[Talk-us] California GIS data is public domain

[Nathan Mixter]

Try checking with the county planning department. Looks like there are three
people in their GIS services department -  Greg Bazhaw, Steve Borgstrom and
Matthew Thompson. Start with Greg at 408-299-5776 or
greg.bazhaw at pln.sccgov.org. Then try Michael Lopez, the planning manager or
Jody Hall, the director. They all have the same email format of
first.last at pln.sccgov.org. It might be best to send them a letter requesting
the information and explaining a little about OSM and what it is about. 

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Message: 3
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2009 21:26:55 -0700
From: David Carmean <dlc at halibut.com>
Subject: [Talk-us] California GIS data is public domain?
To: OSM US Talk <talk-us at openstreetmap.org>
Message-ID: <20090724212655.G16808 at halibut.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii


[ OK, I see that this was posted to the list back in February, but I don't
find 
any further discussion about it... is there a way to search just the
legal-talk archive? ]

Just found this article about an appeals-court decision on the Santa Clara
County 
GIS brouhaha:

    http://gis.lacounty.gov/eGIS/?p=696

In particular, the analysis of item III of the decision seems to indicate
that 
the court believes that government-produced data cannot be copyrighted:

    III. A. There is no statutory basis either for copyrighting the GIS
basemap or for
    conditioning its release on a licensing agreement.

The decision can be found here:

    http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/H031658.PDF

The question is: has the Foundation considered this?  Can we begin to import
California 
GIS data? :)


-- 
Dave C, 2nd St.



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