So let me see... I can use a C# note in my song because it is a fact - but at some point - a sequence of notes played at a certain tempo become a copyrightable work. But that's in terms of "art" that isn't grounded in reality in the same way as geographic representation. The lines on a map represent something "real". In a computer representation, the line is actually a sequence of two points (like two notes). That line is essentially a "fact".
However, a street doesn't consist of two points with a one-dimensional line connecting them. So it's an abstraction, like the melody. When I walk out to the street in front of my house with my GPS, I may get a lat/long pair like 105N/40W with some sequence of decimal places. One sequence of decimal places might give the center of the street and another might be 6 inches off the center. I think it's fair to assume that one could copyright a representation of a street based on a certain number of decimal places in the representation. So a full upload of TeleAtlas' data to OSM would result in copyright violations. But rendering TeleAtlas' data as a map (like GoogleMaps) and deriving a lat/long pair by clicking on a pixel in the rendered image would introduce enough jitter to make the resulting network unique. And like I said, the real value of TeleAtlas et al, is the underlying networks that allow for things like wayfinding. The structure of _THAT_ information likely goes beyond copyright and into the realm of trade secrets. OSM currently has a very unique data structure. I'd be willing to argue that even if we had the exact lat/long pairs from TeleAtlas, the resulting database would be unique. But looking at a rendered map, you'd never get the exact lat/long pairs. So the database would be truly unique. But again, seeing OSM sued out of existence would suck beyond all belief. And a company, like TeleAtlas, that can spend hundreds of millions of dollars maintaining their database, doesn't even need to be right to do overwhelm what resources OSM has with legal battles. -Eric On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 9:09 PM, SteveC <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On 6 Nov 2008, at 19:59, P Kishor wrote: > > So, it could be argued that -- "polygons from either OSM or > > TeleAtlas/NavTeq data; the geocoded photos that were just placed on a > > map... from the map; the polygons from that set of points.. " -- at > > each stage, the successive creation is deriving only the location. The > > location itself is fact and is thus not copyrightable per 17, 102 (b). > > No... it's deriving a set of locations, not a single one. > > Because if we follow your argument then it would be cool for me to > derive the intersections (locations) and vectors for all the streets > on a map. They're facts too right? Sweat of the brow and database > directive kick in. > > Best > > Steve > > > _______________________________________________ > Geowanking mailing list > [email protected] > http://geowanking.org/mailman/listinfo/geowanking_geowanking.org > -- -=--=---=----=----=---=--=-=--=---=----=---=--=-=- Eric B. Wolf 720-209-6818 USGS Geographer Center of Excellence in GIScience PhD Student CU-Boulder - Geography
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