[OSM-legal-talk] Response from Hampshire County Council

[David Groom]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Martin Koppenhoefer" <dieterdreist at gmail.com>
To: "Licensing and other legal discussions." <legal-talk at openstreetmap.org>
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2012 1:38 PM
Subject: Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Response from Hampshire County Council


> 2012/6/11 Nick Whitelegg <Nick.Whitelegg at solent.ac.uk>:
>> In answer to the queries below, the data is free to use as is the OS
> open data on their website.
> ...
>> So in short, we believe the RoW data can be incorporated into
>> OpenStreetmap as long as acknowledgement and copyright is shown from
>> where it came and how can be used"
>
>
>> So in summary it appears that the OS gave HCC specific permission to use
>> this, and I'm guessing it's OK to use in OSM, but I am not in any sense 
>> of
>> the word a legal expert so, what are people's opinions on this?
>
>
> I am not a legal expert either, but their statements above seem clear
> to me: if OS data is compatible with CT/ODBL also the HCC data should
> be compatible.
>

Except that the OS OpenData licence is NOT compatible with the CT / ODbL. 
Which is why the LWG needed to get specific agreement from the OS last 
summer that OS OpenData could be used in OSM [1].

So it might be valid to ask, "does the agreement from the OS last summer now 
cover the HCC ( and presumably Cambridgeshire data).?", and looking into the 
wording of [1] I cant see anything which would definitely say it is.  But we 
don't know the exact wording of the "exemption", whereas the contact in HCC 
obviously does, and it could well be that the wording of the "exemption" 
taken together with the agreement between OSM & OS would allow use of HCC 
data

However we also seem to have a very clear statement from HCC "we believe the 
RoW data can be incorporated into OpenStreetMap ".

I think the best that can be said is that we cant be 100% sure of the legal 
position, but that we have been led to believe by HCC that we can use that 
data.  So I guess we should be able to rely on that statement alone, and not 
try and justify it on any other grounds.

The problem is of course that we may now find ourselves having to ask for 
clarification from any other local authority which releases such data, since 
I cant see the statement by HCC being binding on other local authorities.

Regards

David

[1] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gis.openstreetmap.region.gb/6516
> cheers,
> Martin
>
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