >> provided and compared them with the data obtained from USAID, they
> >> seemed to line up.  This leads me to assume that the two data  
> sources
> >> used the same survey data.  When compared with landsat imagery of
> >> Albania, there are some discrepancies.
> >> These were
> >> confirmed with my GPS comparisons.  Everything seems to be shifted
> >> approximately 0.5 - 5 km.  This is where I have been working to  
> make
> >> a contribution.  I have worked to reproject all of the data from  
> the
> >> obscure Albanian projection into the WGS84 system.  After doing  
> this,
> >> I have been working to reconcile the errors and improve the  
> accuracy
> >> to around 100m.
> >> Using my GPS and some methods in ArcGIS, I have been able to  
> correct
> >> many of the road networks.  These are by no means complete.   
> However,
> >> they are better than they were.  Having said this, I can get into
> >> really nitty gritty details about what I have, what state it is in,
> >> etc.  However, the issues that seem most prudent are this:  
> copyright
> >> and usability.  What of this data would be useful for your efforts,
> >> and what are your thoughts on the copyright issues?  As far as data
> >> sources for the road networks are concerned, no Google Earth  
> imagery
> >> was used.  Only public domain sources such as LandSat and my  
> private
> >> GPS tracks were used.  As far as major water bodies are  
> concerned, I
> >> am using Google Earth imagery verified with Landsat imagery to
> >> correct data.  Let me know your thoughts here.
> >>
> >> Technically, it looks like you have an API established that would
> >> allow me to publish the raw data on my site, and then perform  
> updates
> >> in your site.
> >> I have only looked over your API briefly, so I may not be getting
> >> everything in great detail.  Here are my long term objectives for
> >> this data: I have about 8-10 months of time left in Albania.  I  
> think
> >> that this is enough time to really get a nice dataset compiled and
> >> published on the internet.  I am in the process of building a site
> >> that will allow people to access the Russian topo maps and raw GIS
> >> data.  This is where your site comes in.  I think this would be a
> >> really great way of getting something out there for people to find
> >> when they are looking for information about Albania.
> >>
> >> Finally, I am NOT a GIS expert.  Everything that I have learned  
> about
> >> it I have taught to myself.  I started last January and have been
> >> learning as much as possible.  I am very meticulous about the
> >> accuracy and integrity of the data that I am attempting to improve.
> >> This being said, I am proficient in web design and development
> >> (MySQL, PHP, HTML, CSS).  I am technical in nature, not afraid of
> >> details and things technical.
>

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