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Comment by maxerickson | Hacker News Reader

No, don't do this.

OpenStreetMap isn't an experiment in the legalities of copyrights, database rights and terms of service. Only use sources with clear provenance and clear permission.

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Person A copies information on opening hours, the address, postal code, phone number etc. from the website (or even multiple sources) of a business onto Google Maps. Person B then copies this information from Google Maps to OpenStreetMap. The copyright either lies in the public domain or with the original website, not Google (Maps). This should be crystal clear and is in no way ‘an experiment’.

Okay, so now address the Google TOS (no extraction) and database rights.

Note that this is a FAQ:

https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Licence/Licence_and_Lega...

At least there was this recently https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/01/ninth-circuit-doubles-...

Obviously that only covers one specific angle though.

The point here becomes that the original data source(s) are freely available and often unlicensed. Same example: the local bakery is not going to license their website information (or often the site is copyrighted by the creating company). You can copy this information to OSM. You can copy this information to Google Maps and OSM at the same time. Google cannot put this information under their license with a ‘no extraction’ rule because they don’t own that information. I get that OSM has to be cautious but no sane judge would ever rule in Google’s favor in this case.

After spending some time adding info to OSM, you'll start to see plenty of cases where Google and Yelp have info for an establishment that's nowhere to be found on their website. And even for some businesses that don't have a website at all. Some of it's extracted from their street view imagery, but some of it clearly isn't. I can walk by my local bakery and their phone number and hours aren't posted anywhere visible. Maybe they're on the takeout menu. Maybe a business card. Maybe they're printed on the receipt. Maybe you actually have to ask someone.

You can't assume that everything on Google Maps is from scanning public web sites. Sometimes, apparently, they do some actual investigation.

Plus, Google's not always right anyway! Nothing's more embarrassing than being caught copying incorrect information. So do your own research. Obviously copying info from a public website is fine, but info on the ground is going to be more complete and reliable. (Plenty of businesses are sloppy about updating their websites.)

Yes you can copy it into OSM from the original source. But not if it's gone through Google.

> Google cannot put this information under their license with a ‘no extraction’ rule because they don’t own that information.

So what prevents someone from extracting all of Google Maps' data to OSM?

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