FYI…
I’m not sure how much help that is when the pin has the right address, but is located in the wrong position (which is what usually causes people to end up in the wrong location)…
That is exactly what the form is intended to assist with. Here’s the brief forum post about it, in the US Unlock Forum:
https://www.waze.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=622&t=104617
Beautiful, that’s good to know. It was just that when I gave the form a quick look-over, I didn’t see where you could put information that reflects where the pin should physically be moved to on the map. I’ll give it another look-over.
Thanks!
I understood that this form is for US only and the corrections are made by pjlasl(US Champ) + team.
Am i correct or google gets involved at some point?
I believe you are basically correct, since it’s announced in the US forum. And yes, it is Waze editors with experience in editing Map Maker doing the edits. I don’t think Map Maker has restrictions on where anyone can edit, but I believe there is some “trust” built up in areas where a user edits more frequently, and so, more “power” to correct things.
So, unless there were someone in Brasil who had been editing in Map Maker for a while, it may not be of any particular benefit over there. It could be useful, if the plan works, for other countries or regions to create their own teams to work in those areas. A PM to pjlasl might be more informative.
Disclaimer: Any of the above could be wrong, as I’m talking off the top of my head, without research.
What has this to to with Copyright? It opens another Browser-Window with GoogleMaps or something else. The same as i open the window manually. I think i de-install the toolbox. Or better - quit the editing of waze-maps completely.
This has been hashed over pretty thoroughly here.
If you are depending on third-party maps (e.g. Google, Bing, OSM) to do your editing, please quit. By using these sources, you are threatening the entire Waze map with deletion (ref: http://blog.waze.com/2010/08/thanks-and-huge-apology-to.html ).
Furthermore, you’re in violation of the Editing practices (ref: https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/Using_external_sources )
If you have any other questions, please talk to your RC (in the US) or a Champ.
Hey, who made me make a topic which I did not make? 
Haha… sorry, it was split from the Toolbox thread, and apparently you were the first one to reply to Oyyo’s update.
It is facilitating the copying of data from Google or Bing.
We have been told not to do it.
An example would be using Google maps to “correct” a street name, when it may indeed be an error, I can point to a location near my home where Google, Garmin, and a number of other online sources do not match the street name signs, the mistake was NOT present in Waze, but was added as an alternate street name in response to URs stating that “we” had the name wrong. This was not a minor road not unlike a parking lot road with a sign saying “Home Depot” and a name on the map like “Marketplace”… this was a 4 mile stretch of minor highway with two completely different English names.
Another example would be to use Google to copy addresses into Waze maps… when again, they may be incorrect.
The presence of such an error on the Waze maps with no corresponding evidence of the error in the field is supportive of the data having been copied. The fact that multiple sources all had the same error would simply indicate that they all purchased that data from the same source.
We can of course use other sources as a reference, perhaps to confirm something, but SV is honestly much more useful than the maps from the other sources.
Anyways… Providing a link is not copying, but it is facilitating copying.
If Bing were to take Waze/Google to court, Waze would indicate that the editors are volunteers acting on their own.
The 2nd question would be “What are you doing to prevent them from using our data on your maps?”
“We told them not to do it”
“You told them not to do it? Why to you allow an editor script that links directly to our property?”
Yes, you can have another browser window open with Google or Bing or Navtech or your county GIS and nobody is going to know (unless perhaps you happen to be a VERY busy editor and suddenly Bing notices a large increase in packets being sent to the frozen tundra of Resolute).
But Waze has told us not to copy data, and the removal of those links from the script allows for an affirmative defense should Waze be questioned on what they are doing to prevent copying of data.
As for whether you are going to stop editing because of this, that is your choice.
I have never relied heavily on those buttons… honestly only used the Google button a few times, and never used the Bing or Livemap buttons. They are a convenience, but given that you are generally editing in the area near where you live and work, that is also going to be the same area that opens by default on Google. I really see these “threats” to quit editing as quite the overreaction.
