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- Ended .
- Reason for block:
Hello Donovaly,
I am writing to you in my capacity as a member of the OSMF’s Data Working Group that deals with copyright violations, in reply to this discussion and other similar ones:
https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/34658118
We are certain that the Swiss GWR is not an allowable source to deduct street names or copy other official names into OSM. If you haven’t done so already, we must ask you to immediately stop using it as a source for OSM.
All of your edits that have used GWR as a source to deduct street names from, will have to be removed from OpenStreetMap.
We might be able to make an exception for data within the canton of Berne. This is something we need to discuss internally.
The DWG is a group of volunteers that enforces community consensus. We are neither willing nor able to discuss this matter with you; OpenStreetMap has a strong tradition erring on the side of caution when it comes to copyright issues. OpenStreetMap is not the right place to unilaterally test legal theories and experiment with the limits of copyright. If you want to use the GWR then the right way to go about it is not paying a lawyer for writing a paper, but asking for explicit permission from the government.
We are however asking for your cooperation in identifying all changesets in which you have used GWR to deduct names from. Are you willing and able to help us out here? Have you used GWR everywhere, for every single name you ever added? Or are there certain areas where you have actually surveyed or used your own knowledge or other, admissible, sources?
If you are unable to help us credibly identify the affected data (please no “I have copied this from a 1900 map and you cannot prove me wrong”) then we will have to assume that all your name contributions are from GWR and we would have to remove them all.
Best wishes
Frederik Ramm
OSMF Data Working Group