Hi Duncan, Sounds about right. Welcome to the world of UK geodata.
Key terms to inquire about include "derivative works" "database copyright" "public data swindle" My guess is that the part of LDCs data that is geocoded is a derivative work from the OS. You would imagine that for LDC to be allowed to sell their OS derivative data, the cost of the LDC product would have to be higher. OS licenses may also depend on what you are going to be doing with the data, the number of users, use online, offline, etc. It's a minefield - give them a call. I'd suggest calling the OS and LDC and asking them some more questions, as I'm sure they have the answers you seek. One loophole I know of includes looking at any business, educational or public partnerships you have with your project, and seeing if they have the licences that you can use. At the end of the day, $40K is not that much for a business which relies on making money from good quality data. For small businesses, it's a killer, and even parts of the UK government recognise it being a significant barrier to innovation. For alternatives, you would not be allowed to use Google / other webservice to geocode the data and store it in a database as this would break the terms of use. You may be able to do it each time on the fly - but you have to use their api to do so, at least. (I think) Open data options include http://www.freethepostcode.org/ and http://www.npemap.org.uk/ currently at 38,000 postcodes which are very good for sectors / prefixes (BN24 xxx). Using the OpenStreetMap database could also be an option, most of the urban centres should be complete, although address numbering is reasonably sparse. Cheers, Tim On 8/19/08, Duncan McCall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi all, > > Wounder if anyone might have some insight to shed on dealing with the > dreaded Ordnance Survey. > > We are licensing some data from the 'Local Data Company' (LDC) in the UK. > > They have business descriptions etc... that are geocoded to OS address > point. Now LDC are saying that even if we buy their wonderful data, we will > have to buy another license from the OS in order to actually use the data > with the OS geocodes, and that's going to be US$40K just to get started. > > Not sure we can do our own (google?) geocoding as specfic business's won't > necceasrily be geocoded to a suffice level of accuracy... > > Be really grateful if anyone had any experience or ideas on a way around > this at all? > > thanks! > Duncan > > > > _______________________________________________ > Geowanking mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking > _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking
