Importing county data into OSM for Marin County, CA

Communities United States
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I’m interested in importing address data sourced from Marin County into OSM; the current OSM address data for Marin County is very sparse. I may also want to enhance building data, although OSM is much more complete in that regard already.

This would be my first import, and I know imports aren’t to be done lightly; I’ve started reading the Import Guidelines and associated information.

I’m posting this for two reasons; to gauge interest (as specified in the guidelines), and to start unblocking the licensing, because otherwise it’s all pointless; whereas if all I ever do myself is clarify a compatible license, that’s still a win for someone else to import.

So let me know what the interest is in this. :smile:

As far as licensing, the Marin County GIS Open Data website links (in the footer) to their Conditions of Use. Due to some misconfiguration, the linked CoU URL is under an ArcGIS sub-domain, but it’s also accessible under the official domain.

It reads (emphasis theirs):

Conditions of Use

Thank you for visiting the Marin County’s GIS Open Data site and reviewing our Conditions of Use.

Please note that these Conditions of Use are subject to change without notice and that they reflect Marin County’s current business practices.

Disclaimer

County of Marin makes no representation or warranties, express or implied, with respect to the use or reuse of the data provided herewith, regardless of its format or the means of its transmission.

The data is provided “as is” with no guarantee or representation about the accuracy, currency, suitability, performance, merchantability, reliability, or fitness of the data for any particular purpose.

Most data, especially parcels and administrative boundaries, are not survey precise. County of Marin shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, compensatory or consequential damages or third party claims resulting from the use of this data, even if County of Marin has been advised of the possibility of such potential loss or damage. This data may not be used in states that do not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental or consequential damages.

In whole, the data seems open, but nothing explicit.

My understanding, and it makes sense, is that it’s best to get an explicit license / confirmation from the county. I’m willing to do the work on that. What should I keep in mind? What do I need to ask for? I’m aware of Import/Getting permission - OpenStreetMap Wiki, but checking to see if there’s more information that would be helpful.

I’m looking forward to working on this!

Questions

  1. Potential_datasources/Local_data says under California:

    To see the counties that have granted OSM permission to use their data, go to California/Import.

    The latter page lists “Marin” under “County areas added”. Does this imply there’s some permission already? Probably not, but maybe this question will prompt something anyway.

  2. Contributors - OpenStreetMap Wiki says under California:

    All California state GIS data are specifically exempted from having any license under state law regarding “right of access to public records.” Furthermore, this was upheld by the California Supreme Court.

    Does this mean the Marin County data is automatically public domain? Or that I can refer to that law if they deny access under those terms?

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You are correct, all GIS California data is open. Most local governments will put the Conditions of use as a way to try to release themselves from any liability for how the data is used. I work for Fresno County GIS and have had this exact discussion with most of the counties in California. We all feel though that our Open Data portals are permission to use the data how you see fit. We just are all that familiar with data licenses.All California state GIS data are specifically exempted from having any license under state law regarding “right of access to public records.” Furthermore, this was upheld by the California Supreme Court.

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For clarification, I’d also like to add this link, which discusses open data expectations for state entities, but also limitations:

In some circumstances, organizations may not possess all the necessary rights to be able to publish a specific data table. For example, if the data were collected or compiled (completely or partially) by a third party there may be a contractual or intellectual property limitation which prevents it from being made public. If the third party approves publication of the data the appropriate documentation of the permission must be secured and additional disclaimers may be required. Organizations should ensure that their legal counsel is aware of a potential ownership issue and/or that the data were compiled or collected by a third party when vetting data through the approval process.

That is to say, in some cases the state may even have the right to publish some portion of the data in some form, but they may not have the right to transfer additional rights to others if they licensed it from a third party. In that case, it’s worth checking with the government for any dataset you’re not sure was directly produced by the government entity.

That still doesn’t answer your direct questions about Marin county though, I know.

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As someone with a great deal of experience importing data from state and county sources (I’m in Northern California, I’m talking about California-created public data, like at state and county levels), I’ll say this. As a brand-new user, you very likely do not have the “OSM experience” (culturally in our organization) to correctly import such data into OSM. At least right now. I believe you COULD do it if you were to have a “chaperone,” someone who HAS such experience, and is willing to take the time to teach you the better ways to do it, shepherding you and the data “in.” (For example, I’m still cleaning up an import somebody else did — and I recommended he not do it — from over 15 years ago, and we are all in the USA still cleaning up TIGER from 2007).

I’m no lawyer, but f I had to guess (and I shouldn’t, nor should you), I’d say it is likely the data are OK to import — legally. The California Supreme Court ruling mentioned is key, guiding strongly.

@Cyphase, I truly thank you for stepping forward and asking as you have, and I do welcome you to our community. However, it does appear that you know that importing data into OSM is a sensitive, must-be-done-carefully according to community guidelines task. We have had serious problems with data importation of this sort, and whether it is legal or not (it likely is, given California’s broad court rulings on publicly generated geo data) is just the tip of a very big iceberg. Data imports are neither socially / community-wise nor technically easy, both of which are a potential minefield of problems for beginning mappers in OSM. Beginners, I will say this if nobody else does, are right on the edge of unwelcome from doing these unless there is very strong evidence to show you know what you are doing (and you do say you are a beginner and remain asking questions — good, but “you’re a beginner”) and that there is compelling and/or overwhelming community support to bring in the data.

Keep going (here, as well as other places you can gain confidence) with determining the legal status of the data. Assuming you wish to continue, there is still much work to be done: you’ll need to read, understand and importantly FOLLOW (including knowing what it means to introduce your importation to the community) our Import Guidelines. It was a good move on your part to quote those in your initial post, but that’s not enough. Ask around and do your best to discover others who have imported data — for a variety of reasons. It will show you as curious, interested in getting to know (and yes, asking for help from…but that’s OK) others in the project and these are truly helpful in growing not only your abilities to be a good OSM contributor, but growing your reputation as somebody who really wants to do things the right (community supported) ways.

There’s so much more to say, I’ll leave it there. Others who have the patience, thank you in advance for chiming in here. It’s a big topic, and it’s a huge topic for brand-new mappers.

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Thanks for your thoughtful comment, @stevea. I’ve read through it a couple of times and will be doing so again later, and replying in more detail.

I’ll say for now that I am aware that this will take time, and a lot of learning on my part. I’ve as yet only looked at (not even scratched) the surface of what it will take to import this data in a correct, reasonable way, and that’s even assuming the source data is highly accurate for what it is.

I appreciate your experience, expertise, and advice.

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would be interested in hearing about updates on this. I manually added addresses to Corte Madera from old town maps, and there were specific locations that were very hard for to me understand

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