4 ms·

This is amazing. I was astonished that even zip code data is proprietary data of the USPS in the United States. It's possible to "reverse engineer" the data fro

This is amazing. I was astonished that even zip code data is proprietary data of the USPS in the United States. It's possible to "reverse engineer" the data from publicly available census data (zip code tabulation areas) which is what I do and publish for free on ZipLocate[0]. Comparable datasets cost $499. Canada's situation is even worse. Geocoder.ca has been sued by Canada Post[1] to take down their data (which Canada Post was selling for $5000). The whole address data situation is really terrible. Glad to see Australia opening up the data. [0] http://ziplocate.us/ http://ziplocate.us/ [1] http://geocoder.ca/?sued=1 http://geocoder.ca/?sued=1

dsp1234 11y ago
US zip codes are authorized and assigned by the USPS, so by definition they are proprietary. However, the data itself (once it is obtained) is freely redistributable (in raw form). The barrier is that the official source of zip code data, National Five-Digit ZIP Code and Post Office Directory, is copyrighted[0], and there is work in extracting the data from it. The nice thing is that US copyright law limits the protection for "facts" [1]. The selection and arrangement of facts can be copyrighted, but not the underlying facts themselves. So it's perfectly legal in the US to take the zip code data and distribute it, just not in the original form from the National Five-Digit ZIP Code and Post Office Directory. As for other countries than the US, it would depend on their local laws. [0] - http://pe.usps.com/Archive/HTML/DMMArchive0810/G013.htm http://pe.usps.com/Archive/HTML/DMMArchive0810/G013.htm [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States#Compilations_of_facts_and_the_sweat_of_the_brow_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_St...
- desdiv 11y ago
  For anyone else wondering why isn't National Five-Digit ZIP Code and Post Office Directory in public domain like every other work of the US government: >Works by certain independent agencies, corporations and federal subsidiaries may not be considered "government works" and may, therefore, be copyrightable. For instance, material produced by the United States Postal Service are typically subject to normal copyright. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_work_by_the_U.S._government#Exemptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_work_by_th...
voltagex_ 11y ago
I don't think PAF (which is Australia's postal data) is included in this announcement. No one should be using PAF to geocode, anyway.
- MapMaker 11y ago
  GNAF includes addresses derived from the PAF. The vast majority ie over 90% are matched to jurisdictional addresses and just increase the confidence value. Where they don't match and there are more than 5 of them they are included as street level addresses. Only jurisdictional addresses have cadastral level geocodes.
  - voltagex_ 11y ago
    Thanks, learning something new every day.
iyn 11y ago
Thank you for running ZipLocate for free, I admire this. On a similar note, do you (or anyone else) know how to get data about the parcels/property sizes in the US (e.g: I want to check if address X is over 10k square feet)? Are there any open sets from which it would be possible to compile this dataset, or the only way is to go to Maponics etc and pay (but still, where do Maponics got this data from)? I needed this for my last project - at the time I used Zillow API (http://www.zillow.com/howto/api/GetDeepSearchResults.htm http://www.zillow.com/howto/api/GetDeepSearchResults.htm) but it was rate limited and had data for only about 50% of addresses I queried.

dsp1234 11y ago

US zip codes are authorized and assigned by the USPS, so by definition they are proprietary. However, the data itself (once it is obtained) is freely redistributable (in raw form). The barrier is that the official source of zip code data, National Five-Digit ZIP Code and Post Office Directory, is copyrighted[0], and there is work in extracting the data from it. The nice thing is that US copyright law limits the protection for "facts" [1]. The selection and arrangement of facts can be copyrighted, but not the underlying facts themselves. So it's perfectly legal in the US to take the zip code data and distribute it, just not in the original form from the National Five-Digit ZIP Code and Post Office Directory. As for other countries than the US, it would depend on their local laws. [0] - http://pe.usps.com/Archive/HTML/DMMArchive0810/G013.htm http://pe.usps.com/Archive/HTML/DMMArchive0810/G013.htm [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States#Compilations_of_facts_and_the_sweat_of_the_brow_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_St...

desdiv 11y ago
For anyone else wondering why isn't National Five-Digit ZIP Code and Post Office Directory in public domain like every other work of the US government: >Works by certain independent agencies, corporations and federal subsidiaries may not be considered "government works" and may, therefore, be copyrightable. For instance, material produced by the United States Postal Service are typically subject to normal copyright. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_work_by_the_U.S._government#Exemptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_work_by_th...

voltagex_ 11y ago

I don't think PAF (which is Australia's postal data) is included in this announcement. No one should be using PAF to geocode, anyway.

MapMaker 11y ago
GNAF includes addresses derived from the PAF. The vast majority ie over 90% are matched to jurisdictional addresses and just increase the confidence value. Where they don't match and there are more than 5 of them they are included as street level addresses. Only jurisdictional addresses have cadastral level geocodes.
- voltagex_ 11y ago
  Thanks, learning something new every day.

iyn 11y ago

Thank you for running ZipLocate for free, I admire this. On a similar note, do you (or anyone else) know how to get data about the parcels/property sizes in the US (e.g: I want to check if address X is over 10k square feet)? Are there any open sets from which it would be possible to compile this dataset, or the only way is to go to Maponics etc and pay (but still, where do Maponics got this data from)? I needed this for my last project - at the time I used Zillow API (http://www.zillow.com/howto/api/GetDeepSearchResults.htm http://www.zillow.com/howto/api/GetDeepSearchResults.htm) but it was rate limited and had data for only about 50% of addresses I queried.