[OSM-talk] Windows GPX track logging software and a licence question!

[Simon Hewison]

Jonathan Cohen wrote:

> Also, I've come to these lists a bit late (I know this was discussed in the 
> past but can't find any definitive answer) but I have a question regarding 
> licensing. Due to the creative commons share-alike clause, is it actually 
> possible to combine Openstreetmap maps with commercial copyright data such 
> as lists of chemists etc, since the resulting map would contain copyright 
> data that can't be shared? I'm suspecting not?

You can't copyright a fact. You're confusing copyright with database rights.

The fact that there is a Chemist called Gateway Chemist and
is at 364a Regents Park Road, Finchley, London at Lat/Lon 51.60003,-0.194844 
is publicly available knowledge, and is openly available to anyone who 
happens to be wandering down Regents Park Road, as is the fact that the shop 
frontage is light green in colour. In fact, now that I've given these facts 
to this list, which is openly searchable on the Internet, anyone who really 
wants to know the colour of the shop front of Gateway Chemist will find it 
reasonably easily.

If someone has collected a list of chemists, and stored it in a database, 
then the collator of that list can claim database rights to that list. 
(under EU law anyway). They can only copyright that list of chemists if 
there is some manner of personal creativity in the way that the records are 
selected.

I could compile a list of chemists with shop front colours that I like. I 
can copyright that list. I can't copyright a list of chemists within a 
bounding box, or a list of chemists with the letter "A" in the name.

If you have been granted access to a database containing a list of chemists, 
the rights holder might say that you're not then allowed to include the 
whole list on a map that you're making available to the public.

Do some reading up on the EU Database Directive for clarification, and 
contact the rights holder for their thoughts on what you do before you make 
your creations public.

-- 
Simon Hewison