[OSM-legal-talk] Own Photo altered Metadata - Google

[Vincent Veldman]

Thank you for the answers.


yes as of this moment this isn't applicable since I'm aligning the photos with existing OSM nodes geolocations.


But since not all areas worldwide actually have OSM nodes with proper geolocations, there are still areas
out there, especially hike & bike trails in natural areas, it's hard to move photos to a more accurate position
without actual imagery from a satellite. And that's what these applications offer, to use natural features
you can see from above to more accurately move the photos. 



in these scenarios one would record the gpx and later add the trail based on the gpx, I'm not actually sure how
helpful it would be to add photos for trails anyway so it's really hypothetical, but I could see it might be helpful
when you're walking a bridge, later home on sequence you upload you can see surface material, structure, 

or on the photos you can see there's stone surface, there's dirt, there's a info board:'what's on the information written?"
Tourist information, etc..


Again, for the actual trail you'd be using the gpx mostly .. but for photos it would make sense to
align them with the aid of natural features you can recognize..



And the scenario is as precisely formulated as I could. Exactly to avoid the "Exploring of grey areas"
a very specific scenario - with a very specific question. 



" the person in question is obviously interested in exploring grey areas, and is likely to expand this further"
That's assuming and no, no intention. If that intention were there, I wouldn't ask a very specific question
to a very specific different scenario :) 



The only reason is really to make photos easier to find. It's basically the same argument as using
google-search engine. You use it to find data more easy. But the data itself, isn't Google's of course.
The question would be similar as:'if I use the google search engine to find information/data on the internet,
could google claim I can't use it because I used their metadata from their search engine to find the actual data"



 Anyway: 

-----"So while this is not something that would likely ever lead to a claim"------

-----And the statement of Kathleen that she also doesn't see a real conflict here-----

I take it that for this specific scenario, use applications to change metadata of a photo, even if these applications
legally use google data to do so, and upload to Mapillary, and later use the data on the photo,
while not using the metadata of the photo, to add to OSM data, but not the metadata, wouldn't actually
violate any terms. 

yes this may be grey area, but apart from:"thou shall not kill" isn't most in the law a "grey" area?
If everything were so clear, we wouldn't have the zillions of court cases worldwide would we? :)

I think most in the law isn't about the law itself, it's about the legal meaning and the semantic meaning,
I mean I can read for myself obviously. But being capable of reading the law, here's where most people
make the mistake and I'm asking here because I don't want to make that mistake, it doesn't mean
your interpretation of legal meaning and legal semantics is correct. 



Also quite often terms of use companies state are overruled by courts OR that what seemed to be obvious
applicable the courts rule:"not in this case"

that's why I'm asking here in the legal talk.. 

I'm well aware if you change just 1 factor in a scenario, the legal meaning and semantics can turn like 180 degrees.


Of course someone might use Mapillary photos and the metadata of these to add data to OSM..
could..  but that would be questionable and more inaccurate than the accuracy gain from satellite image in the first place anyway
since "distance and depth" of a 2D photo are nearly impossible to determine and the user wouldn't ever know
how accurate the Mapillary metadata is in the first place.. 
I noticed some of these are off by many streets, hundreds of meters! 



So I strongly doubt anyone could even assume to use the metadata of these photos for figuring out where
to put nodes..  I mean one could, but it's really wrong.. without the actual own recorded GPX or the location data
of existing nodes close by, the metadata of a photo is pretty much useless as source of geolocation .


There's be so much "guessing" at work then, that it's highly questionable anyone could claim you're using factual geolocation
at all.. I would strongly suggest to anyone never to use just a photo for determination of geolocations.. 
Too many uncertainties in a 2D image if you ask me.. (did that person zoom in 2x, 4x, 8times?)
Are you sure that object over there is 20m or 60m from the point of the one making the photo?


It really comes down to getting the photos in a sequence aligned nice and smooth .. strongly doubt you
can actually use the geolocation for adding nodes.. But you can use the DATA of the image itself, to describe more
precisely the kind of node, type, like I said:'surfaces, what kind of bridge, what tourism information written there, what's the house number, etc?'
is that building a residential or fire department or kiosk..

Again, there's probably some kind of "grey-area" at play, but like I said I think that's always the case when dealing with the law.


Thus me asking here :)

Anyway, thanks for the answers once more
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