[OSM-talk-be] My first attempt at a boundary

[Ben Laenen]

On Friday 06 December 2013 13:26:25 Wouter Hamelinck wrote:
> I know, but I was mainly interested in the way the borders were
> defined in 1830. Say I take a certain point. Which law defines it to
> be a part of community X? Is there such a law? It is more curiosity
> from my side, than practical use for OSM.
> For that little map in your example, I totally agree that we can use it.

Can't help you there, I don't know the answer to that. Probably a question for 
someone who spends a lot of time in a lot of archives :-)

> Facts cannot be copyrighted, but the way of presenting them certainly
> can. You can not copyright the fact that the border follows a certain
> river, but the nice map you are drawing of that rivier and the border
> can be copyrighted. Or the nice shapefile you are making to represent
> it.

Yeah, from the moment someone takes the facts and manipulates them, they'll 
become a new work with its own copyright. But I don't think this applies if 
you just convert it to another format with no other effort. Getting a lot of 
data and combine them in a non-trivial way will create a new copyright.

> Are you saying that we can freely copy from maps from a government
> agency (NGI-IGN to name one)?
> I still have to read the first excerpt from copyright law stating that
> government works should by default be treated otherwise than works
> from anyone else. (With the addition of "by default" I mean that I
> agree there can be we well-defined exceptions like the
> Moniteur/Staatsblad, but I talk about works not covered by such a
> precise exception.)

No, I'm not talking about the NGI/IGN. But all laws and decrees are free for 
everyone to reuse as they wish. No problem using those maps from the 
Staatsbled/Moniteur. Other documents can't be used automatically and in 
Belgium it's up to each government to decide how they wish to allow reuse of 
their data.

> > Reminds me that the Flemish government made a database with all traffic
> > signs in Belgium, it's just not publicly available. I wonder if they
> > could claim copyright on the database if they did make it available...
> 
> Same as above. I don't see why government data can't be protected. Be
> it under copyright or database right.

There are several provisions before you can claim a database right, one of 
them is if it required a substantial effort to create that database. It's been 
a while since I looked into database law, so I may have some things incorrect, 
but IIRC they tried this out in the Netherlands (the database law is somewhat 
similar across Europe) with train timetables, and some argue they're not 
copyrightable because the timetables are a result from the train companies' 
main goal: to have trains running. See 
http://blog.iusmentis.com/2008/10/11/mag-trein-opzoeken-hoe-laat-de-trein-vertrekt/

One could ask similar questions about what they 

> For me also IANAL disclaimer. Just trying to make sense of things that
> I might not totally understand, or even might totally not understand.

Several years ago I read a lot about it, I seem to have forgotten all about it 
already :-)

I probably wrote a lot of misinformed things, and I guess the only way to make 
sense out of all of this is to get a lawyer who knows all about freedom of 
information, reuse of government data, copyright and database law. But those 
guys probably don't work for free...

For now: better safe than sorry: don't just reuse data from the government if 
it doesn't come with a license that allows it, even if one could argue it 
can't be copyrighted or have a database right.

Ben