[OSM-talk] Wikipedia POI import?

[Russ Nelson]

On May 6, 2009, at 1:14 AM, Rob Reid wrote:
>>
> Excellent, so there is nothing to stop me tracing my entire town off
> Google Imagery into osm, since all I would be doing is choosing points
> off their aerial photograghs and they are not contributing in any  
> way to
> me doing that?

WHERE do you guys get these weird ideas about copyright from?  Do you  
think the garbage man has copyright interest in your OSM work because  
he's contributing to your efforts by taking out your trash?  What  
about the company that built your computer?  SURELY you could not edit  
OSM without their contribution.  What about the ISP that carried the  
imagery to your computer?  You can bet that THEY think they share  
copyright in your online works.  How could you have produced them  
without your ISP, so your ISP owns everything you edit online.

Copyright protects creativity (or sweat of the brow).  It doesn't  
protect "contributions" to creativity.  Think of the lawsuits if it  
did!  Why, I'm contributing to your OSM efforts by clarifying  
copyright for you, so I would have a copyright interest in your OSM  
edits if your theory was correct.

--
Russ Nelson - http://community.cloudmade.com/blog - http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:RussNelson
russ at cloudmade.com - Twitter: Russ_OSM - http://openstreetmap.org/user/RussNelson