[Openstreetmap] Borough boundary

Christopher Schmidt crschmidt at crschmidt.net
Mon Oct 3 13:45:35 BST 2005


On Mon, Oct 03, 2005 at 01:14:42PM +0100, Mike Ryan wrote:
> Steve
> 
> Thanks for that. The more I got involved in this the more I realise how 
> naive I
> was to think this would be of use. The state of play with Crown Copyright in
> this country is a complete disgrace.
> 
> In a similar vein - I was thinking of contributing to the 
> freethepostcode.org
> site. However, even if we had a complete db that was derived from people
> plotting their own postcode points, aren't the postcodes still ultimately 
> the
> intellectual property of the Post Office, therevy rendering the whole thing
> pointless? Not trying to be negative here, but just highlighting something I
> was thinking about

In general, the fact that a loccation is in a specific post code can not
be copyrighted: information, on its own, is not subject to copyright.
(For example, the fact that a residence labelled "151" is on "Erie St"
at a specific GPS location is not copyrightable.) However, collections
of data typically are -- the postcode data falls under this category. If
persons who create this collection are willing to release it into public
domain or less restrictive licenses, this data (from that source) could
be reproduced under the terms of that license with no problems.

However, this is based on general copyright knowledge from my
I-Am-Not-A-Lawyer-at-All, Just-Some-Guy-On-The-Internet point of view.
So please, take with a definite grain of salt regarding the question at
hand.

-- 
Christopher Schmidt




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