[talk-au] Few questions about tagging ways in Australia

[Steve Bennett]

On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 11:14 AM, Ian Sergeant <inas66+osm at gmail.com> wrote:
> Australian copyright law recognises that copyright can subsist in
> compilation of facts.   Once copyright subsists, the only test is
> "substantial part".

Ok, for the sake of argument, how would provider A demonstrate that
OSM's data was made by copying its "compilation of facts", when
providers B and C contain exactly the same facts?


> If everyone copied just one street name, that's
> around 200,000 street names copied.  Is that substantial?  In addition
> to that we have the terms of service that attempt to prevent copying
> any part of them, specifically prohibiting building a databases of
> places or listings.

Certainly - but breaching terms of service is not copyright infringement.

I also have to say, there's a big grey area between "copying street
names to build a database" and "looking up street names out of
curiosity, while also building a database". I'm not trying to be cute
- I genuinely do this. (Although no one has asked, I should point out,
I don't actually make a habit of copying street names from other
sources. I occasionally look up the names of major roads, but
cross-check them in a few sources. Anyone looking at my contributions
history will see large numbers of unnamed streets.)

Steve