[Talk-us] Jefferson Notch Road and latest "GPS made me do it" in the news

[Mark Wagner]

On Thu, 2 Jan 2020 14:47:35 -0500
Bill Ricker <bill.n1vux at gmail.com> wrote:

> Kevin asks,
> > is Jefferson Notch Road actually closed to wheeled vehicles in
> > winter or  
> just not maintained?
> 
> Per copyright news reports, it is signed as closed to wheeled
> vehicles, open to snow-machines only, in winter.
> (As should be obvious, to correctly tag this according to our
> license, we do need some on-the ground or license0compatible
> verification of the facts form the news, as well as a decision on
> what tags to use.)

In the United States, facts can't be copyrighted, only specific ways of
expressing them.  If a news article says "the road is closed in the
winter from Wherezit Junction to Anytown", you can freely extract the
fact of the closure, look for the OSM ways corresponding to the
description, and apply a "closed in the winter" tag.

(If the news article instead has a map of the closure, the copyright
situation becomes more questionable, because now you're copying not
just the facts of the closure, but possibly the way they're expressed
as well.)

-- 
Mark