Re: [OSM-legal-talk] GADM license - any news?
If it would be useful, I'd be happy to try to get in touch with the GADM people. Sending emails like that is a substantial part of my workday :-) I would just need clarity around what, specifically, we'd like to ask for this time. Simone, the factual nature of geodata and its effect on copyright is an interesting question -- I've had more than a few (US-based) lawyers express to me in passing that they're skeptical of the copyrightability of such information. Ultimately, it is a question that can only be settled in a courtroom. In practice, I think you'll find limited enthusiasm for that argument here for a few reasons: - The argument has weaker footing outside the US; untangling those jurisdictional questions is also quite tricky for a project of global scope (and chartered under UK law) - OSM has no trained IP lawyers at its disposal, cash reserves or potential commercial windfalls to be had by taking risks. These three factors all push toward a conservative approach. - OSM uses copyright to license its own data; dismantling others' license assertions through arguments about copyrightability is consequently a pretty thorny prospect. With all that said, there's no harm in asking GADM for permission. As I said, I'm more than happy to do so if you'd like to work together on the question. Tom ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] GADM license - any news?
Thanks for your answer, Paul. Some further comments below. GADM is still under a non-commercial license. I don't know who said they were going to investigate, so you'd have to ask them, but I doubt anything came of it. Independently of that, we got permission for some datasets from GADM after the fact of a bad import, but this does not mean we can import anything new. Which are these datasets? Are they relevant or minor datasets? Another interesting issue is that Naturalearthdata.com (http://www.naturalearthdata.com/) includes the GADM dataset as a source of data (see http://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/10m-cultural-vectors/10m-admin-1-states-provinces/). But Naturalearthdata.com release ALL ITS DATA as public domain. So... something is missing in the workflow. Any ideas/suggestions? I don't see anything that says the admin 1 theme is derived from GADM. I can see it listed in resources, but that's not a list of sources. Ok, I understand your point of view. I am not sure what they mean with resources. Reading the whole page, it seems like the mean sources... but who knows. Here you can find a discussion about the GADM/NaturalEarthj licensins issues: http://www.naturalearthdata.com/forums/topic/licensing-naturalearth-pd-vs-gadm-license/ Someone supports the theory that the administrative boundaries are FACTS (see also the Feist Case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._Rural_Telephone_Service_Co) and then in the public domain by default. Thanks. Bye, Simone -- Simone Aliprandi - http://www.aliprandi.org | http://www.array.eu 2015-08-21 16:41 GMT+02:00 Simone Aliprandi simone.alipra...@gmail.com: I found an interesting dataset commonly called Berkely GADM (http://www.gadm.org) and containing containing global administrative areas. It has a very pour and short license (or a wannabe-license) that says: - - - - - - This dataset is freely available for academic and other non-commercial use. Redistribution, or commercial use, is not allowed without prior permission. - - - - - - It is really too vague. But it is quite clear that the non commercial restriction makes this dataset not usefull for OSM. In the http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Potential_Datasources page of the OSM wiki I found a comment posted in 2009 that says: - - - - - - I'll investigate the part containing global administrative areas (but called GADM). It seems to be very useful, because administrative boundaries are missing for large parts of the world. One table in the geodatabase (MS Access) contains information on copyright for every country. I'll try to contact one of the persons at Berkeley, and ask if they agree to lift the NC restriction for OSM. - - - - - - Do you know if any news have come in these six years? Do you know if OSM received a sort of direct permission to include those data in the OSM database? Another interesting issue is that Naturalearthdata.com (http://www.naturalearthdata.com/) includes the GADM dataset as a source of data (see http://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/10m-cultural-vectors/10m-admin-1-states-provinces/). But Naturalearthdata.com release ALL ITS DATA as public domain. So... something is missing in the workflow. Any ideas/suggestions? Thanks very much. Simone -- Simone Aliprandi - http://www.aliprandi.org | http://www.array.eu ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] GADM license - any news?
On 8/25/2015 3:55 AM, Simon Poole wrote: - in dire circumstances and with a very large effort, as Paul has pointed out, three and a half years ago I managed to get hold of the responsible person with GADM and get explicit permission for a handful of datasets that had been imported in violation of the import guidelines and in principle should have been deleted - the situation is documented here http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contributors#GADM_.28Global_Administrative_Areas.29 For a number of other data sets explicitly said they were unable to grant permission for non-commercial use. Since some of the data was coming from government agencies, it's possible the non-commercial requirements for those datasets are set down in law. - AFAIK I'm the last person that managed to get hold of the GADM people and I don't see anybody volunteering to try again About a year later I tried to get into contact with anyone involved in GADM and couldn't get a reply. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] GADM license - any news?
