On Wednesday 12 April 2006 20:23, Jon Stockill wrote:
> Ralf Gerlich wrote:
> > IANAL, but you might be even better off than you think. At
> > least here in Germany, courts seem to consider only the map
> > itself (its presentation) to be protected by copyright but
> > not the base data (such as elevation isolines, roadlines,
> > etc.), as the base data itself represents reality and does
> > not lend itself to creativity ("persönliche geistige
> > Schöpfung" or "personal mental creation"), which is a basic
> > requirement for copyright protection according to German
> > copyright law.
>
> Do that in the UK and you'll be very heavily stomped on by the
> OS lawyers. You want the data, you need to survey it yourself,
> or buy it (and then there'll likely be restrictions on use).
>
> > You may have to check whether similar conditions apply to
> > this specific map and Crown Copyright. I repeat: I am not a
> > lawyer ;-)
>
> They don't :-) If they did then there'd be no reason for
> http://www.openstreetmap.org to exist.
>
> JonActually, I'm pretty sure that Ralf is right even within the UK - it's only the representation of the data that can be copyrighted - not the data itself. The data is there for anyone to collect so it is not possible to prove the origin of the data. There have been rumours that the OS introduced deliberate errors in their maps so that they could be used to identify 'copiers' but quite apart from the fact that this would prove nothing (because it doesn't preclude someone else doing exactly the same thing or simply making a coincidental mistake) the OS also insists quite strongly that is has never, and will never introduce data error. However, have a look at http://publicgeodata.org/Home for the latest bad news... LeeE ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by xPML, a groundbreaking scripting language that extends applications into web and mobile media. Attend the live webcast and join the prime developer group breaking into this new coding territory! http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid0944&bid$1720&dat1642 _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
