Are Apple 'stealing' Open Street Map data?

http://alastaira.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/apple-maps-aka-apple-are-thieving-bastards/

by sambeau • 14 years ago

133 65 14 years ago

alastaira.wordpress.com

sambeau2• 14 years ago

Confirmed (but no mention of stealing):

http://blog.osmfoundation.org/

though there is this:

  "It’s also missing the necessary credit to OpenStreetMap’s
   contributors; we look forward to working with Apple to get
   that on there."

I guess there is an outside possibility that both teams are using the same Ordinance Survey Data (although this seems unlikely now that the OSM Foundation has chimed in, I suspect they would have checked this before announcing Apple's welcome).

rmc8• 14 years ago

OSM does not use Ordinance Survey Data. (OS has started allowing some tracing). The data matches up all over the world, not just the UK (OS only has detailed maps of UK).

It's OSM data.

As for references of "stealing", remember don't attribute to malice what can easily be explained by incompetance.

brudgers8• 14 years ago

To claim Apple is incompetent in regards to IP is ignorant at best, and disingenuous at worst.

sambeau2• 14 years ago

I mentioned it only because their copyright page says they do use OS data.

  United Kingdom: Contains Ordnance Survey data 
  © Crown copyright and database right 2010.

http://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright

(I agree with your other points)

jasonlotito2• 14 years ago

Incompetence doesn't change what this is. Simply describes the manner in which it was done. Incompetent "stealing" or malicious "stealing", it's still "stealing."

* Stealing is very much the wrong word here, but I don't know if this falls under copyright infringement or something else.

atopuzov• 14 years ago

They are using OSM data, that's 100%. I checked some tracks that I myself entered in OSM, and they are in Apple's map.

kenrikm• 14 years ago

It's very easy to finde the OSM Licence and even easier to understand that the most important they ask for is to be properly credited. Whoever green lighted this over at Apple is going to have a very bad day.

kaolinite2• 14 years ago

Whilst I'm pleased they're using the data (though attribution would be nice), I'm concerned that they'll start updating the maps themselves and not contribute their work back to the community. Will have to wait and see I suppose - I'm unsure what the license for OSM data is.

rmc8• 14 years ago

The OSM data that Apple are using is from 2 years ago. That would be under CC-BY-SA. Attribution is not 'nice', it is legally required (i.e. copyright infrigment if not attribute).

OSM is changing to ODbL soon (since CC doesn't make a lot of sense for this sort of data)

kaolinite2• 14 years ago

As I said, I didn't know what the license was. But thanks for letting me know.

brudgers8• 14 years ago

Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0):

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

jessriedel3• 14 years ago

So I'm trying to understand the British grammar. The blog author's usage is correct ("Apple are thieving bastards") because using a plural verb after a collective noun indicates that it applies to the members (who are multiple bastards). But isn't the HN title incorrect ("Are Apple 'stealing' Open Street Map data?") because the data is/are (unrelated!) being stolen by the company as a whole, requiring a singular noun, and not being stolen by individual members?

http://alt-usage-english.org/groupnames.html

weavejester3• 14 years ago

British grammar traditionally refers to companies in the plural form (e.g. Apple are releasing the iPad 3 this year), but the American style, where companies are referred to in the singular form (e.g. Apple is releasing the iPad 3 this year) is also acceptable in Britain.

The article you linked to is, I think, a little misguided. If I heard "the government are killing people" I'd assume it meant "the people who make up the government have collectively decided to kill people", which is really no different to "the government is killing people". The collective decision of a group is the individual decision of the entity that group represents.

brudgers8• 14 years ago

Perhaps the difference in style is due to the legal status of corporations as persons in the US. In any event, "Apple is a thieving bastard" does not quite work.

euroclydon• 14 years ago

Thanks. I came here just to bitch about pedantic plural company verb usage on HN. As an American, it's nice to know I can be proud that we've got this usage sounding right.

jessriedel3• 14 years ago

Do you have a source? Wikipedia seems to agree with mine:

>In [British English], collective nouns can take either singular (formal agreement) or plural (notional agreement) verb forms, according to whether the emphasis is on the body as a whole or on the individual members respectively; compare 'a committee was appointed' with 'the committee were unable to agree'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_di...

finin• 14 years ago

"Corporations are people, my friend."

bicknergseng2• 14 years ago

Corporation are people?

rmc8• 14 years ago

More details from OSMF http://blog.osmfoundation.org/2012/03/08/welcome-apple/ ( and HN submission http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3679604 )

sdfjkl• 14 years ago

Somehow I prefer we look forward to working with Apple to get that on there over Apple are thieving bastards.

rmc8• 14 years ago

Exactly. Don't attribute to malice what can easily be explained by ignorance. Getting a company's back against the wall will not endevour them to OSM.

cbs2• 14 years ago

I prefer to skip the watered-down PR-speak, if you don't mind.

caycep• 14 years ago

can you "steal" that which is open?

rmc8• 14 years ago

Yes, you can be in breech of copyright with this.

OpenStreetMap data isn't public domain, it's copyright under a creative commons licence. There are clear rules you must obey to not be in breech of the licence.

YooLi• 14 years ago

So breech of copyright = stealing? The RIAA and MPAA were right all along...

redcircle• 14 years ago

Apple traditionally has an 'about' page where they attribute open-source projects, etc. Doesn't this version of iPhoto have the same? Or perhaps the iPad/iPhone version has no 'about' page? [edit: by 'page', I mean a dialog box or something comparable within the program]

incanus77• 14 years ago

No mention of this in the in-app help, in-app legalese, or the EULA as reached from the App Store page.

cormullion• 14 years ago

From the iPhoto 1.0 license agreement, dated 17 Feb 2012:

"Title and intellectual property rights in and to any content displayed by or accessed through the Apple Software belongs to the respective content owner. Such content may be protected by copyright or other intellectual property laws and treaties, and may be subject to terms of use of the third party providing such content. Except as otherwise provided in this License, this License does not grant you any rights to use such content nor does it guarantee that such content will continue to be available to you."

Don't know what this _really_ means, though...

ajross• 14 years ago

They've always used third party (Google) content for this purpose. that's just a disclaimer that while they have a license to show it to you for the purpose of locating your photo, you don't get a transitive license to re-use the data for other purposes. Basically, the photo is copyright by you, the map is not, nor is it by Apple.

JVIDEL• 14 years ago

I don't see how Apple could tarnish its brand image by saying they were using OSM. As a matter of fact they could have improved their image regarding open source by supporting OSM directly, thus justifying the use of their maps.

I'm not going to say it was malice, I really think this was discussed during development and most of the people in charge thought it wouldn't matter and nobody would care if they used OSM maps and give no credit to it.

Joeri• 14 years ago

More likely they flagged it as a todo for when the legal team wrote the licenses, and the legal team forgot. I don't think a developer would even be allowed to add an attribution notice without running it by legal.

edlea• 14 years ago

Looking at iPhoto "Journal", Apple probably decided they couldn't redistribute Google maps so switched to OSM. Just a shame they didn't do it within the parameters of OSM's license.

Hopefully this was a mistake rather than Apple thinking they either didn't need to adhere to a license or that they could just bully their way to what they want.

Are Apple 'stealing' Open Street Map data?

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