For me, Google Maps provided a valuable resource not present in the Waze Map Editor: state boundaries. Maybe not so much in metropolitan areas that straddle state lines, but in rural areas, many roads have the wrong state. For example, there are roads in Texas over 150 miles from the New Mexico border that have the state listed as Texas. If I have a whole group of roads somewhere near a state border, Google Maps could tell me which were in which state. It’s not too difficult when there’s a road listed as being in Alabama when it’s really in New Mexico, but we really need the state boundaries in the editor. I have suggested before that state boundaries be added in the WME, but this has not been done. I would NEVER just go with Google Maps for names; I’d go to the local governmental source, if at all possible. Yes, it takes some digging to find these GIS sites, but better to go with the governmental site than what Google may have picked up off some developer’s plat.
You can use the GIS maps for your state for this, and probably get a better reference. You still wouldn’t have a link to them, but you can keep the map open in another window and switch back and forth over a large area and follow the state line.
If really Copyright is the reason, then use municipal spatial plans.
Spatial plan of Latvia
For example : Spatial plan of Zante
PDF to JPG online converter>
Needed a tool with which to add the jpg to Waze Editor + latitude and longitude of a point on jpg or png
Or need the tool to add a WMS WMS servers as background
You may not realize it, but you said what I said.
The main difference is I pointed out that it is a at most an extra point in a larger defense, it won’t stand at all on its own. There’s a ton of case law going back, I think, to Prodigy (anyone remember that?) about whether a web site owner that publishes user-generated content is considered the publisher of that information. Waze is of course the owner of the data, in this case, even though it is user-generated, because they insist to the end user (us) that they own (our) work.product.
So their real defense is going to be that they told us that they do not permit use of the site to perform IP-infringing activities. All this does is add a cherry on top of that sundae - we said it, and where we found a potential tool to help violators, we tried our best to eliminate it. That shows a little more good faith. The bigger good faith is examples of their proactively taking down infringing content, which I don’t know if that has ever happened (the case in what was it, Chile? was not really proactive, as they were informed that they has already infringed; while not proactive, they at least were very responsive and erring on the side of caution in removing the offending material… even though they didnt have a good way to not err on the side of caution!).
Just a note to everyone on both sides of this issue.
Waze has needs. Editors have needs. Clearly there’s a conflict here between SOME editor needs and a SPECIFIC Waze need. This is their product and their site, and their incontrovertible Need (at least their lawyers think so). Ergo, they have to “win,” even it ticks a lot of editors off.
Some of the ticked off editors even understand the problem Waze faces. That doesn’t mean they have to feel good about it. There are others who don’t see what the fuss is about, either because they didn’t use those features much or more easily go with the flow.
This thread was still useful to those who needed to vent about it. It would do well for editors on both sides of the issue to understand that this is most of what this thread has really been about.
The Prodigy case wasn’t about copyright, it was about defamation – and it was overruled by Congress shortly thereafter via the Communications Decency Act, which gave ISPs immunity from being considered the “publisher” of speech.
It’s still very much possible for an Internet service provider to be held liable for copyright infringement by its users – the Napster and Grokster cases make that quite clear. There are two schemes for secondary liability of a service provider: contributory infringement and vicarious infringement. Contributory infringement requires knowledge of the users’ infringement and a material contribution to it; vicarious infringement requires a financial benefit from the infringement and the ability to supervise and control user conduct.
Of course, both require an underlying act of direct infringement by the user – and in the United States, factual data contained in maps is not copyrightable. The same is not true in many other countries, however. And if we’re operating in one of those countries, well, Waze gets a financial benefit from the copying (their maps work, so people use the app, so Waze gets more ad revenue), and Waze certainly has the right and ability to control user conduct, so a case for vicarious infringement against Waze (if there is direct infringement by the user) is entirely possible.
So, to keep its maps and to avoid lawsuit, Waze essentially has a responsibility to exercise its right and ability to control its userbase. Not that the criteria for secondary liability for copyright infringement are the same in every single country, but it is more than feasible that the criteria are similar in many, many places. It’s not worth the risk.
IANAL, but I will be… 
Hi,
After patiently reading all posts of all 11 pages of comments I would like to post my opinion.
First of all, THANKS Oyyo for your great script. It helped me a lot in the past and keeps helping me now.
