And those are the basic assumptions I made as well. The problem is neither of us are lawyers and know what legal risks are involved with those assumption other than "stay away from anything not CLEARLY labeled PD"
On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 7:12 PM, Apollinaris Schoell <ascho...@gmail.com>wrote: > > > On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 1:26 PM, Dale Puch <dale.p...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> A real problem is that the data itself is not properly tagged, or does not >> explicitly state what if any restrictions are placed on it. When it is not >> perfectly clear is when non-lawyers like us are putting themselves and OSM >> in possible trouble. >> >> if it's not tagged we must assume it is under copyright and not PD > > >> A few examples: >> The web site has copyright notices on it, but the shape file data for >> access is blank but asks for attribution... >> An e-mail response regarding this is that we can use it with >> attribution. What satisfies the attribution, and is that e-mail valid >> permission for the data use? >> > > I think email has been used in many cases in court, so let's assume good > faith if there is an email. Even if you have a written letter you will not > do research to prove that the signature is real. that the letter is from the > company and the signer is allowed to sign such a permit > > >> >> Some place charge a fee to get the data, but is it then free to then copy >> and reuse? >> > > as long as the fee is cost of distribution then data itself may still be > PD > > Official state clearinghouses (usually a university) will sometimes edit >> the shape files to include copyright, even though the source data was >> specifically not. >> Free to get and use for personal use is not equal to public domain. >> >> > Exactly, this is no longer PD and you need the original source. But it will > be impossible for anyone to prove that you took their non free data. they > can add easter eggs so better to stay away from using such data > > The problem here is that that the clearinghouse is the OFFICIAL distribution point, the original agency points you to that site for any downloads. Even if the original agency specifically gives permission, the data is labeled as copyrighted by the clearinghouse. Thus the US OSM determining the legalities for OSM as a group in the US seems like a good idea. At the very least having a layer draw up some rules and guidelines for us to follow would be a huge benefit to making more data available for use. -- Dale Puch
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