On 8 November 2010 14:37, Nick Whitelegg <nick.whitel...@solent.ac.uk> wrote: > I think some discussion of this has come up before (some time ago) but how > many people are tagging footpaths with their council reference numbers?
I asked about this previously at: http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/2010-August/003748.html > I know one or two people have been tagging ref numbers but where have they > got the info from? A couple of councils round here (Hants, > West Sussex) publish the path numbers on their online maps but it's unclear > whether copying from them would be infringement of copyright. The reference numbers will be listed in an official document called the "Definitive Statement" maintained by each county council. This provides a description of the route followed by every public right of way. It typically includes OS grid references, a textural description and details of where the path starts and ends (eg a road or another path number). The numbering system is often only unique within a parish, but sometimes a parish prefix is added to the number, and at least one county has been re-numbering all the paths to be unique within the county. Where a right of way crosses a parish boundary, the two sections will have different numbers (if the old per-parish scheme is still in use). OS has officially stated that they don't claim any IP rights over the Definitive Statement [1], so OS copyright isn't an issue. (I'm not 100% certain that you can use the grid references -- they're technically derived from OS maps, though the disclaimer [1] should cover that, and presumably the translation to lat/lon is simply an algorithm and hence not copyrightable.) However, as the Definitive Statements are maintained by each County Council, they probably have IP rights in them, and we would probably need to get permission from the council before using them. I've tried obtaining some definitive statements using FOI. Unfortunately, since the definitive statements have to be available for the public to inspect, there's an exemption they can apply that the statements are already "reasonably accessible" to the applicant. (I wonder if requesting ones from counties far away from where you live could make a personal visit unreasonable...) Some councils don't have their definitive statements in electronic form, and would charge for scanning / photocopying. Moreover, some councils are becoming aware of re-use licenses and have started imposing their own conditions on re-use -- some of which may not be compatible with the OSM license (or any future proposals). As a result of this, I've held back from FOI-ing any more definitive statements, until (a) the OSM license change issue is resolved, and (b) the new Open Government License for Public Sector Information [2] gets adopted by local authorities. That said, I'd very much be in favour of adding reference numbers to footpaths (and other rights of way) since it would help us verify the designation tagging and completeness of the public rights of way network in OSM. Robert. [1] http://blog.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/2010/04/os-opendata-goes-live/comment-page-1/#comment-536 [2] http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/open-government-licence.htm -- Robert Whittaker _______________________________________________ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb