[OSM-legal-talk] use of maptiles

[Paul Norman]

> From: Schröders, Alexander [mailto:Alexander.Schroeders at sensis-gmbh.de] 
> Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 12:48 AM
> To: legal-talk at openstreetmap.org
> Subject: [OSM-legal-talk] use of maptiles
> 
> Hello,
> i develop a commercial application which makes use of the tile material 
> from osm. I read „Heavy use (e.g. distributing an app that uses tiles 
> from openstreetmap.org) is forbidden without prior permission from the 
> System Administrators. See below for alternatives.“ in 
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tile_usage_policy.
> 
> Now i ask my self the question what is heavy use of tile materials.

First of all, I do not speak for the system administrators. They make 
the decisions on what to block, and how. What I write is based on my 
experience seeing what has caused load problems in the past 

There is not a level at which your use is guaranteed to never be 
considered heavy use or guaranteed not to be blocked. If that is a 
requirement, you need to enter into a contract with a commercial 
provider who will set out pricing terms. Also remember that if your use 
does become heavy use, you can change to a commercial service right 
away, because you didn't hardcode the tile.openstreetmap.org location 
into your app, since the terms prohibit that. 



The following are generally heavy use 

- Downloading tiles by area for later offline use 

- Consuming a noticable portion of resources (see 
http://munin.openstreetmap.org/openstreetmap/tile.openstreetmap/index.html
and 
http://munin.openstreetmap.org/openstreetmap/render.openstreetmap/index.html
) 

- Distributing a smartphone map app targeted at consumers that uses 
  tile.openstreetmap.org by default. 

- A commercial map-based website in production 

- Anything that neglects or tries to get around the usage policy 
  technical requirements 

The following are typically not heavy use 

- Use on an "about" page indicating the location of a head office or 
  similar location 

- Use in development