[OSM-talk] Illegal activity

[Mike N.]

> In reality, it isn't.  It's factual information about the world, which
> is not copyrightable in the USA, and given your sweat of the brow in
> tracing it, is copyrightable (but it's YOUR copyright for having
> traced) in the UK.
>
> But that's not the point.  The point is that the Google Terms of Use
> prohibit tracing.  Point.

  And Photoshop would allow the photo image company to insert "Easter Egg" 
roads with a distinctive pattern that don't exist in real life.   It would 
be pretty hard to argue that they had not been traced from that image.