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

[Emil Vaughan]

> This is another one for the lawyer. After all, geodata is nothing but
> facts: "this road is called High Street", "this road runs from lat n1,
> long n2 to lat n3, long n4". But if the OS can't copyright facts,
> then, er, neither can we.

I think this is correct.  The only thing that can be copyrighted is
the visual layout. To assert anything else would surely be to
massively expand the scope of copyright. Copyright isn't there to
protect hard work etc, it has a specific purpose: to protect creative
work. There's no creative work in labelling streets, because there's
no choice involved as to how to label them.

I haven't studied any case law though....... probably the Dan Brown
judgement backs this up.

Emil