[OSM-talk] Illegal activity

[Peteris Krisjanis]

2009/11/2 Russ Nelson <nelson at crynwr.com>:
> Ulf Lamping writes:
>  > Russ Nelson schrieb:
>  > > Peteris Krisjanis writes:
>  > >  > Anyway, to resume all this discussion - PLEASE don't trace from photo
>  > >  > without permission for OSM, whatever your temptations are.
>  > >
>  > > Errrr, no.  The USGS Digital Ortho Quads are in the public domain; no
>  > > permission necessary to trace off of them.
>  >
>  > If the material is "licensed as public domain", this *is* one of the
>  > possible permissions Peteris is talking about.
>  >
>  > Is this really that hard to get?
>
> Seemingly, since you don't understand that when something is in the
> public domain, there is no copyright owner to get permission from.  It
> sounds like your conflating a public domain work which is free of
> copyright with a copyrighted work licensed "as if" it were public
> domain.
>

PD is permission from government to do whatever you want with subject,
they don't protect it with copyright law.

If you really think that PD is some natural right given by Nature/God,
you are strongly mistaken.

Cheers,
Peter.