On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 9:18 PM, Grant Slater <openstreet...@firefishy.com> wrote: > Richard Fairhurst wrote a good piece on the legals around aerial > imagery in 2009.... > "Aerial photography, cock fighting and vodka bottles" - > http://www.systemed.net/blog/legacy/100.html
Thanks for pointing me to this. Reading this, it makes a lot of sense now. If you rely on the claims made in the article (and they are compelling enough for me for those jurisdictions) then you don't need a copyright license from Microsoft, you merely need an exemption from Microsoft's terms and conditions to trace, which is exactly what we seem to have (even if it was announced loud and clear from Microsoft directly). I think it is also risky because other jurisdictions may not agree the same as these previous case. Though you can't be expected to change your whole policy (i.e. OSM's policy) because of one countries copyright laws which are greatly different to the rest... However even if these cases from the article seem like tracing should be okay without any explicit permission, evidence has shown that courts don't always rule consistently... ...one oddity though, you can bypass the terms of service of Google's imagery by me downloading google aerials, then giving them to you free of any terms of service. Sure I may be liable for breach of contract, but you won't be... Personally I would want the licensing of aerials I use rock solid. I need to know that the hours of my time I am investing in creating works derived from the imagery will remain free, and I won't have to go to court over it, and I won't lead others to not want to use my work because of any doubts or the risk of using such tracings deemed too high. I see nearmap come along and multiple times through multiple channels both grant a solid license and say that what we are doing is okay (back before CTs), then I see bing imagery come along and I don't see it as rigorous, so I'm naturally sceptical of it. _______________________________________________ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
