[OSM-talk] Data copied from Google Maps

[Lester Caine]

Floris Looijesteijn wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 2:04 PM, Lester Caine <lester at lsces.co.uk
> <mailto:lester at lsces.co.uk>> wrote:
>
>     Only if they can prove that anonymous activity on one is directly related to
>     some identified activity on the other at an unrelated time ... I am sure a
>     court would only accept a proven pattern rather than a vague relationship.
>
>     I have a fixed IP address, so am identified, but I'm still happy that
>     viewing a similar area does not constitute proof of any copying.
>
>
> Why an unrelated time?
>
> If they can find views (maybe even searches) for 1 or multiple areas and
> correlate those with 1 or multiple changesets on OSM they have the proof they want.

Well they still have to prove that you actually COPIED something during a 
search, but in my own case it may be several hours between cross checking data 
and any commit on OSM. Any bulk import I do on OSM will certainly not be related 
to activity on Goggle, I will only follow up later cross checking and adding 
missing detail as required, to material traced from bing imagery or surveyed on 
the ground. My point here is that while a third party could show that ways on 
OSM were copied directly from their own data, proving that an 'observation' was 
updated simply by looking at an image in Streetview or some other picture 
service is not something that is going to be provable legally. So using 
streetview as an occasional information source is just the same as any other 
source of publicly available information?

The original base of the thread was related to copying goggle information from 
goggle maps, which has been authorised in some instances. Streetview and other 
'services' are a much more 'woolly' area, and I think all I am saying is that it 
is NOT something that would have a source=goggle tag - which should relate to 
legitimate copying. Anyone thinking they need to delete that content MUST first 
confirm that it is not legitimate as in the case identified IS the case.

The remaining question is probably "Is tagging some additional piece of data as 
source=google correct?" In my own case we are confirming business details which 
come from the business website, rather than from goggle, which only provided 
search results for that website. It could equally have been bing or yell that 
provided the data, and looking on Streetview for confirmation of a business 
location seems to be a legitimate use of Streetview ... although many of the 
businesses are not even accessible from Streetview anyway. So probably the 
question is "Should I be identifying all of the sources I've used when the final 
result is from a business website?"

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
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