From mrbrown8 at juno.com Sat Jul 8 05:13:48 2017 From: mrbrown8 at juno.com (mrbrown8 at juno.com) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2017 23:13:48 -0600 Subject: [OSM-legal-talk] permissions clearance Message-ID: <20170707.231349.2864.0.mrbrown8@juno.com> This is the first time I have tried to approach a data provider about obtaining special permission to use some of their data. Constructive feedback is welcomed. The Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District (www.northernwater.org) is an agency that works for the United States Bureau of Reclamation. The Bureau runs a project called the Colorado-Big Thompson Project that redistributes water from one side of the Rocky Mountains to the other. The PDF maps that the District hosts have some features that I would to try to incorporate into OSM. I have approached them about permission to allow copying their maps into OSM. Their reply is included below. I understand that any ERSI data they have would be offlimits. But I want to check to see if what they have given is sufficient for the OSM Foundation before I proceed. Thanks in advance. ========================================================================= == From: Brian Werner To: "mrbrown8 at juno.com" Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2017 19:33:55 +0000 Subject: RE: OpenStreetMap follow-up Message-ID: References: <20170629.084317.3952.0.mrbrown8 at juno.com> Curtis: We asked our GIS person for a response and here's what he said: OSM is a valid and quality product which Northern has utilized as basemaps for some of our maps. I think that the data that Northern makes available on it's public website (i.e. District Boundaries) could be used by OSM (although I'm not sure of what use Conservancy Boundaries would be to a Street Map product). However the road basemaps (and any other basemaps such as imagery) that we background our maps with (for location content) are a product of ESRI and should not be harvested for information with approval from ESRI (I doubt ESRI would give approval as this is a product they use to generate their own income stream). Hope this helps, but if you need more just let me know. Brian Brian Werner | Communications and Records Department Manager 220 Water Ave | Berthoud, CO 80513 Direct 970-622-2229 | Cell 970-481-2927 Main 800-369-RAIN (7246) | Fax 877-851-0018 www.northernwater.org | www.facebook.com/northernwater -----Original Message----- From: mrbrown8 at juno.com [mailto:mrbrown8 at juno.com] Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2017 8:43 AM To: Brian Werner Subject: OpenStreetMap follow-up Hi Brian, I met you briefly on Tuesday's open house on the NISP Mitigation Plan. I had asked about using maps from Northern Water. Thank you for hearing out my request. As I mentioned, I am a contributing member of OpenStreetMap. To try to introduce OSM, I usually try to explain that it is a mapping site similar to Google Maps or Mapquest. The first difference of OSM though is that all of its data is community contributed. There's numerous methods members use to contribute data including GPS tracking, satellite imagery, US Census bureau's TIGER data set, and so forth. I have been a contributor since 2008. I have a minimal profile here: http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Mr_Brown I have no GIS training. I contribute solely as a hobby. But maps interest me so I like to spend time doing it. OSM has some rather strict requirements about the data they accept. OSM offers its data for use under what seems a unique license called Open Database License. As a consequence of that, data being offered to OSM has to have use-compatibility with that kind of license. One source of data that's been very tempting to use is Google, not just for their maps, but their StreetView as well. Google's Terms Of Use specifically says that their data may not be used for the development of competing products. There are cases where community members have found others using data from Google. There's some discussion as an example here: https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/5356/who-edited-my-map-correctio ns-and-made-it-all-wrong-again/5357 Unfortunately, I don't have much experience with licensing. But the most frequently sited suggestion by the community is to ask for special permission from the data owner(s). The guidelines I'm trying to by are here: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import/Guidelines , under Step 3 - License Approval. The reason I'm reaching out is because of the copyright language I saw on Northern Water's website, here: http://www.northernwater.org/Copyright.aspx Zach (I believe that was his name) had hinted that this language might only apply to photographs. But before I offended anyone, I wanted to clarify how permissible the data from Northern Water's maps were for use in OpenStreetMap. If there are any concerns or objections about this, that would be fine too. I would be willing to answer any questions to the best of my ability to help clarify anything. If you have read this far, then I greatly appreciate your time in what probably seems an odd request. If I don't hear from you soon, I hope the rest of your week goes well. Thanks again. -Curtis -- Curtis Brown =8) mrbrown8 at juno.com ========================================================================= == -- Curtis Brown mrbrown8 at juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Police Urge Americans to Carry This With Them at All Times The Observer http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/59606a69ee4c96a694c9ast04vuc