[OSM-talk] Data copied from Google Maps

[Andrew MacKinnon]

In my opinion, copying from Google Street View is still a legally
dubious thing to do. There is no formal licensing agreement with
Google that I know of. It is perfectly fine to capture data by taking
pictures yourself, but relying on Google Street View cars to take
those pictures is legally dubious. Google Street View is often
outdated anyway. Copying from Google Maps is clearly not allowed.

I realize that we don't want to alienate users, but I think that OSM
still needs to be strict about deleting contributions from legally
dubious sources. Many new users simply don't realize that copying from
Google is not allowed, and may have made many other contributions from
legal sources (which will not be deleted). In other cases, users don't
realize that there are sources that OSM is legitimately allowed to
copy from - e.g. I have had to explain to users in Canada that copying
road names from Google is not OK, but copying from Geobase and Canvec
is perfectly acceptable.