[OSM-talk-ie] Using data from National Parks & Wildlife Service

tongro at eircom.net tongro at eircom.net
Mon Mar 14 12:42:59 GMT 2011


OK, thanks for those responses. It did sound a bit too good to be true.

Cheers.

Tony.


On 12 Mar 2011 20:54, <tongro at eircom.net> wrote:

Does anybody know if it's permissible to use map data downloaded from the
National Parks and Wildlife Service site in OSM?

The data relates to boundaries of national parks, nature reserves, etc.,
and can be downloaded in various file formats from
http://www.designatednatureareas.ie/mapviewer/ . Their data-use policy page
at http://www.npws.ie/en/DataPolicy/ says that it's "freely available", but
IANAL, so hopefully somebody here can provide clarification.


From: Karl Grant <karlgrant06 at gmail.com>

AFAIK its still copyrighted even though its free , so I don't think you can
use it on something that effectively makes it public domain . but some one
more knowledgable should be along  shortly :)


From: Bartosz Fabianowski <bartosz at fabianowski.eu>

There are nasties in the terms such as:

"provide NPWS, upon request, with copies of any reports or publications 
resulting from the use of these data."

You cannot possibly know where OSM data will end up being used. So you 
could never meet that one. Also, the next one is impossible to guarantee:

"not use the information to the detriment of individual species or 
habitats, biodiversity or the environment in general."

That said, it seems that the National Parks and Wildlife Service are 
being good guys and are trying to share their data openly with the 
world. If you e-mail them and explain what you want to do (highlighting 
how OSM is a community project and how we are interested in building a 
better map of Ireland) and that you are only interested in boundaries 
(so that they do not have to worry about you using their data to the 
detriment of the environment somehow), you may be able to get the data 
you want under terms compatible with OSM. We have approached other 
official sources before and gotten very favorable replies.

Now, if they happen to have derived their boundaries from OSI data, all 
is lost of course...


From: Richard Cantwell <manaboutcouch at gmail.com>

Unfortunately the data is derived from OSi sources.

I had a brief chat with the OPW about this dataset in 2009. The OPW is aware of OSM but their data license, as currently formulated, is very limiting and does not allow us to import their data



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