Simone, you are flogging a really dead horse (which has been discussed many many many times before). - the licence of the GADM dataset is incompatible with OSM - in dire circumstances and with a very large effort, as Paul has pointed out, three and a half years ago I managed to get hold of the responsible person with GADM and get explicit permission for a handful of datasets that had been imported in violation of the import guidelines and in principle should have been deleted - the situation is documented here http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contributors#GADM_.28Global_Administrative_Areas.29 - AFAIK I'm the last person that managed to get hold of the GADM people and I don't see anybody volunteering to try again - people will argue all day long about legal points of any kind Simon Am 25.08.2015 um 12:02 schrieb Simone Aliprandi: Thanks for your answer, Paul. Some further comments below. GADM is still under a non-commercial license. I don't know who said they were going to investigate, so you'd have to ask them, but I doubt anything came of it. Independently of that, we got permission for some datasets from GADM after the fact of a bad import, but this does not mean we can import anything new. Which are these datasets? Are they relevant or minor datasets? Another interesting issue is that Naturalearthdata.com (http://www.naturalearthdata.com/) includes the GADM dataset as a source of data (see http://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/10m-cultural-vectors/10m-admin-1-states-provinces/). But Naturalearthdata.com release ALL ITS DATA as public domain. So... something is missing in the workflow. Any ideas/suggestions? I don't see anything that says the admin 1 theme is derived from GADM. I can see it listed in resources, but that's not a list of sources. Ok, I understand your point of view. I am not sure what they mean with resources. Reading the whole page, it seems like the mean sources... but who knows. Here you can find a discussion about the GADM/NaturalEarthj licensins issues: http://www.naturalearthdata.com/forums/topic/licensing-naturalearth-pd-vs-gadm-license/ Someone supports the theory that the administrative boundaries are FACTS (see also the Feist Case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._Rural_Telephone_Service_Co) and then in the public domain by default. Thanks. Bye, Simone -- Simone Aliprandi - http://www.aliprandi.org | http://www.array.eu 2015-08-21 16:41 GMT+02:00 Simone Aliprandi simone.alipra...@gmail.com: I found an interesting dataset commonly called Berkely GADM (http://www.gadm.org) and containing containing global administrative areas. It has a very pour and short license (or a wannabe-license) that says: - - - - - - This dataset is freely available for academic and other non-commercial use. Redistribution, or commercial use, is not allowed without prior permission. - - - - - - It is really too vague. But it is quite clear that the non commercial restriction makes this dataset not usefull for OSM. In the http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Potential_Datasources page of the OSM wiki I found a comment posted in 2009 that says: - - - - - - I'll investigate the part containing global administrative areas (but called GADM). It seems to be very useful, because administrative boundaries are missing for large parts of the world. One table in the geodatabase (MS Access) contains information on copyright for every country. I'll try to contact one of the persons at Berkeley, and ask if they agree to lift the NC restriction for OSM. - - - - - - Do you know if any news have come in these six years? Do you know if OSM received a sort of direct permission to include those data in the OSM database? Another interesting issue is that Naturalearthdata.com (http://www.naturalearthdata.com/) includes the GADM dataset as a source of data (see http://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/10m-cultural-vectors/10m-admin-1-states-provinces/). But Naturalearthdata.com release ALL ITS DATA as public domain. So... something is missing in the workflow. Any ideas/suggestions? Thanks very much. Simone -- Simone Aliprandi - http://www.aliprandi.org | http://www.array.eu ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] GADM license - any news?
Am 25.08.2015 um 20:14 schrieb Tom Lee: The main point is however that while we can pontificate as much as we want that something might be legal in country X, Y or Z, it doesn't really matter: for OSM to be useful in a country (and our goal is to be useful in as many countries as possible, not just the US) at least the data included from sources in that country (aka the Government) has to be legally obtained and licensed in such a way that we can distribute it on ODbL terms. My over used analogy: sure you can move to a country with lax copyright laws and start copying Hollywood movies in a big way, but you wont actually have a product that you can market outside of that country at the end of the day. Back to GADM: it is not as if they generated the original borders themselves, the primary sources are likely far easier to approach and get permission from, particularly now that OSM is a lot better known then a couple of years back. But IMHO that is something for the local communities/mappers to engage in, not inflicted on them from good intentioned outsiders. Simon signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] GADM license - any news?
On 8/21/2015 7:41 AM, Simone Aliprandi wrote: Do you know if any news have come in these six years? Do you know if OSM received a sort of direct permission to include those data in the OSM database? GADM is still under a non-commercial license. I don't know who said they were going to investigate, so you'd have to ask them, but I doubt anything came of it. Independently of that, we got permission for some datasets from GADM after the fact of a bad import, but this does not mean we can import anything new. Another interesting issue is that Naturalearthdata.com (http://www.naturalearthdata.com/) includes the GADM dataset as a source of data (see http://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/10m-cultural-vectors/10m-admin-1-states-provinces/). But Naturalearthdata.com release ALL ITS DATA as public domain. So... something is missing in the workflow. Any ideas/suggestions? I don't see anything that says the admin 1 theme is derived from GADM. I can see it listed in resources, but that's not a list of sources. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
