[OSM-legal-talk] Adding UK post box information

[Gervase Markham]

On 08/07/09 12:13, Stephen Gower wrote:
> Actually, for what it's worth (probably very little) the very original file
> is provided as a PDF on the section of
> http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/location_of_every_post_box_that
> marked from Royal Mail Group and dated 13 June 2008.  The only reason I
> mention this is that the first page has a copyright statement, and OSM
> community opinion at the time was that with the whiter-than-white,
> just-in-case-someone-tries-to-sue policy we have (had?) this info shouldn't
> be stored in OSM.

But it's not this info that's being stored in OSM. The info provided is 
not sufficient to establish the location of the postbox (as I have 
found, having hunted, occasionally for quite some time, for all 44 of 
them in N14). What we are storing is the exact location.

Royal Mail doesn't know the exact location of all its postboxes. If we 
find out for them, what are the chances they would sue us? It's flipping 
useful from their point of view. They could apply proper Travelling 
Salesman algorithms to them to optimise pick-up routes.

Gerv