On 29/12/2017 11:14, Andy Mabbett wrote:
On 29 December 2017 at 08:30, Adam Snape <[email protected]> wrote:
Speaking generally, I don't think it's good practice to be using
non-free resources like this to research information which is
not clear from open data, even if we don't use the information
directly.
Are you happy for people to enter into OSM the name of a store, read
from the store's shop-front signage?
What if that signage is an artistic design, meriting copyright?
What if it is written in a proprietary, copyrighted font?
Names aren't subject to copyright. They may be protected by trademarks,
but mapping them is not an infringement of a trademark. So, provided we
didn't discover the name from a source which is itself protected by
database right (eg, a proprietary directory such as Yellow Pages), then
there's nothing stopping us from using a name. Reading it directly from
the shopfront would always be OK. And we're not reproducing the font or
the logo, so that's immaterial.
What about from a non-free photograph, found online? Or in a book,
magazine or newspaper?
Those are fine. We are not reproducing any of the content, we are merely
ascertaining facts.
Were exactly do we draw the line? Why there?
We draw the line at using a source which is subject to database right,
and where using the content would be an infringement of that right.
Because facts are not subject to copyright, but a collection of facts
can be subject to database right. And it's the database right which, in
the context of OSM, is the key issue.
Mark
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