>> Second issue : it is maybe a more specific French issue here because >> the "routes" themselves can be copyrighted when they are considered as >> "original work". A famous case confirmed this with the IGN (publishing >> the FFRP maps) sueing a guidebook editor [5] and confirmed by the >> highest court in France (1ere chambre de la cour de cassation de >> Paris, decision of 30 june 1998 [8]. I don't know if this is the same >> in other countries but a significant part of the OSM community in >> France would consider deleting the FFRP hiking routes completely (and >> not only the trademarks mentionned in Q1).
>On what basis do they claim ownership of the routes, exactly? As I >understand it, many of these routes link up lots of little trails that >had been around for decades. How did copyright get transferred from >the people who created the trails to the FFRP? Or do they claim >ownership only over new sections? Or only over a particular >representation? Apologies - may have sent a blank response by accident. So does "FFRP hiking routes" include *any* waymarked/signposted trail in France? I hope not, as that would imply that OSM could not be used at all for planning/doing walks in France. I guess OSM would in that case need to come to some sort of agreement with FFRP/IGN. I'm not sure how French law on public access compares to the UK's, in my (limited) experience (Alpes-Maritimes/Mercantour area, north of Nice) certain trails are waymarked, others aren't but are subject to "Defense d'entrer" signs or similar... which is basically like the UK. More philosophically the idea of someone claiming copyright on walking routes seems completely at odds with the nature of countryside walking, which to my mind has similar free and open values to open source software and data (the landowners and their "Keep out" signs being similar to proprietary licencing) Nick
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