9 ms·

Are Apple 'stealing' Open Street Map data?

133 points by sambeau 15y ago

sambeau 15y ago
Confirmed (but no mention of stealing): http://blog.osmfoundation.org/ 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).
- rmc 15y 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.
  - brudgers 15y ago
    To claim Apple is incompetent in regards to IP is ignorant at best, and disingenuous at worst.
  - sambeau 15y 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 http://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright (I agree with your other points)
    - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
      OS maps don't show details within private property like ranks in car-parks.
  - jasonlotito 15y 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 15y 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 15y 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.
kaolinite 15y 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.
- rmc 15y 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)
  - kaolinite 15y ago
    As I said, I didn't know what the license was. But thanks for letting me know.
  - brudgers 15y ago
    Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
jessriedel 15y 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 http://alt-usage-english.org/groupnames.html
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- weavejester 15y 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.
  - brudgers 15y 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.
    - Symmetry 15y ago
      Huh? I'm pretty sure that the British corporations work the same way as US, since personhood is pretty much the defining aspect of a corporation. If I want a licence to make ARM processors I would go to some person who "ARM Holdings plc" has authorized to act on said corporation's behalf. Then I would sign a contract with "ARM Holdings plc". And even if the person I signed the contract with left the company, or the president of ARM went to work somewhere else, or even all the employees and all the shareholders were replaced my contract with "ARM Holdings plc" would still be valid. Likewise there's no one person who can just sell off all of ARM's assets if they feel like it. This is how most of the world does it, as far as I can tell, though in traditional Islamic law you only had business partnerships that dissolved if any of the members left. There are various arguments against having authority reside in abstract entities rather than real people, but I hope you can see how it can be good in the case of democratic governments at least, like the City of London Corportation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London_Corporation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London_Corporation EDIT: To be more clear, pretty much all businesses are some sort of corporation, even though most people use "Corporation" to refer to publicly traded joint stock corporations. All non-profit organizations are also corporations. Some (but by no means all) municipalities are also legally corporations, but I'm not sure exactly what the distinction between that and other forms is. EDIT2: Reading some more in Wikipedia, I might be using the word "corporation" too loosely in the above, and there are also plane companies and partnerships that are incorporated entities but not corporations, and have the same sort of legal person hood that corporations do.
rmc 15y ago
More details from OSMF http://blog.osmfoundation.org/2012/03/08/welcome-apple/ http://blog.osmfoundation.org/2012/03/08/welcome-apple/ ( and HN submission http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3679604 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3679604 )
- sdfjkl 15y ago
  Somehow I prefer we look forward to working with Apple to get that on there over Apple are thieving bastards.
  - rmc 15y 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.
    - brudgers 15y ago
      Bullshit on implying this is in any way due to ignorance. Open Street Map is very clear about attribution [http://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright http://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright], and Apple has decades of experience involving aggressive IP protection.
      - rmc 15y ago
        OK, then how about this: If OSM send in the hounds and start suing & issuing take down notices (which is silly, the OSMF isn't rich), then Apple and others will feel the hostility and have a bad taste. If, however, Apple realise their mistake in a timely manner and abide by OSM's copyright, then OSM will have another happy user and can continue on with world domination. "Assuming honest mistake" is good for long term & political goals.
      - ugh 15y ago
        I think their message is just right. I would reserve calling them thieving bastards only after they explicitly refuse to give credit. What Apple did is shameful but I think what OSM is doing is most likely to promote their goals. Let others write the outraged articles.
caycep 15y ago
can you "steal" that which is open?
- rmc 15y 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 15y ago
    So breech of copyright = stealing? The RIAA and MPAA were right all along...
    - runeks 15y ago
      My thoughts exactly. IMHO, published data cannot - by definition - be stolen. Private data can.
      - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
        I don't think I'd use the word steal in respect of copyright works. But here it is the moral rights which are being denied. How do you steal something given to you as a gift? Claim it was yours all along and so deny the owner their attribution. Even if the owner of the copyright retains access to the data you can still deny them their lawful attribution - that is what has arguably been stolen here I think.
    - freehunter 15y ago
      Hence the use of (what is called) "scare quotes". Note that I put scare quotes inside of scare quotes, because I really disagree with that name. Irony quotes might be a better name, which would allow it to cover all different and separate forms of irony (sarcasm, tragedy, fate, etc). But that's neither here nor there. The point is, "steal" is in scare quotes meaning it is using a word to express something other than its literal intention.
    - 15y ago
redcircle 15y 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 15y ago
  No mention of this in the in-app help, in-app legalese, or the EULA as reached from the App Store page.
cormullion 15y 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 15y 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.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
JVIDEL 15y 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 15y 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 15y 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.