Facts/Opinion:
1.- Copyright of third party maps belongs to the third party. Looking at the map is aloud freely in many cases, but copying any of their contents into any other media by any means, including manual transcription is a copyright infringement if you do not have the author authorization.
2.- Many of us have used the third party maps for improving Waze maps using the THIRD PARTY information. This IS a copyright infringement and we have been warned by Waze not to do so. Waze were soft on this enforcement, but it does not mean it was aloud. It WAS easier to work this way.
3.- Waze staff has requested to remove facilitating tools from TOOLBOX script. They are enforcing what we should not do from the first edition to the map. WE DO NOT LIKE IT, it was easier to copy instead of getting the info by other legal but harder means. They cannot risk to have to delete a whole country (as happened in Chile in August 2010) because of copyright infingement, and leave a whole country blank and all users countrywise unsupported.
4.- It was not just a “Dont´t do it” that came from Waze staff. I am sure they don´t like to take useful tools away from us too. But there is a lot of work already done to risk it; they have had already the “bad experience” of having to loose all work done by many editors because of copyright. Laws are different in many countries, don´t look it only form the USA law side. There are countries also in EU, Asia, Africa and Latin America too, which have their own laws and they must be fulfilled. Do you really it was so “easy” for them, knowing they made harder life on all of us ?? Or you really think Waze staff did enjoy removing the links ??
5.- Many editors are upset about this removal. Sure, no one editor of us is happy about it, but some of us understand the deep meaning of it. It does not mean we like it, nor we are better without it. Sure we will miss it, and with time some of the buttons may com back, as long Oyyo has the time out of his RL to put into fixing the script. It takes time and effort for free, I am sure Oyyo was the first one unhappy about having to remove the links.
6.- Some editors have been using Waze information to improve third party maps. This is also a copyright infingement. Waze maps cannot be copied or transfered to others without the written permission from Waze staff. Waze also has copyright over the donation work we have done, we are not free to deliver third parties with improvements gathered in Waze maps. Even if it is for the benefit of the application performance itself.
7.-There are some editors so upset they want to leave editting. Hey guys, you WON´T LEAVE !!! Editting is so much fun and takes benefits to so many people that you will come back after missing it a while. Things will be different, we won´t have the easier way we used to have before, but it does not mean we cannot keep helping on improving the map. WE ALL are facing the same problems with the third party map removal, but it is for a greater good. What would you think if your whole state or country would be ereased from one day to the other because YOU used a copyrighted material into Waze maps and that forced Waze to remove the map ??
8.- There are some upset editors that want to use new scripts to keep doing what was cut off Toolbox. PLEASE DON´T DO IT. You are endangering all the work done by many editors over YEARS of hard work. Now we are not aloud to use these sources and we are being enforced on doing it the right way, PLEASE ROW THE SAME WAY to prevent damaging everyone´s work on the map. I know, it is harder… yeah, much harder. But it is the way it IS now. I am not happy with it but I have to be conscious with my mates editor´s work. We once lost all the work done in Chile, had to start from scratch again, I won´t like to loose it again because of a lazy editor who wants to keep doing what HE WAS TOLD NOT TO, just because now it is harder to edit.
Sorry for the brick. It is just my opinion, please do not crucify me for it, I know many of you are still angry and may not agree with me, but that´s what´s beautiful about life, WE CAN think different and still work towards the same goal: Improve Waze and make it the best community based map app with navigation that works best.
I know his will make editions harder, specially on rural areas, but we have to accept the fact that it is the right way and search for new and legal sources of info. When you were 10-20% of a country map, you could risk easier ways for editors; now, after developing great maps world wide, when you are 80 to 95% of completing the map, you have to become more careful, not for a few streets or 5% of map will risk 80% or more you have already acquired in the maps.
Again Oyyo, thanks for your script. It still make my edits easier than not having it available.
Best regards from Concepción, Chile,
Very well put.
One clarification:
Oyyo has passed on development of Toolbox to a team of developers. We have brought back the alternate Waze links (Livemap / beta switch). As for other links, it’ll depend on what Staff have to say.