[OSM-talk] Maps and names

[Collinson Mike]

At 09:16 PM 1/09/2006, Richard Fairhurst wrote:
>Nick W wrote:
>
>>IANAL again but quite possibly many people first learnt things from
>>copyrighted maps. Surely there must be some common sense here. If someone
>>learnt something from a copyrighted map when they were a child, surely that
>>would be acceptable? There must be limits. Even if someone else told you a
>>name, *they* may have learnt it from a copyrighted map.
>>
>>If that's the case we may as well forget about adding any names to the map
>>unless we have documentary evidence of it. Even if we have known the name all
>>our lives. I'd sincerely hope common sense would prevail here.
>
>IM(non-legal)O such use is part of the implied contract when you buy a
>map, and therefore ok.
>
>In other words, "getting to know an area better" is one of the reasons
>you buy a map, and OS/whoever should expect this use when they sell it
>to you.

I belong firmly to the camp that says you can't copyright data and 
that names originally legitimately learnt from maps somehow or other 
can also quite legitimately be added to OSM even to the point of 
directly looking up occassional data while contributing to 
OSM.  [Don't worry, I won't do that as long as this debate continues! 
]  The danger though is that existence of just one proven lifted 
piece of information, such as an Easter Egg street name, can lead to 
a reasonable assumption that there has been wholesale copying from a 
copyrighted map and that it is enough to violate that copyright - I 
think that is everyone's real worry and that other debates are a red 
herring.  While the assumption may not be true, legal costs could be 
lethal to OSM.  The solution is to  fatally weaken a potential 
litigant's case by having enough chicken tracks for a potential 
litigant to establish *at their own cost and time* that such 
wholesale lifting has not occurred. And that if a particular 
contributor has made a violation, OSM has an established mechanism 
for surgical removal, a la You Tube, without bring the whole site down.

My recommendations (some of this is in place already):

a) encourage a high degree of tagging data with a source;

b) contributed data must always be attributable to a person or at 
least to an account so that (potentially) tainted data can be removed;

c) there should be a clear statement on the OSM site that OSM does 
not condone breaching copyright with basic guidelines to contributors 
and a "what to do" for anyone who does think their copyright is violated;

d) contributors should be encouraged to personally make and keep 
forever a reasonably systematic record / diary of how data was collected.


And if anyone wants to read on, I make the same case in more detail below!

Mike
Oz

With the usual IANAL caveat, it would be ridiculous to charge breach 
of copyright for incorporating a few names that *may* have come 
second-hand from a copyrighted map perhaps from another person *IF* 
that is what happened.  In the case of a Wiki article, the person who 
wrote the it was using the original data well within the bounds of 
legality, i.e. using a published map as the reference tool it was 
intended for.  In the case of the OSM contributor themselves, I for 
example have no idea of how I originally learnt the name of the 
street I live on, I've certainly never bothered to look at the street 
sign.  May be I got it from the Sydney street gazeteer within normal 
usage, may be I got it somewhere else, who cares.  [Although, I shall 
now rush out and take a photo to cover OSM!]

BUT

I'm sure the real problem lies in that if *one* name on a map can be 
proved to come from a particular copyrighted work (e.g. an Easter 
Egg), then there can be reasonable assumption that there has been 
wholesale lifting of names from the same source. Whether or not that 
is true, there is then an expense in fighting that claim that could 
be a death knell for such as OSM.

The solution therefore is to be able to allow the litigant to 
establish *at their own cost and time* that such wholesale lifting 
has not occurred:

a) as other contributors have suggested, systematically document 
sources of information with tags such as "landsat" or references to 
photos of street names.  This does not have to be 100%, but enough to 
demonstrate that independant data collection in a given area has 
actually occurred.  The mere existance of GPS tracks in the OSM 
database already provides an excellent demonstration so explicit 
tagging is not required.  Let the potential litigant do the work of comparison.

b) Contributed information should be attributed to a particular 
individual or account, whether anonymous or not.  This already 
happens.  If the person cannot or does not wish to be contacted, the 
worst case is limited to removing that person's contributions and the 
case dissappears.  Some legal statement to that effect should added 
to the OSM site.

c) OSM contributors should be encourage to take and keep notes on how 
they obtained their data AND keep them for many years.  I have a 
little hardback notebook in which I record date, and using a series 
of symbols, the route I took and observations I made.  My handwriting 
is terrible and I don't care how legible they are to other people, 
but I do have a record. I'd be very happy for a legal representative 
to come to my house and review them at their own expense. 
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