[OSM-talk] Climbing routes

[Steve Hill]

Chris Hill wrote:

> Leaving the namespace issue aside, how would one collect the information about 
> climbing routes?  The routes I climbed didn't have signs or the like to gather 
> from the site.  All of the climbing guides I have that describe the routes, 
> including their name, grade, number of pitches etc are copyright.  Are there 
> copyright free sources of this information?

The information I put on the one route I've done so far came from 
"common knowledge" amongst the local climbers.  Of course the local 
guide book also contains the same information, also gleaned from "common 
knowledge" so it is a rather fuzzy issue when you start to question 
where the original information came from, whether it can even be 
copyrighted by anyone, etc.

I don't think the problem is a lot different to normal mapping though - 
if you ask someone "what is that road called" (maybe it doesn't have a 
road sign) and they tell you, you have no idea if they previously read 
it off a map, or if the Ordnance Survey asked the same people the same 
question (thus their map contains the same data), etc.

Seems a difficult question - at what point does copyright end and 
common/local knowledge begin?

Some of the information is hard fact though - if you've climbed a route 
then you can estimate its length, etc.

-- 

  - Steve
    xmpp:steve at nexusuk.org   sip:steve at nexusuk.org   http://www.nexusuk.org/

      Servatis a periculum, servatis a maleficum - Whisper, Evanescence