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In my city we have a pretty good coverage for building footprints but unfortunately we're still behind on address. There are a number of sources that could be used for addresses - the local city hall web maps, paper maps, other commercial maps.

Now what's the policy regarding this - can we use these sources for addresses? Yes but only when manually adding addresses? Yes, but with the written consent of the 3'rd party (what about paper maps then?) No. Where could I find some guidelines about this?

asked 08 Jul '14, 15:02

ando's gravatar image

ando
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accept rate: 0%


In general, you cannot use those maps. Most maps have copyright restrictions that prevent the data on it to be included in OSM. You need the written consent of all copyright holders that their data can be used in OSM. All data needs to be available under ODbL. (some will say that even that is not enough for future license changes).

It's just healthier & more fun to go out and write down all the house numbers yourself :-) And it will probably more accurate as well.

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answered 08 Jul '14, 15:09

escada's gravatar image

escada
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accept rate: 21%

Hmm... while I agree with this answer, are there any other ways of jump starting this whole process?

(08 Jul '14, 15:16) ando
2

first of all make sure you really understand the ODbL license, see e.g. http://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/License for more information. Then you can contact the copyright holder and ask them whether they are willing to release their data under this license. It's probably not enough to just contact your town hall, but you should also contact the makers of the map. you can also read http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Potential_Datasources or the import mailing list

(08 Jul '14, 15:28) escada
1

I don't know where you are but here in Europe, there is a big trend in public administrations to open their data (aka openData) in a usable license for projects like OSM. Before you start to survey all housenumbers yourself and manually, you should try to contact the local city administration and ask them if they provide or could release their address in a open license compatible with OSM. After all, the municipality is usually the administration managing the addresses and they don't like to see their work published only by privatized resources publishers.

(08 Jul '14, 17:02) Pieren
2

My local mapper group was successful in contacting the city's administration and obtaining permission to use their database of addresses as the basis for adding house numbers to OSM. So with some luck, it is possible.

Oh, and if you ask for data, please ask for permission to use it for OSM in general, not only under a specific license. (I'm amongst the "some" that don't consider ODbL-only donations sufficient.)

(08 Jul '14, 18:52) Tordanik

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question asked: 08 Jul '14, 15:02

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last updated: 08 Jul '14, 18:52

NOTICE: help.openstreetmap.org is no longer in use from 1st March 2024. Please use the OpenStreetMap Community Forum