[Talk-us] Allegheny County (Pennsylvania) real estate assessment website for addresses
stevea
steveaOSM at softworkers.com
Wed Feb 5 19:08:23 UTC 2014
James and OSM volunteers in the USA:
I am not an attorney, but I will say this.
It depends on which of the fifty states. Many states (I know
California, where I live) have what is known as a Public Records Act
(often part of the Government Code part of state statutes). Simply
put, this makes a request by a Citizen or resident of that state a
direct mandate upon the state to produce (thereby releasing) the
records. Usually for free, or sometimes with a small fee for
duplication costs (maybe ten minutes of staff time and the cost of a
CD-ROM, for example) being allowed under the law.
Further, in California, multiple court cases against state agencies
which hold GIS data, including one which went all the way to the
California Supreme Court, have ruled that public data are public
data, and must be released to members of the public who ask for them.
This specifically includes GIS data, and also requires that there be
no (onerous or otherwise) "terms of license" that restrict their use.
So, your state (being sovereign in these matters) governs this --
find out in YOUR state! Heck, we might even make a small OSM
WikiProject that lists all fifty states in the USA and shows what is
the known status of public access to public records in each state.
I'll start by saying that in California, it is the California Public
Records Act, and it is wonderful that our state and county agencies
have nothing to hide behind if they try to get possessive with OUR
data.
Once the nexus is established of "I, Citizen have the data" plus "I,
an OSM volunteer have the data" the data can enter OSM. But not
automatically, as any data import should be discussed more widely
amongst OSM.
I have posted details about this several times already. Because I
seem to be typing these words a lot here, and because talk-us gets
these questions a lot, the more a small WikiProject along these lines
(a table of known statewide public data policies) sounds like a good
idea.
THEN, there are the very large questions about WHETHER any particular
public data belong in OSM, and how they might get there. That is an
altogether different topic: just because a firehose of public data
are available doesn't mean they ought to be sprayed into OSM. We
discuss importing data quite a lot both here and in other places.
Right now, I'm only talking about how public-agency-maintained GIS
data is very likely yours for the asking, depending on your state
laws. So, do a little research, find out, and report back!
SteveA
California
>I'm just wondering, do you guys think that Allegheny County's real
>estate assessment website is OdbL compatible to use to gain
>addresses to put into OSM?
>
><http://www2.county.allegheny.pa.us/RealEstate/Search.aspx>http://www2.county.allegheny.pa.us/RealEstate/Search.aspx
>
>I haven't taken any addresses from it, but if it's compatible with
>OSM, it could be a gold mine for getting a big area of addresses
>done for the OSM world.
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