[talk-au] Use of online data without CC BY?

[stevea]

I appreciate your input, Simon.  Yes, as I say, it gets to an Australian state asserting its copyright (and it appears to have done so in this case), then...I'm no solicitor, so I don't quite know how Queensland state/federal law would then apply.  And as I'm unfamiliar with the "sweat of the brow doctrine," I looked it up (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow), and discovered it was rejected in USA in 1991 but remains in the UK's 1988 CDPA, with a 2012 case to the EU Court of Justice and a 2015 UKIPO copyright notice making "what might guide" relatively and recently fluid.  So it's a "stay tuned" or "under construction" situation, to say the least.  One would have to be rather close to the action (recently) to really know, and given your knowledge of UK law in this realm (and that Australian law is similar) you are much closer than I am.

What I was trying to do was offer some perspective from how and where (open and California) what I do know I could offer to Graeme, as it's been a bit of a rocky ride for the last decade or two about this (as well) here in California (until the California Supreme Court rulings specific to GIS public data falling under the purview of "open records law," but "open if public and not otherwise prohibited" does seem to be a trend in US copyright law regarding "open and public data" in more and more states of the USA (here, it's part state-at-a-time, part federal copyright law which guide).  Offering that perspective might be able to nudge things forward for better open data that could be used in OSM in other parts of the world (we might hope).  Anyway, good to have the conversation and air these often-otherwise-kept-rather-hushed topics.

SteveA

> On Apr 2, 2021, at 4:54 PM, Graeme Fitzpatrick <graemefitz1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Thanks Simon.
> 
> I asked:
> "I was wondering if we could get your permission to make use of these various maps and POI details to further upgrade the details shown on OSM?
> I can see, by looking at the Council pages online, that they are all Copyright BRC, but can’t see anything to say if they have been licensed for public use under a Creative Commons licence?
> 
> Could you please let me know whether you may be amenable to this idea, so we can discuss any further requirements?"
> 
> & their response was:
> 
> "Council is happy for you to use the online maps and POI details for Alpha, Jericho, Barcaldine, Aramac and Muttaburra.
>  
> Please let me know what further information you require and I would be happy to assist."
> 
> 
> So I think we'd be OK?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Graeme
> 
> 
> On Fri, 2 Apr 2021 at 18:05, Simon Poole <simon at poole.ch> wrote:
> In general explicit permission should be OK, if the source is clear on which terms we will be distributing the data, best to reference the contributor terms in such agreements. 
> 
> @stevea it is complicated, in particular AUS adheres to, just like the UK, a sweat of the brow doctrine so you need to, as a 1st approximation, assume that copyright applies.
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