[OSM-talk] Google Street View copyright question

[Roy Wallace]

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 1:07 PM, John Smith <deltafoxtrot256 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/9/10 Anthony <osm at inbox.org>:
>> I'm not sure what help a lawyer is going to be - they're not going to be
>> able to guarantee you that much of anything is 100% (or 99.9%) safe in 100%
>> (or 95%, weighted by user-base) of jurisdictions, especially not for free.
>>  As Richard says in the comments, "In the UK, as ever, the law is less
>> clear-cut than in the US."  The only way I can see this being reconciled is
>> by getting explicit permission.
>
> Actually that's what a legal opinion is, you can use it in court, if
> it gets that far, to show you sort out information before doing
> something and a lawyer thought it would be ok based on his or her
> interpretation of the law. I think only practising lawyers are able to
> legally give legal opinions.

But being able to say "but lawyer X said we could!" in court will not
make you immune to lawsuits. Nonetheless, legal advice from a lawyer
would be great - John, any ideas on how to get this?

In any case, I agree with Anthony - the only way to *guarantee*
company X won't take you to court for doing Z - regardless of who
might win in court - is if company X gives you written permission to
do Z.

As Dave asked, "Has anyone sent a letter to Google's legal department
asking for clarification or permission?" Google, at least on
face-value, seem to be open-minded when it comes to open-source stuff,
and they have recently even acknowledged OSM's existence on an
official blog (http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2009/08/3-days-3-googlers-2-cpus-8-cores-google.html).
Worth a try.