[OSM-talk] Illegal activity

[Anthony]

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 4:58 AM, Pieren <pieren3 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 4:53 AM, John Smith <deltafoxtrot256 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 2009/11/2 Anthony <osm at inbox.org>:
>>>  In France you can copyright a building
>>> and anyone who takes a picture of the building and uses it for
>>> commercial purposes without permission is committing copyright
>>> infringement.
>
> False but also not completely false. As usual, they are some special
> circumstances where a building can be protected but these are special
> cases and can't be generalized as paranoids do  (otherwise StreetView
> wouldn't exist in France).

Sloppy phrasing.  Change "a building" to "some buildings".  I realized
it didn't apply to all buildings, but I should have made that clear.

> Richard is convinced that the content of the photos is not protected
> and I agree on that point. But he just decides to ignore all the
> investments spent to rectify and georeference these photos on which
> his derivative work is based. And this investment and work is
> protected.

What if you download the image and then position it into place
yourself?  I understand that some jurisdictions have "sweat of the
brow", but taken to its logical conclusion you can't do anything.
What about all the work Google spent writing a search engine?  Are all
the websites I find through Google's search engine thereby copyright
by Google?

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 8:33 AM, Peteris Krisjanis <pecisk at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/11/1 Anthony <osm at inbox.org>:
>> I'm hesitant to push that issue, but hey, if OSM decides to stop
>> helping people trace from Yahoo maybe someone else will come along
>> with less silly rules.
>
> No one will. Geo photos are expensive matter and if they are not
> goverment sponsored, it is usually bread and butter for company who
> makes them.

I meant someone other than OSM would just be less "copyright
paranoid".  The public domain satellite imagery available for the
places I map is as good or better than the Yahoo imagery provided in
Potlatch, though.