[OSM-talk] [OSM-legal-talk] Illegal activity

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Richard Fairhurst wrote:
> I'm not particularly au fait with national copyright law in mainland 
> Europe. Doubtless you can answer on France: I can't see anything in 
> German law that would give protection. 

I have lost thread of what kind of protection exactly you are talking 
about, but German copyright law stipulates that photos - and this is 
commonly read as "including photos taken from the air through automated 
means", have 50 years of copyright protection during which any use (!) 
of the photos requires permission from the copyright holder:

http://dejure.org/gesetze/UrhG/72.html

Some lawyers say that because German copyright requires a person as the 
rights owner, any kind of automated photography cannot be copyrighted. 
Others, and they seem to form the majority, say that the person who 
"conditions" the machinery used to take the photos becomes the rights 
owner. There is some German-language discussion of this here: 
http://www.schmunzelkunst.de/saq2.htm#luftbild

Bye
Frederik