[Geowanking] OS Legal Fun

[jo walsh]

hi tom, it sounds like your hauling-in by the OS was a profitable one.
 
> contract to supply central and local government with all the data they want,
> but that is on a properly costed basis - they buy as large clients. So
> claims that 'the data is ours, we pay for it' are actually not quite true. 

well, 'the data was ours, we paid for it'. the OS has only had this
trading fund status since 1999. right now it pays 15M UKP annually to
outsource its map drawing to delhi. a lot of its 100M+ running costs
are taken up with its hardcopy map business. That could and should easily
be decoupled from the raw data, like tiger/line - though the OS are a long
way towards having everything in GML now. 

> 6) The OS sees their copyright job as defending HMSO's Crown Copyright
> ownership of the mapping data. So they're like guards for someone
> /elses'/ copyright.

exploring http://neighbourhood.statistics.co.uk/ i ran across a click-use
online licence for HMSO data.
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/copyright/licences/click-use-home.htm
i reckon the raw map data has a good chance of falling under its core
license in several ways. IANAL. i would like to meet one.

i heard from jon bryant at OS that the crown copyright on geodata is
protected because a/ it guarantees that remote areas which are
'uneconomic' will still be mapped, and b/ it guarantees that there is a
central point of trust in the geodata.   

> 4) They're worried by the new Competition Act ... rule out the
> possibility of ever getting free data, it would even mean the
> end of cheap data.

is this "ask what you can do for the OS"? i can tell them to visit
http://www.freedata.ca/why-free.html and lobby the department of transport
and the environment and HMSO to allow them to release some subset of the
source data - e.g. the equivalent of the tiger/line set of spatial
features and the 30 metre DEM model for community mapping purposes - which
may release them from some of these obligations.

http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/partnerships/developers/
is very new on me. like amazon webservices, or as a local competitor to
the new MapPoint open API? this discourse of this web page is just
mortifying to me: 

    ... you will simply need to show us that your concept has
    marketplace potential. Once accepted, we will ask you to pay by credit
    card an administrative fee of 500 + VAT... You agree to a year's
    contract ... You may use the data to develop your idea, application
    or solution, but may not exploit it commercially during the licence period. 

  hello?

i'm well pleased to hear that geodata liberalisation policy is afoot in
the EU. i'd love to have more context for that, i would love to see an
EU-wide survey of different countries data policies. given how much the UK
currently opts out of i dont know how much that would help (with) the OS.
how can we help each other figure out what to ask for?


zx
--
"Common sense won't tell you. We have to tell each other." -DNA