In Britain, the postal service has supplied a text file listing all post boxes. Each box has a 'ref' looking like 'W1 106', and of course it has a location in the real world. The text file doesn't give lat/long or grid references, just the name of the street or intersection. Sometimes the address given is precise enough to deduce the location of the postbox by looking at the OSM map, but other times when it just gives a street name you must find the post box by hand.
The original file, converted into tab-separated format, can be downloaded here: <http://edwardbetts.com/postboxes/postboxes.tsv> <http://www.dracos.co.uk/play/locating-postboxes/> is a project to locate all the post boxes on the list. Its data partly comes from OSM, but also from people manually locating a post box on the map based on the street name given in the text file. "By submitting, you agree to place the location you submit in the public domain." I would like to import this data into OSM - to add post box nodes with 'ref' tags. As far as I can tell this data is in the public domain; mere facts are not covered by copyright, and the lat/long data has been derived by hand using the addresses in the file (and OSM data) as a guide. I know that some people (who are not lawyers any more than I am) have differing opinions, and feel that any information derived from the list of postboxes must still be subject to the Royal Mail's copyright somehow. (In which case I would argue that copying the 'ref' and delivery time information from the notice on the front of each postbox must be equally infringing.) Anyway, because there is disagreement, I wanted to check with you people before doing anything. Can the manually located postboxes, based on OSM data and a list of postbox street locations from the Royal Mail, be added to OSM? -- Ed Avis <e...@waniasset.com> _______________________________________________ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
