On 7 Oct 2009, at 12:56, Francis Davey wrote: > 2009/10/7 Matthew Somerville <[email protected]>: >> >> One would assume the Ordnance Survey have taken legal advice on their >> OpenSpace, which appears to state that point based derivation from >> an OS >> map would belong to the OS: >> http://openspace.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/openspace/faq.html sections 2.1 >> and 2.2; and > > 2.1 (which is the relevant one) is suitably weasely. > > "When you use OS OpenSpace to geocode data by adding locations or > attributes to it that have been directly accessed from and/or made > available by Ordnance Survey mapping data, then the resulting data is > 'derived data', because it is derived from Ordnance Survey data." > > If you take a mapped feature and use OS OpenSpace to create a > (location, attributes) tuple, you are doing two things: > > (i) if you do this to all such features, or very many features, you > are doing something akin to tracing a copy of the map and adding > additional information, that would be a derived work just as much as > if you used a pantograph or tracing paper; > > (ii) the OS may have a database right in the features that they > present, if you extract (a substantial amount) of them then you may > infringe any database right they have in them.
What, pray, is a "database right"? > Looking at a map of my area which does not show my house (which quite > a few online maps don't at some resolutions) and clicking on where I > know my house is, does none of these things, because I am not copying > any element of the map etc. > > 2.1 could be read either way (and that's how I would draft it if I > were the OS) but I don't think it is in any sense conclusive, even if > they were right of course. > >> http://openspace.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/openspace/developeragreement.html >> has their definition of Derived Data which includes "any Data >> created by >> You or an End User identifying the location or other attribute of any >> new feature directly using Our mapping". > > A separate point to do with licensing not intellectual property. It > may be (depending on licence) that what we are talking about would be > a breach of someone's contract/licence agreement somewhere. That's a > separate (and more easily circumvented) problem. > > Its usual to claim as much as you can in such a licence. > >> >> I did misunderstand your previous email (obviously if you used Google >> maps search to look up a postcode, then clicked on the map, I imagine >> that would be a worse position), and I do agree with what you say (my >> postbox locating thing revolves around a presumably similar issue). > > Absolutely - using (say) code-point to find the location of a postcode > and then getting a user to confirm it would be an extremely clear > infringement (because you are just copying their database, with a > human check stuck in there). It may be that there is no way of setting > up such a thing so that it would avoid these problems, but I think > that it probably is. > > Of course using OSM as the underlying map would avoid that problem. > > But all this would be disastrous because the data wouldn't be > accurate, complete or always up to date (yes, I know the PAF isn't > either, its not just that it can be out of date it contains errors and > duplicates too). Why crowd-duplicate what the Post Office are already > doing at our expense. > > -- > Francis Davey > > _______________________________________________ > Mailing list [email protected] > Archive, settings, or unsubscribe: > https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public -- Ian Eiloart _______________________________________________ Mailing list [email protected] Archive, settings, or unsubscribe: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public
