[talk-au] Copyright questions

John Henderson snowgum at gmx.com
Tue Jan 5 18:29:14 GMT 2010


John Smith wrote:
> 2010/1/5 Richard Colless <firefly at ar.com.au>:
>> The issue of copying names from a street directory is very similar. The
>> publishers of the directory hold copyright over the graphic layout of the
>> map, but they cannot hold copyright over the street names themselves. Those
> 
> That's assuming what they printed is correct, mapping companies have
> lots of errors in their maps, some errors are intentional to catch
> copyright infringements.

I've been playing it safe to date, and not entering any road names from 
maps unless I get agreement between the maps of companies with different 
ownership.

> Only councils (or developers or the street signs) would actually have
> original authoritative information on the street names.
> 
>> names are in the public domain. If you look up a street name in the
>> directory, then you now know that name. If you then use it to name a street
> 
> The Telstra case of their copyright on white pages here would be
> relevant, and to a lesser extent from what I understand the IceTV
> ruling, however unless you are willing to personally fund an OSM
> defence fund why risk everyone else's work over it?

I missed that Telstra case.  Do you have a reference to a good summary?

John




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