All, I will preface this by saying I am not an attorney, nor do I formally represent the USG in this matter. However, as the point person in the State Department for this project, I have been deeply involved with the process to make NextView licensed imagery available for humanitarian applications in which OSM volunteers can use the imagery to produce OSM data. I will not go into the details, as it took 14 months worth of discussions, but from the USG perspective the extraction of vector data for storage in OSM (under the ODBL) from NextView licensed imagery does not violate the commercial clause of the NextView license. This interpretation is what allows us to share the data with the OSM community.
Several HOT members were present during this work, a ground-breaking process to increase sharing of USG purchased imagery (1). Recognize that the NextView license acknowledgement that you reference below was designed especially for the imagery itself, not the extracted vectors. This is why the terms imagery and Literal Image Derived Product (LIDP) are explicitly referenced. The license is there to protect against someone trying to re-sell imagery that has been shared, not limit the use of the imagery in terms of extracting vector data. In accepting the NextView license, a volunteer is indicating they acknowledge that the imagery copyright is held by Digital Globe, that they can only use the imagery for the purpose for which it was shared, and that they cannot gain commercially from the imagery itself. The entire NextView license is part of a contract between Digital Globe and the United States Government, and it is not appropriate to share in its entirety with the OSM community. As Kate mentioned, this has come up before. I can only hope to limit your concern over the license issues by saying that we have worked extraordinarily hard to make this happen and we are committed to making the "Imagery to the Crowd" (2) process work for all involved. Regards, Joshua S Campbell GIS Architect Humanitarian Information Unit U.S. Department of State (1) http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2013-August/007614.html (2) http://hiu.state.gov/ittc
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