133 points by sambeau 15y ago

Confirmed (but no mention of stealing): http://blog.osmfoundation.org/ 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).

rmc 15y 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.
- brudgers 15y ago
  To claim Apple is incompetent in regards to IP is ignorant at best, and disingenuous at worst.
- sambeau 15y 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 http://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright (I agree with your other points)
  - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
    OS maps don't show details within private property like ranks in car-parks.
- jasonlotito 15y 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 15y 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 15y 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.

kaolinite 15y 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.

rmc 15y 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)
- kaolinite 15y ago
  As I said, I didn't know what the license was. But thanks for letting me know.
- brudgers 15y ago
  Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

jessriedel 15y 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 http://alt-usage-english.org/groupnames.html

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
weavejester 15y 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.
- brudgers 15y 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.
  - Symmetry 15y ago
    Huh? I'm pretty sure that the British corporations work the same way as US, since personhood is pretty much the defining aspect of a corporation. If I want a licence to make ARM processors I would go to some person who "ARM Holdings plc" has authorized to act on said corporation's behalf. Then I would sign a contract with "ARM Holdings plc". And even if the person I signed the contract with left the company, or the president of ARM went to work somewhere else, or even all the employees and all the shareholders were replaced my contract with "ARM Holdings plc" would still be valid. Likewise there's no one person who can just sell off all of ARM's assets if they feel like it. This is how most of the world does it, as far as I can tell, though in traditional Islamic law you only had business partnerships that dissolved if any of the members left. There are various arguments against having authority reside in abstract entities rather than real people, but I hope you can see how it can be good in the case of democratic governments at least, like the City of London Corportation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London_Corporation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London_Corporation EDIT: To be more clear, pretty much all businesses are some sort of corporation, even though most people use "Corporation" to refer to publicly traded joint stock corporations. All non-profit organizations are also corporations. Some (but by no means all) municipalities are also legally corporations, but I'm not sure exactly what the distinction between that and other forms is. EDIT2: Reading some more in Wikipedia, I might be using the word "corporation" too loosely in the above, and there are also plane companies and partnerships that are incorporated entities but not corporations, and have the same sort of legal person hood that corporations do.

rmc 15y ago

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

sdfjkl 15y ago
Somehow I prefer we look forward to working with Apple to get that on there over Apple are thieving bastards.
- rmc 15y 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.
  - brudgers 15y ago
    Bullshit on implying this is in any way due to ignorance. Open Street Map is very clear about attribution [http://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright http://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright], and Apple has decades of experience involving aggressive IP protection.
    - rmc 15y ago
      OK, then how about this: If OSM send in the hounds and start suing & issuing take down notices (which is silly, the OSMF isn't rich), then Apple and others will feel the hostility and have a bad taste. If, however, Apple realise their mistake in a timely manner and abide by OSM's copyright, then OSM will have another happy user and can continue on with world domination. "Assuming honest mistake" is good for long term & political goals.
    - ugh 15y ago
      I think their message is just right. I would reserve calling them thieving bastards only after they explicitly refuse to give credit. What Apple did is shameful but I think what OSM is doing is most likely to promote their goals. Let others write the outraged articles.

caycep 15y ago

can you "steal" that which is open?

rmc 15y 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 15y ago
  So breech of copyright = stealing? The RIAA and MPAA were right all along...
  - runeks 15y ago
    My thoughts exactly. IMHO, published data cannot - by definition - be stolen. Private data can.
    - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
      I don't think I'd use the word steal in respect of copyright works. But here it is the moral rights which are being denied. How do you steal something given to you as a gift? Claim it was yours all along and so deny the owner their attribution. Even if the owner of the copyright retains access to the data you can still deny them their lawful attribution - that is what has arguably been stolen here I think.
  - freehunter 15y ago
    Hence the use of (what is called) "scare quotes". Note that I put scare quotes inside of scare quotes, because I really disagree with that name. Irony quotes might be a better name, which would allow it to cover all different and separate forms of irony (sarcasm, tragedy, fate, etc). But that's neither here nor there. The point is, "steal" is in scare quotes meaning it is using a word to express something other than its literal intention.
  - 15y ago

redcircle 15y 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 15y ago
No mention of this in the in-app help, in-app legalese, or the EULA as reached from the App Store page.

cormullion 15y 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 15y 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.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

JVIDEL 15y 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 15y 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 15y 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.