[OSM-legal-talk] Layouts

[Michael Collinson]

Hi Vincent,

This is my personal IANAL advice and if anyone with a more authoritative 
background says anything, that should supercede!

First and foremost: Does the floor plan have an explicit permissions 
notice? If so, be guided by that. Usually they don't and I use them for 
two reasons:

1) You are using them in a manner that helps and assists the "their" 
business. "their" meaning the overall mall/airport owner and the 
individual businesses within the area. This is very different from, say, 
copying from an online directory where you are effectively competing 
with their business by leaking their IP into a free directory - and 
therefore potentially causing them monetary harm. I am (personally!) 
confident that this advice would hold true in Australia, have sought 
formal legal advice on a similar but not identical issue. It seems 
intuitive elsewhere, but particular jurisdictions may have their own 
peculiarities.

2) If the owner of the map has not formally asserted copyright, they are 
still free to do so. They can request that the data be removed from 
OpenStreetMap using https://dmca.openstreetmap.org/, and you or 
OpenStreetMap can very simply remove it. As there is no systematic 
extraction, it is just one mall (etc) and a painless procedure for both 
them and OpenStreetMap. It is very unlikely that anyone would ever do 
that, (to what purpose?), so the risk is tiny. This view may be 
contentious and I invite any counter-viewpoint.

Lastly, one thing to think about is how "public" is the floor plan?

- Can you view it from a clearly public place, such as a public road or 
footpath? If so, it is hard for the copyright owner to argue that the 
information should not be shared if they are blasting it out to everyone.

- Is it visible from a space used by the general public on a permissive 
basis? I.e. inside a mall or airport concourse. Here you are on private 
property so need to be a little more careful - some malls specifically 
ban photography - but IMHO, the same argument applies, the information 
on the floor plan is meant for the public.

- Malls, public airports and markets are clearly meant to be used by the 
general public but the "etc" in your question may include other 
facilities. Take for example a police training college, (real case). I 
personally would not use their building/floor plan sited in their 
(privately owned) entrance area out of 1) security courtesy and 2) the 
information is not clearly meant for public consumption.

Mike


On 2023-01-19 20:09, Vincent Veldman wrote:
> There's recently been the question about layouts of shopping malls, 
> airports, markets, etc..
>
> is it allowed to make a photo of these and use the layout at a means 
> to map in Openstreetmap?
>
> https://josm.openstreetmap.de/wiki/Help/Plugin/PicLayer
>
> This is a plugin clearly intended for such purposes. Especially 
> reading the section:
>
> *What do I need to use this action?*
>
>   * an image, preferably a floor plan
>   * information about side length of building
>
>
> It does say at the top:"Make sure the image is suitable, 
> copyright-wise, if in doubt, don't use."
>
> Probably someone should add this as a reminder behind the "Floor Plan" 
> as it's quickly overlooked by the reader.
>
> But the main question is - how does the mapper know if it's legit? 
> Just principally assuming it's always not allowed?
>
> https://matthewjamestaylor.com/floor-plan-copyright
>
> Reading such an article - many similar on the internet - basically is 
> referring to using such plans to actually build it.
>
> clearly - a mall layout or airport layout isn't even close to a real 
> floor plan to actually build one.
>
> You need wall thickness, materials, etc.. of all and tons of more 
> which is on the real floor plan - is obviously not available to the 
> public.
>
> So that data basically disqualifies itself from any use to build 
> anything based on the layout.
>
> But far-stretched thinking - maybe someone would actually use OSM for 
> a general layout and based on that design  a mall or airport..
>
> Which would be illegal clearly. Yet this is very far-stretched..
>
> So how would one have to consider this layouts we see in malls and 
> other buildings? Principally illegal to use?
>
> Thank you
>
> _______________________________________________
> legal-talk mailing list
> legal-talk at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
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