I clearly stated that contributors should not be caught doing something illegal, (this would compromise the entire project).
I clearly stated that I don’t want to know other contributors illegal activities like copying facebook content, (such a knowledge would make me an accomplice in most jurisdictions).
@SimonPoole you just admitted of deleting 18000+ changesets, and now it’s your work which is in doubt, not mine. I’m one of the most active contributors and my local community knows me and trusts me.
If you’re so sure of yourself, I challenge you to tell us for which changeset I have infringed any proprietary rights, and I’ll be more than happy to answer where did I get the data from.
@all (including me) We should use “copying” not “stealing”. It’s not the same thing. “Copying” means the original is still in place.
Imagine your car being stolen and still being there the next morning.
There must be a miscommunication here. To many of us, your original post sounded like advice to mappers that they should try to evade detection while violating copyright – in other words, plagiarism. Based on that interpretation, some went a step further and assumed that this was a Freudian slip, that you yourself have been plagiarizing copyrighted material. If that is the case, that would be a reason to scrutinize your contributions, though probably no action has been taken yet.
On the other hand, if you were saying you didn’t want to hear about copying from Facebook as a way of saying that you don’t want people to copy from Facebook, then this is much ado about nothing.
If I hear about people copying (coordinates and facebook were just examples), then the owner of the material will hear as well, and then the entire project is in legal trouble. I hope we can all agree that none of us wants that.
That being said, I have never controlled the legality of other contributor’s sources, this is very far out of my scope.
I don’t mind other people controlling me, but I will not take advice from someone (even moderator) who just admitted vandalizing, according to his own logic that 1 post is enough proof.
If he fails to prove me guilty or to withdraw his unsustained accusations against me, then this person is unsuitable for moderation, and for the safety of the project his account (+forum posts) should be deleted.
This forum isn’t the Data Working Group’s ticket tracker. If there are any concerns about the data contributions of a specific mapper, please take it directly to the DWG. The policy question that started this thread has already been answered to satisfaction. Making this a tribunal on anyone’s edits will just result in defensiveness and trading accusations.
Hi, I think everyone aligned on the main points of the discussion, but maybe wording is not really perfect and this is what making a confusion:
Everyone is against dumb and straightforward copying. This is illegal;
And you shouldn’t phrase your advices to other members in a way that you support anyone who violate the law, even if data sources may seem to be open for reuse;
This is done to prevent situations when a bussiness will start paying attention that his commercial data looks similar to the OSM. And at this point there will be a lot of headache to everyone: to a bad contributor, to others contributors in the area, OSM admins, OSM legal team and etc.
But this also doesn’t mean that you can’t open google maps during editing process, rechecking collected data is also an important step. And honestly speaking it’s not a secret that a lot of OSM contributors also contribute to the Google maps.
However all contributors should be cautions and any repeated behaviour or code automatisation should be discussed with others to check if you are not violating any IP laws. Thus the best advice is to be conscious if you are using any additional data sources information.
I personally don’t think that rechecking / smartly compiling important information from different data sources should be regarded as illegal action. For example some data fields like phones / building height / building levels and etc usually entered in a batch from some third party databases. This means that all sites base their data on the same dataset. And thus maybe if you can’t skip some crucial information sometimes you should try to add best possible available details. My point is to be alarmed if you constantly exploiting bad map-editing patterns. All problems arise if you are constantly exploiting this bad behaviour (like always copy phone numbers from google). And at this point you should hard stop and think about other options. Usually you may find another way of doing same task.
Another good way to address this is to promote a good behaviour from experienced mappers:
OSM is designed to promote contributors who create a unique dataset, basically it’s less about joining different datasets, but more about adding your perception of the environment as a local guide. That’s why it is not promoting to use anything except your eyes. Also this type of behaviour helps to be independent of any other datasets that might become illegal to use in the future.
If you want to add a new road / track / footpath use open GPS tracks or walk along this route yourself;
Do not contribute in areas / streets that you are didn’t visit.
Ideally even if you want to use smth like google street view in mapping than collect your own datasets. For example buy 360 degrees camer and make pictures of a place that you are editing (or use available opensource panoramic images);
Avoid tools that automatically copies data from other datasets into OSM.
If you found a new data source that might be useful for mapping (like database with list of all companies) only use it if you are sure that the law is not violated (for example you know that other commercial maps / sites refer to this dataset, thus you are not the first one to use it).
@beatnickgr You are indeed a respected member of the Greece community, a long-time contributor. That is not relevant to the fact that it is never appropriate to use or cite any google intellectual property, which is under a license incompatible with OSM and thus legally imperils the OSM project. Information owned by an individual/business who has released their business information online to attract more customers/establish a public customer base, that is a different matter. This is my interpretation of your posts. @Mateusz_Konieczny You are right to clarify what constitutes acceptable/legal contributions. In summary, for the participants of this thread, let’s please keep our posts focused on the general topic rather than any specific contributor. The Data Working Group, like always and rightly, will remove volunteered data that legally infringes.
This is however exactly the (legally) problematic scenario. And just because a third party might have used a data source that we can use, doesn’t make it OK to use data from that third party *.
Further in the case of google their ToS explictily do not allow use to improve other maps/data sources, making any use of google services problematic.
* consider it the other way around, somebody copying OSM data just because we’ve used a source they would have been allowed to use too.
I have repeatedly said (and gave examples why) it is dangerous to copy Google.
If I say “if you cooked meat in my kitchen I don’t wanna know, and I want no trace of it”, do I mean that I’m “advising/supporting” to cook meat? If you cooked the meat and remove all traces without me noticing, is this “admitting” I’m no longer vegan?? (is my English that bad???) → What really concerns me, is if OSM is gonna have legal issues.
“If you found a new data source” … That’s not good enough, these maps (1) (2) are outdated. Copying outdated data is proof that you have infringed intellectual property. → But these maps are intended for us to get there, so you can use them in the intended way.
I walked into more than one exhibition and asked every stand to put themselves on the map, and asked them to crosscheck again the data I was uploading for them. → So no, going to the place is not mandatory.
If a shop’s phone is available everywhere, Google cannot claim we have copied it from THEM, right? How can they prove we didn’t take it from the company’s website, or that we didn’t find it printed on the restaurant’s napkin?
Unless of course Google has a wrong phone and someone has copied their mistake, can they prove anything?
You continue to engage in the same rhetoric around “if it can’t be proven then it didn’t happen”, but as I’ve pointed out that isn’t relevant.
PS: for the record I never stated that you illegally copied anything, just that your statements lead me to the conclusion that we shouldn’t be distributing edits from you because you yourself have called them in to doubt.
Comments have become overly heated. If aggressiveness between or from any individual toward another persists it will force my hand to lock the thread. @beatnickgr I highly suggest you continue your disagreement with SimonPoole as a private chat, instead of on a public thread.
There is a difference between having doubts (I see nothing wrong with doubts), and your false accusations with the rhetoric that I “admitted to doing it” by “asking a friend”.
And “Game over” will be when you remove your posts, you’ve been aggressive towards me since your first answer.
It was not @SimonPoole that censored you, and it was not me. It was another moderator. I am locking this thread for 24 hours to let tempers cool down. If you want to continue your disagreement do so in private.
Topic has been reopened. Any intense disagreement between individuals should be continued via private communication, and not on a public thread. Thank you in advance.