[OSM-talk] Mountain names - an interesting copyright issue

[Lars Aronsson]

Oliver White wrote:

> You're lucky the local council hasn't copyrighted those road 
> signs at the corner of each street. "We notice you've copied the 
> words "high street" from our sign onto your map"

Does anybody know if the people who put up road signs keep a 
database of where every sign is located and what it's text says?
Could we get a copy of such a database as an official document?

Copyright law (in all or most countries) explicitly excludes the 
text of laws and regulations from copyright (in Sweden, this 
exception is SFS 1960:729, chapter 1, section 9, 
http://lagen.nu/1960:729#P9S1), and I guess such a database of 
road signs could be construed to be a kind of law, as it says 
where various speed limits and prohibitions are applicable. 
However, I have no information on whether this has been tested.


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se