[OSM-talk] Sourcing street names - what's the policy, and why?

[Richard Fairhurst]

Anthony wrote:
> I'd say a key provision there is the one about "repeated and systematic
> extraction of insubstantial parts".  If you're just using a map site
> occasionally, when you hit a snag, that's one thing.  If you're
> systematically using it on road after road, that's another.

Oh, sure. But then a lawyer could argue that one mapper doing it 
occasionally is insubstantial, but 100,000 OSM mappers all doing it 
occasionally is substantial.

And so on per your driving directions example. There are infinite shades 
of grey and the only way to resolve them is to have infinite test cases. 
But we don't want to get sued, so we just say: safest to steer clear 
entirely.

There may be a place for testing out the endurance of copyright law and 
Google's lawyers, but OSM isn't it. There is no point endangering the 
genuinely collected data for the sake of some lazy copying. ISTR SteveC 
suggesting that we establish a separate site called 
letsinfringethefrickinmap.com.

cheers
Richard