[OSM-talk] Rights of Way

[David Groom]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nick Whitelegg" <Nick.Whitelegg at solent.ac.uk>
To: "Andy Armstrong" <andy at hexten.net>
Cc: <talk at openstreetmap.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 2:28 PM
Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Rights of Way


> >Sorry if I've missed discussion on this - I can't recall any certainly.
>
>>Someone on a mountain biking forum has just asked me if OSM has plans
>>to cover footpath and bridleways (which in the UK are legal rights of
>>way). I said (without checking...) that I thought they'd be covered
>>eventually but that not much had been done so far.
>
> Yes, OSM does plan to cover them and in fact already does. Most of my
> contributions to OSM are rights of way and unofficial countryside paths.
> So far, a significant part of the New Forest and other countryside areas
> close to Southampton and Winchester are covered, as well as near complete
> coverage of the Petersfield-Midhurst-Haslemere triangle on the
> Hants/Sussex/Surrey border. Other interesting features include partial
> coverage of the main track up Ben Nevis, and soon the entire South Downs
> Way should be there.
>
>>As I typed that it occurred to me that, unlike roads, off road rights
>>of way don't always take the same course on the ground as they do on
>>the map - that's to say that the de-facto right of way might not be
>>the same as the legal one. For example paths move due to erosion,
>>farming, to skirt round bogs. In some cases the path on the O/S map
>>is just a straight line joining two known endpoints and the actual
>>path on the ground is either non-existent or bears little relation to
>>the map.
>
>>That begs the question what are we actually mapping in that
>>situation? The path everyone uses or the  path on the map in the
>>Rights of Way office? If we map the path on the ground we're mapping
>>a way that may not be strictly legal - but the only way you could
>>follow the legal route would be to load the route from the
>>authoritative map into a GPS before setting off - which is obviously
>>problematic from a copyright point of view.
>
> IANAL but I always map the evident path on the ground. A disclaimer on the
> site saying that path information is derived from personal observations
> and is not 100% evidence of the existence of a right of way is I feel
> required.
>
> Copying the route from an OS or other copyrighted map is a definite no-no.
> I am not sure of the copyright status of the Definitive Maps of the County
> Council, which you can look at by going to the council offices at the
> county capital. I'd be interested to know this, as there are several cases
> where I have, in the absence of evidence on the ground, tagged a path as a
> permissive (non-official) path when it might actually be a right of way.
>
> Nick
>

>From Isle of Wight County Council web site, "copyright for documents", 
relating to definitive maps.

"This map is based on the Ordnance Survey 1:10,000 Map for the Isle of Wight 
reproduced by permission of the Controller of HM Stationary Office, Crown 
Copyright reserved, under Licence No LA 076694. It may not be copied without 
permission for any purpose whatsoever. Online copies of the Definitive Map 
are for public inspection and reference only and remain the property of the 
Isle of Wight Council. You are required to agree to this statement before 
you are able to proceed.
Please note that whilst all pdfs / images on this website are scans of 
scaled originals, the images will not appear at any particular scale on your 
computer screen. Figured dimensions, where they appear, are the only 
reliable method of obtaining measurements from these images. "

This does however only state that you must not "copy the map" it doesn't say 
you can't copy the information on it.

David