Is it okay to trace into OSM from the public-domain USGS Topographic and DOQ (Digital Orthographic Quads) aerial imagery? I think the answer there should be clearly "yes".
Now let me ask a question whose answer I think is still "yes". What if those tiles came from Microsoft's Terraserver-USA WMS service (http://Terraservice.net ) ? Specifically, these two URLs: http://terraservice.net/ogcmap.ashx?version=1.1.1&request=GetMap&Layers=DOQ&Styles=&SRS=EPSG:4326&format=image/jpeg& http://terraservice.net/ogcmap.ashx?version=1.1.1&request=GetMap&Layers=DRG&Styles=&SRS=EPSG:4326&format=image/jpeg& I'm not a lawyer, but here's the theory that I think applies: There are no Microsoft trademarks in the WMS images, so trademark law does not apply (the tiles are marked "USGS"). There is no opportunity for contract formation -- not even a clickthrough -- so contract law does not apply. Thus, we need consider only copyright law. You can only claim a copyright on a creative work. You cannot claim a copyright on a public-domain work to which you have applied no creativity. Westlaw has managed to claim a copyright on their page numbering scheme for public-domain law (they do this because legal citations make reference to page numbers; this is their franchise). Microsoft may possibly make a similar claim that the exact tiling offset they have chosen is not merely the natural tiling one would pick for tiles in a grid, but instead they have chosen one method out of many others for its grace and beauty. I suspect, instead, that zero is at zero, making any claims of creativity suspect. It's possible that the tiles are warped in a creative manner. I know of nobody who has ever noticed that; and it would be noticeable. It's technically feasible that they have modified the tiles by color-shifting, but there's no evidence of that. But let's say that that theory is wrong, and Microsoft has a strong copyright claim to the tiles. I'm not proposing that anybody redistribute, or even publicly perform the tiles. I'm proposing that people use the tiles to extract facts about the world embodied by the original public-domain USGS works. No portion of whatever theoretical changes Microsoft has made will be carried through. The tiles, once examined, are discarded, and no portion of them is incorporated into OSM. But let's say that THAT theory is also wrong (belt & suspenders). Microsoft has given an implicit license to use the works for analysis, criticism, and commentary. But that is exactly what OSM users are doing. Tagging is "commentary". If there is any creativity to be found in the tiles, then the analysis will turn to criticism. All of these are protected uses of a copyrighted work. -- Russ Nelson - http://community.cloudmade.com/blog - http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:RussNelson r...@cloudmade.com - http://openstreetmap.org/user/RussNelson _______________________________________________ legal-talk mailing list legal-t...@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk