[OSM-legal-talk] How does Google map maker handle copyright

LeedsTracker leedstracker at gmail.com
Thu Mar 19 13:43:11 GMT 2009


2009/3/19 Erik Johansson <erjohan at gmail.com>:
> After reading about the Lithuanian problems I really wonder how Google
> map maker handles copyright violations, do they really care if someone
> copies the street names from a local map maker, can they? Then again
> not many Street names are mapped on google map maker.
>
> Everytime I tell new OSM users "You can't copy street names from the
> map" something feels really broken, and most people I talk to have no
> understanding why they shouldn't copy names from other maps. One
> response from a book editor was "But how can there ever be more than
> one map if you can't copy the existing map".
>
> My theory is that information freedom freaks such as CC, FSF, EFF,
> Wikipedia and OSMF teaches us to be too paranoid about copyright,
> because they want people to use their free stuff. Then again better
> safe than sorry.

I think many of the answers you will receive will be like those in this thread:
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2009-February/034310.html

I suspect there are legally defendable ways of using some data, but if
OSM did this it would eventually lead to challenges from Google,
Ordnance Survey etc.

Assuming this ever got to court, OSM might have a case on paper, but
it's not a line anyone wants to go down.

Just because you're "too paranoid", doesn't mean they won't send the
lawyers after you!

regards,
LT




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