[OSM-talk] Google WMS: is this legal?

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 11:53, simone gadenz <s.gadenz at geologyx.it> wrote:
> I dropped the message to the list because for me was obvious the service was violating the term of Google's license but i was not sure it was illegal. In any case I was worried of the implication for the OSM. Can this service be a problem for the OSM community and in case Is OSM able to cope with this situation to avoid future lawsuits?

What "service"? It's a program that /you/ download to /your/ computer
and run on your own. He's not breaking any law by providing you with
this program.

Just because some company writes a TOS that doesn't mean they can stop
anyone writing programs that interface with their websites, but of
course they're fully within their rights to stop anyone accessing
them.

I'm sure Google's TOS say something about automatic downloads. If I
provide you with this program:

    #!/bin/sh
    while true; do
        wget "http://google.com/search?q=$RANDOM";
    done

I'm not breaking Google's TOS. Just because I give you hammer that
make me responsible for you bludgeoning someone to death with it.

As for how we should "cope with this situation" we should do what
we've always done: Ask people nicely not to trace from proprietary
maps and hope they don't. Ultimately that's all we can do.