At 09:32 AM 1/6/2008, you wrote: >Harald Kirsch wrote: > > fake names on google maps are a problem, because if these are not real > > street names they are likely not in the public domain, but rather > > copyrighted work of google who made them up. > >A street name is too short to be copyrightable. > >Furthermore, in jurisdictions where it is not possible to copyright mere >facts, but only the presentation or arrangement of them, it does not >matter if some of these facts are not true. Copyright does not suddenly >apply to a "false fact". > >Tony
Sure a street name is not copyrighted. But if you use a commercial map (paper or electronic) as a source to label streets on your map, I am not sure that would not be considered a copyright infringement. Sure, this is just information, but so is everything else on the map. The information is not copyrighted, but the presentation is. By making a similar map, you could be said to be "copying" the street names to a derived work which is a copyright infringement. This is the sort of stuff that lawyers are paid a lot of money to figure out. I would not presume to understand how to apply the law in an area where the experts are paid a lot more money than I receive for my work. ;^) gnuarm _______________________________________________ newbies mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/newbies
