[OSM-legal-talk] Question about copyrighted hiking routes in France

[Pieren]

On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 5:55 PM, Paul Norman <penorman at mac.com> wrote:

> I cannot see that indicating that there are signs with a particular text on
> the ground is infringing their trademark. I'd expect most name=* values on
> POIs in OSM to be a trademark (although not necessarily registered). I've
> tagged Coca-Cola bottling centers, Starbucks, McDonalds and many more
> objects with trademarked names. If the mapping is accurate then the
> trademarked name is being used accurately and there's no issue. If I started
> tagging every coffee shop as a Starbucks regardless of ownership then I'd be
> diluting their trademark and it'd be an issue.
>
> Similarly, their trademark would stop someone from creating another hiking
> route with the same name, but would not stop someone from saying that they
> were heading to hike the GR20 if that's in fact what they were planning to
> do.

Again, you have to understand that this sport organization (FFRP) is
publishing hiking bookguides and maps of their routes. It is their
main income (plus some subsidies from the state). The FFRP made this
trademark and copyright to protect them against commercial competitors
on their market : their hiking routes.


> If the facts on the ground are covered by copyright I cannot see how a
> hiking network is different than a road network or a cycle network.

Perhaps because a road network is in the public domaine. Here we speak
about a copyrighted route.

> we map what is marked on the ground.

This point has been long discussed on our local list. What you see on
the ground is the trail markers. One problem is that the markers are
also copyrighted (the colours and shapes) like a logo. Of course, if
you put the McDonalds logo on OSM maps, McDo will be happy for the
free ads and maps are not their business. But it might be different if
you put an OS or USGS logo on your OSM maps. Second problem is that
the trail markers are present along the route at short intervals. Even
if we map only the marks, it will be easy to rebuild the whole route
by extrapolation.

> I don't see that a French court's judgment should determine what goes in
> OSM, any more than a Chinese court. Even if the French court believes they
> have jurisdiction, they'd have to get any judgment domesticated by a British
> court. To accept the French judgment would gut OSM because it would apply to
> every hiking or road network in France, or for that matter, outside of
> France.

Would you say the same if the court is in US or Canada ? Of course, we
can build our mirror of the planet dump files and filter the
compromised data. But is is the policy of OSM to ignore copyrights
infringements outside UK ?

Pieren