Nothing has changed with regards to external sources and copyright.
You should only use what is available to you in the editor and what you can verify in real life.
A few links on the subject:
External sources
Thanks and Huge Apology to the OpenStreetMap Community
Using External sources when editing (such as Google Imagery)
Having another read through that was interesting. It seems to say that using maps.google.com.au is not right, despite Google owning Waze. So, when drawing new roads based on the Google satellite & steetview images, we should probably leave them as unnamed roads unless we physically travel there to see them ourselves.
This new information, well new information to me, especially if B_Carp is right, I think, is really going to put a serious dent in how we update the maps.
If we can not even use https://www.google.com.au/maps, then this really is going to be a problem. Or is this really a case of ‘referencing’.
As in needing to give proper credit to where you got your source from?
I know I have been advised by level 4 editors etc to use sites like, street-directory.com.au, Google Earth, google maps and probably a few others I can not even recall at this stage, as well as my own travels and streetviews a lot of the time.
Hence why when ituajr said to me that street-directory.com.au might bring up a copyright issue when I said to him that we can just connect one small road in a suburb, hence why we are now having this discussion. We did not connect the road because of this discussion, basically awaiting its outcome.
Yeah it remains a complicated issue. Creative commons data for example which the QLD Government’s QLD Globe data is? Streetview images are OK when viewed through the editor according to the wiki? What about aggregating data, that is, looking at a variety of sources and forming your own view about what a particular street might be called (not all sources might agree)?
Further there is no mechanism to provide attribution if you wanted to.
I don’t have any answers but I do note that the Chilean issue, as I understand it, was the result of a large scale data infringement not a couple of street names.
Replying to ituajr. I have sent pm’s to the two level 4’s editors as I said earlier and they have replied in their own fashion with their opinions on the matter. If they choose to reply to this topic, that is up to them. They might already have 
I don’t disagree with anything said in this post.
The question I have is:
How does any one know the the city (Suburb) field without looking at any external sources?
Apparently (Based on another post only) in New Zealand there are only a couple of suburbs in Wellington and Auckland that that suburbs have been set in legislation. Now that Auckland is now what we now call a “super city” that legislation is now out of date?
In summary there is no official suburbs in NZ but map makers have made there own boundaries
NZ fire service/police etc etc
I’m 99% sure Google maps are using the NZ fire service maps for suburbs.
Auckland city council for example, there GIS maps do not have suburbs (That I could find)
If I was to follow this thread to the letter of the law I would have to delete all suburbs in NZ.
I know where the cities are. (mostly)
In my local city I know roughly where the suburbs are but not street by street level.
Its a can of worms I know…
I though about this for sometime
I think the real problem in many cases is not with the licence holders of information but Waze/Google and ownership of waze map information
Its my understanding that all the work we do becomes the property of Waze/Google and they use this information to make money. If they find that the information is obtained from a third party it could become a problem for exclusive ownership?
I suspect that some of the Google maps data owned by a third party and they lease this information. I suspect they hope to replace this data from Waze over time?
Yeah…
Interesting how two country’s can be so similar but be so different.
I was just doing some work in Wagga Wagga and looking back at this thread when I was hunting around for some street names and I guess one of the key terms in the wiki is “copyrighted”. I then thought back to the Ice TV vs Channel 9 case in which the High Court found that Australian copyright law is not designed to protect facts but rather protect the way those facts are expressed.
Given that a street name is a fact and it can be found in a variety of places (eg. real estate sites, council sub division applications, council/state map data, various online map sites) I am wondering if there is any issue here at all?
http://www.davies.com.au/ip-news/channel-nines-copyright-case-against-icetv-goes-to-water
http://www.nointrigue.com/blog/2009/04/25/icetv-v-nine-network-australia-case-note-and-analysis/
Still makes me feel better that obtaining a street name from elsewhere is not a violation of copyright in Australia. The drawing of roads based on another map though I think might be marginal.
At the end of the day, these other sources, both digital or paper based, intentionally add misspelt or fake names and this is what can be used to say that there has been an infringement.
Some editors in other countries have purposely added false things in the Waze map and these have appeared in other maps.
Which is pretty much why I said this:
For new subdivisions I often google for the council sub-division maps or approval and then compare against other map sources. In any case in Australia you aren’t infringing if the information you obtain is a fact only if you take the “original” work of another and use it. This is why I suggested drawing a map based on someone else’s map would not be acceptable as that other organisation has created an original work in their map. However for the street names they have just obtained that from another government source themselves. They can’t then copyright that fact.
Adding street names from google makes me nervous,
especially when I have had pending name change requests in the pending queue of doom for a while o_o
I don’t trust Google to get those right.
I would just cross refer to other sources (eg. development applications, real estate sales) and if they all agree then I would go with what you see in streetview. If they don’t then you are going to have to make your own assessment about what you believe the street name to be or leave it blank. Again though, the name of the street is a fact and is not copyrightable in Australia.