[OSM-talk] Google Street View copyright question

[Roy Wallace]

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 7:18 PM, Dan Karran <dan at karran.net> wrote:
> 2009/9/10 David Muir Sharnoff <lists at dave.sharnoff.org>:
>> Has anyone set a letter to Google's legal department asking for
>> clarification or permission?
>
> I haven't asked their legal department, but Ed Parsons said in an
> email yesterday (not sure if my post[1] about it got through to the
> list?) that it's ok to check our facts, but anything more than that
> (extracting/mass extracting of data) is not likely to be compliant
> with their license agreement. As I see it, if their license agreement
> prevents us doing it, then it's already ruled out, and it's not a
> question of what copyright or database law says at that point.
>
> If we want to be able to extract data as well then I'm pretty sure
> we'd need a license to do so.
>
> [1] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2009-September/041758.html

Here's my completely uneducated legal opinion (:P). Ed's reasoning
hinges on the following Terms of Service extract, possibly originally
from: http://maps.google.com/help/terms_maps.html

" [ you must not ] use the Products in a manner that gives you or any
other person access to mass downloads or bulk feeds of any Content,
including but not limited to numerical latitude or longitude
coordinates, imagery, and visible map data"

This says that we can't use Google Products to build the OSM database
(which, in turn, would allow mass downloads/bulk feeds via the OSM
API) if what has been entered into the OSM database with the help of
Google Products consists of:

1. numerical latitude or longitude coordinates
2. imagery
3. visible map data

For 1: as long as Google Products are not used to geolocate features
(i.e. Google Products are not used to determine the latitude/longitude
of OSM nodes/ways) *this doesn't apply*

For 2: as long as the imagery itself isn't stored in OSM, *this doesn't apply*

For 3: what qualifies as "visible map data"? If I look at a particular
intersection and see a stop sign in Street View, does that constitute
"visible map data"? I think not. If not, then *this doesn't apply*.
I.e. It would then be OK to record the existence of the stop sign in
OSM, as long as the geolocation is already known (e.g. from my own GPS
trace, or existing OSM ways).

Thoughts?