On 15/07/2020 08:35, o...@poppe.dev wrote:
We wish to refer you to the Adopted Roads map for this information.
This can found via:
http://maps.ealing.gov.uk/Webreports/Highways/Adoptedroads.html You
are free to use this information for your own use, including for
non-commercial research purposes. It may also be used for the
purposes of news reporting. Any other type of re-use, for example
publishing the information, issuing copies to the public or
marketing, will require our permission as copyright holder. If you
intend to re-use this information in this manner you must apply to
us. ***
This is the FOI get-out; they can refer you to existing published
information and therefore don't need to give a direct answer in the
response. Unfortunately, that doesn't help with finding an
ODbL-compliant source of the name.
Secondly, lookig at that map, the adopted road scheme REALLY thinks,
that this road is called "Fairfield Road". Darn.
Well, it would, because the Adopted Roads list will match the NSG. In
fact, it's the source of the information that Ealing submits to the NSG.
So, now my question is this: The response said "If you intend to
re-use this information in this manner you must apply to us.". Is
this a process that I want to go through (given, I ever find out who
"us" is) and then put the answer under
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Permissions?
I suspect it would be fruitless anyway. They'll just refer you to the
existing mechanisms for getting access to the NSG. But even if you were
to pay the cost of that, it won't deliver the data in a suitable licence.
In any sane world, of course, the idea that the names of roads should be
subject to any form of restrictive license would be deemed utterly
absurd. In fact, I'm reasonably confident that it wouldn't survive a
legal challenge in this world. While the creation of a map, is, clearly,
a work subject to copyright, a simple fact - and the name of a road is a
fact - isn't. And a list of road names, created for the benefit of those
who use and maintain the roads, has no independent economic value and
therefore doesn't meet the criteria for database right.
The rulings by the European Court of Justice in the William Hill and
Fixtures Marketing cases are relevant here - essentially, the court
concluded that if a list of facts (eg, a list of football matches, or
horses entered in a race) is a necessary part of administering the
competition, then that list of facts isn't subject to database right as
it has no existence independently of the competition's functioning. And
I'm pretty sure that a court would apply the same judgment to a list of
street names. Councils have a legal obligation to maintain the canonical
list of street names in their territory, and, in any case, having such a
list is essential to the way that the council operates. So the list has
no independent existence apart from that legal and operational
necessity, and therefore doesn't qualify for database right.
But, of course, OSM can't include data on the basis of a legal opinion.
It would take an actual court case to establish the fundamental openness
of street names, and OSM doesn't want to be the organisation which is
part of that case. So, at the moment, we're still stuck as far as
directly reusing names from the NSG is concerned.
Mark
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