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Is there a rule/regulation in OSM wiki whether and how OSM mappers can upload their (the same)data to other map sources, e.g. to Google maps?
While preparing the answer for a coastline uploading dilemma here http://osm.org/go/cpP4bLCz-- I came over frightening similarity between the coastline poli-lines in OSM and Google maps around the same place. Actually, I cannot find any differences between the two edge vector sets. Just see the images here https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6qGm3k2qWHqdjNXSlp5Q0xWMmM/view?usp=sharing . Some options how this might happen:
First, both sources have used the same publicly available data. Still some divergence should be visible. Small probability.
Second, someone has copied the data from one to the other mapping source. Clearly illegal. Small probability.
Third, the same mapper/editor has uploaded the same data to both sources. Highly probable. Now, is this legal? At least is this ethically correct?

asked 20 Mar '17, 07:15

sanser's gravatar image

sanser
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Uploading data that you have created yourself (e.g. through a survey) to both OSM and other platforms is totally ok from OpenStreetMap's point of view.

Care has to be taken to ensure you actually own the data or have been granted the necessary rights though. For example, there might be imagery sources explicitly cleared for use in OSM but not for other purposes. Bing is such an imagery source - while OSM doesn't care what other things you do with stuff traced from Bing, the license granted to you by Bing explicitly talks about uploading to OSM, i.e. it is not valid for uploading to Google.

Also, if you should create data in OSM that is somehow derived from other OSM data - for example if you draw a road that runs parallel to a river already in OSM - then that data is subject to ODbL and any site you upload the data to must respect that.

(Richard points out in another answer that actually the data in question has been imported from a common source so the above is, while a valid answer to your question, not really relevant to your particular example.)

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answered 20 Mar '17, 08:44

Frederik%20Ramm's gravatar image

Frederik Ramm ♦
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edited 20 Mar '17, 16:07

1

Thanks for the answer. For the question, the reason for similarity of the two coastlines is irrelevant. The high level of similarity is the fact that may raise the question. Richard is not answering the question, he is just commenting one of the possible similarity reasons using trivial arguments. In the hurry one can easily "jump over" some important arguments. From the first link we see that an enthusiastic mapper is recently editing that coastline. The source is the same as was referenced for the old version but the data, the coastline is much more detailed and, probably, precise. Assuming that the mapper is not improvisating this means that the former coastline version vas uploaded by the same procedure/mapper, probably with certain simplification, to both application sources. As answered, this is legal under certain preconditions.

(20 Mar '17, 22:53) sanser

You are jumping to conclusions.

The source tag on the OSM data is "NRCan-CanVec-8.0". This is a freely available Government dataset. It is the successor to the GeoBase dataset which Google acknowledges using: http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/help/legalnotices_maps.html

There is absolutely nothing unusual in Google and OpenStreetMap having the same data when that data has been mechanically imported from a third-party source. There is no reason to expect "some divergence" in this case: both sites use a Spherical Mercator projection.

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answered 20 Mar '17, 15:54

Richard's gravatar image

Richard ♦
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question asked: 20 Mar '17, 07:15

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last updated: 20 Mar '17, 22:53

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