yeah, i managed to dig up the "Shrinkwrap License" now and have had a bit of a read. i don't know what actual license version we have, will be clarifying that later today i hope, but i doubt from scanning the FC that it extends to what we want to do.
so in the end we may yet again be forking out through the nose bucketloads for stuff that is only a distant periphery to our applications and general functionality but still something essential "just in case". last time we had an issue like this the portion of the software that required this sort of attention made up perhaps 5% of the overall application, yet the costs involved were 200-300% of the development of the rest of it. perhaps we may find a basic data source for public use which doesn't need such detail, dunno. i'm in the wrong racket, sigh.... -----Original Message----- From: Bill Thoen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, 17 November 2004 12:44 PM To: Simmonds, Ashley (DTUP) Cc: 'Mapinfo List (E-mail) ' (E-mail) Subject: Re: MI-L map data on a public site... legal issues...? On Wed, 17 Nov 2004, Simmonds, Ashley (DTUP) wrote: > i would have thought that purchasing the dataset allows you to do what you > wish with it, publishing wise. obviously i can't distribute the original > data, but for displaying pretty maps and stuff in management reports nobody > ever questioned the legality as that's what we got the data for. > > however now that i've made a system where the maps can be viewed online, > some people are getting nervous... I think if your maps are static (i.e. pre-built) and distributed as images, that there will be no problem. However, if they are built on the fly by user request (i.e. the source data is accessed by a process invoked by a user request to build a custom map) then you are simply a dead man walking, in the legal sense. You just have to read the license that came with the data. Most big companies with lawyers to water and feed are very picky about how their data are used and Internet access is sort of a new frontier. OTOH, the Worldwide CVGMAP data set we sell (http://www.gisnet.com/catalog/cvgmap/index.html) has a more generous license. With CVGMAP you *can* make maps on the fly with that data. There's just an additional charge based on the volume you want to serve. It really comes down to the truth that you (or your company's legal expert) need to RTFC (Read The Funny Contract.) It might have big words like "estopple" and "tumescence of writ" in it, but if you don't read it, or understand it, you could turn your company into a lawsuit revenue stream for a data vendor. IMHO, and IANAL, of course... - Bill Thoen -----Original Message----- From: Martin Higham [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, 17 November 2004 12:26 PM To: Simmonds, Ashley (DTUP) Subject: RE: MI-L map data on a public site... legal issues...? When you purchase data, you receive a licence agreement with it. Typically this allows for use of the data on a fixed number of workstations, or acess from a fixed number of users via an intranet, or access to unlimited numbers via the internet. Check your licence or check with your data vendor, but its unlikely that you've bought data with no usage restrictions at all. Hope this helps. Best Regards, Martin Higham Avantra Geosystems ph (61 3) 8504 0428 0425-730-428 fx (61 3) 9596 7997 www.avantra.com.au --------------------------------------------------------------------- List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message number: 14083
