[OSM-legal-talk] Use of OSM as a background - derivative data

[Martin - CycleStreets]

I'm e-mailing on behalf of London Cycling Campaign, LCC.

LCC is currently undertaking a project to test the viability of 
crowdsourcing updates to Transport for London’s Cycling Infrastructure 
Database. A website has been built that overlays the TfL CID data on top of 
a map base, currently OpenStreetMap. Volunteers are visiting locations to 
verify that the infrastructure has been correctly entered and still exists. 
Where new infrastructure has been newly built or altered they are entereing 
the location, asset details and taking photographs.

We are looking to confirm that our use of OpenStreetMap in this way does 
not trigger share-alike provisions.  While TfL is making its data freely 
available (and we hope that it will be used to enhance OSM), TfL is doing 
this under its own licence terms. As such we would be grateful for an 
opinion from those here or ultimately from Licence Working Group.

Looking at section 3g of the Legal FAQ we would argue our data is 
independent – we are not taking OSM data, altering and republishing it. We 
are using OSM as a locational reference and physically visiting locations 
to verify the data in our dataset – not simply copying or tracing OSM.  We 
may notice something on OSM – e.g. some cycle parking – that we don’t have 
in our database but again, we are visiting the location to check and to 
take photographs.


https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Legal_FAQ

3g. Can I use OSM data and OpenStreetMap-derived maps to verify my own data 
without triggering share-alike?
Yes, provided that you are only comparing and do not copy any OpenStreetMap 
data. If you make any changes to your data after making the comparison, you 
should be able to reasonably demonstrate that any such change was made 
either from your own physical observation or comes from a non-OpenStreetMap 
source accessed directly by you. I.e you can compare but not take!
- Example 1: You notice that a street is called one name on your map and 
another in OpenStreetMap 
[1]<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PI83Tx48iQn7qFJgEUAG8U7lUb1jMzu8VS4F4famseQ/pub>. 
You should visit the street and check the name, then you are free to put 
that name in your data as it is your own observation.
- Example 2: You notice that a boundary is different in your data and 
OpenStreetMap. You should check back to original authoritative sources and 
make any correction required.


(Note that much of the data being maintained is not of relevance to OSM - 
it includes things like signage pole locations, painted symbols, which 
traditionally OSM has not covered. There is a separate project related to 
conflation of the relevants parts of the data into OSM:
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/TfL_Cycling_Infrastructure_Database
but in the meanwhile it is considered important to keep the current dataset 
maintained.)




Martin,                     **  CycleStreets - For Cyclists, By Cyclists
Developer, CycleStreets     **  https://www.cyclestreets.net/