Brian May <[email protected]> writes: > We (OSM-US) should really have a state by state guide on open records > laws per state. That would make the "license check" process > easier. Look up the state, get an answer. At least a quick answer to > start from.
Agreed in principle, but I think "open records" is off base. The real issue is copyright, not whether we have a legal right to demand map data held by the government. > This site seems to do a decent job of explaining public records per > state in a standardized format - > https://www.rcfp.org/open-government-guide/ Yes, but for the Massachusetts page (where I'm reasonably familiar with the rules, having been subjected to mandatory trainign), it does not mention copyright at all that I noticed. > But the state statutes are where you find the details and final > answers. If copyright is not mentioned at all in the statutes, then > its public domain, right? I completely fail to understand how you conclude that. These state laws and federal copyright laws act independently. Perhaps more importantly, creative works (other than old or by the federal government) simply are copyrighted. In MA, one can get a copy of public records, and one can disclose the information, but I see no right to copy, distribute, or to create derivative works. As an example my Conservation Commission publishes trail maps. Copyright is held by the town under the work-for-hire doctrine, and there's no license to copy granted, other than the "it's ok to print this out and use it" implied grant. > In my view, if the state statutes do not allow governments operating > within the state to copyright public records OR don't mention it at > all, then you don't need to ask the government data provider for > permission at all, like in Florida. That view might be right given enough case law, but it is remarkable and in need of citations. The phrase "allow governments to copyright" does not make sense since that's not how copyright works. If it were "prohibits the government from enforcing copyright" and "prohibits the government from acquiring data unless the government is authorized to grant licenses to redistribute under CC0", that's something else. > In this case, sounds like Colorado allows governments to copyright, > but this government chose not to. From what I've seen, the only time > they do try and exert copyright is if they are trying to make money on > the data. And even then, it seems like there's ways of skirting that, > e.g. grabbing data from a public facing ArcGIS Server. I don't follow "grabbing". If there isn't a license, the fact that you can get at the data doesn't seem to matter. That would be like copying frmo google maps because you can. > This seems like a topic for the OSM US Board to provide direction on. Agreed. I think most states intend to grant CC0/PD-with-attribution-requested terms, but the agencies are not necessarily adequately copyright-pedantic, and a high-level contact could be useful. (I and others in .ma.us have discussed licensing with MassGIS and the conversations have been highly reasonable.) _______________________________________________ Imports mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/imports
