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

[Richard Fairhurst]

First reaction: the FFRP is clearly insane... but that doesn't help.

It does appear that French law is very likely to support their case, as per
the cases you cite. A route could conceivably be said to be an 'œuvre de
l'esprit', especially in light of the list at http://bit.ly/U63URp
specifically mentioning "Les plans... relatifs à la géographie, à la
topographie...".

(Interestingly, the routes would be unlikely to be copyrightable in the UK;
it's rare that there are countries with a higher threshold for copyright
than the UK!)

Therefore, to me, it seems foolhardy to include them in OSM. Yes, OSMF's
servers are in Britain and we could conceivably thumb our nose from this
safe distance. But there's a difference between supporting mapping in
countries where the physical act is restricted/outlawed (which we do), and
distributing copyrighted material (which generally we don't), even when the
copyright law is an ass. It also seems needlessly hostile to distribute data
that can't be used in France without further processing, even if it would be
poetic revenge for you lot bloating our database by 40% with all those
sodding buildings. ;)

Instead, for now, I'd suggest recording the waypoints. You could potentially
use marker=nwn (avoiding the trademark dispute), or play even safer and use
marker=red_white. If someone wants to run a footpath router over that and
thereby take an (automated) guess at where the routes might be, that's their
lookout.


Moving forward, clearly this isn't a good situation and it needs rectifying.

Changing copyright law is highly unlikely. Trying to get a legal ruling that
reverses the earlier judgements will be equally unlikely, hugely expensive
and fraught with danger. So the only option is to persuade FFRP to change
its mind.

There is no mileage in OSMF doing this; it's much better done by the local
chapter (as you have been doing so far). I'd suggest that you ratchet up the
pressure if you feel that your current entreaties are getting nowhere. Press
attention can help, a lot. Get local legislators on side - if local
départmentes are keen to encourage walking tourism, they're unlikely to be
impressed that FFRP is working contrary to their efforts so that it can make
a quick buck. Talk to other walking organisations, if they exist, and
publicly raise the idea of creating another, open walking network. Get your
equivalent of EFF/ORG to support you.

My worry is that the FFRP may decide to "donate" the routes to Google,
perhaps in return for a donation. That may sound paranoid but at least two
otherwise sensible organisations in the UK have done that with their routes:
people often think that "open" means "widely available", and you don't get
more widely available than Google Maps. Then, FFRP can say "hey, everyone
can get our routes for free, and on a more widely used website!" and we've
lost.


Incidentally:

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

I don't see any distinction in law between them. The distinction is that the
FFRP is insane and the Ministry of Transport isn't (well, not in this matter
anyway).

cheers
Richard





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