[OSM-talk] Breach of Copyright?

[Chris Hill]

David Earl wrote:
> On 28/09/2009 08:53, Nick Whitelegg wrote:
>   
>>> Incidentally, as well as the possible OS contamination, the Council will 
>>> itself have database and content copyright in the data, so explicit 
>>> permission would be needed from them to incorporate and release it under 
>>> our CCBySA license. In obtaining that permission you could ask them to 
>>> assert that the data was collected without reference to OS or other 
>>> copyright base maps.
>>>       
>> One council (West Sussex) referred to its data as "public domain" when I 
>> last looked. I'd guess that's the same for all councils.
>>     
>
> Well, their website has a clear copyright notice and the legal page says 
> you need to contact them to use any data. I imagine many councils would 
> be quite happy to give permission, but the default position is that 
> copyright persists in their data.
>   
+1
> David
>   
Most people, including people in councils, have a poor understanding of 
copyright.  Council-produced, published documents are automatically 
Crown Copyright, which extends for fifty years. Only then are they 
public-domain.  The council may choose to permit its use for OSM but you 
would need written permission to license it's use to fit with CC-by-SA 
and ODbL so we can show the Crown Copyright does not apply.  We must be 
scrupulous about this to maintain a clean database.

Cheers, Chris