How not to credit OpenStreetMap
I recently received my copy of The London Cycling Guide by Tom Bogdanowicz, which I bought both because I was interested in the routes it shows and because it uses OpenStreetMap maps throughout. As an example, here’s a part of one of the maps, showing the Isle of Dogs:
By way of comparison, here’s how the same area looks in OpenStreetMap at the moment:
Obviously the maps in the book have had extra information added, and some things like stations changed a little, but the base map is clearly both OpenStreetMap data and OpenStreetMap cartography.
Naturally enough the first thing I did was to turn to the acknowledgements to see what nice things they would have to say about the project, and indeed we do get a mention, though more in passing than anything. What it says is:
All other maps by Steve Dew using base maps by Openstreetmap
More alarming however was what I found at the front of the book, among all the other copyright statements, where it has the following line:
Copyright © 2010 in maps New Holland Publishers (UK) Ltd
Whilst it is probably true that there is some copyright (in the additional work done on top of the base map) which vests with them, there is also clearly a substantial amount of work whose copyright lies with members of the OpenStreetMap project.
As far as I can tell nowhere does it indicate that the maps carry a CC-BY-SA license, which they must do, by virtue of being derived from OpenStreetMap maps which carry that license.
Don’t get me wrong, I love that people are using our work (and my own work even - some of the area shown above was surveyed by me) in this way - that’s the whole point after all. I just wish they would spend five minutes to properly credit us and to point people at the license, both of which the license actually requires them to do.
For the record, the first map in this post is © OpenStreetMap and contributors and New Holland Publishers (UK) Ltd and the second is © OpenStreetMap and contributors. Both are licensed under CC-BY-SA.
