Simon Poole simon@poole.ch writes:
Am 19.06.2011 12:19, schrieb Matthias Julius:
I doubt a name like "Aare Route" can hold any copyright. And the natural place to get them from are the signs that are posted along the route.
If at all, we are talking about trade marks, not copyright. While "Aare Route" is extremely unlikely to be able to be registered, "Herzroute" and some of the more creative route names could be protected in principle. We are digressing in any case, because the route names are -not- displayed on the sign posts and the only place to get them is other SchweizMobil material.
Well, at least around here they are displayed on the signs, see http://www.julius-net.net/tmp/2011-06-20 08.33.22s.jpg
I was just skimming through the Swiss trademark law. Particularly interesting I found Art. 16 (http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/sr/232_11/a16.html). This says that when you reproduce a registered trademark in a dictionary, a reference book, or similar without a notice about its registration the owner of the trademark can demand that you include such a notice when you publish it the next time.
This to me implies that the reproduction of a trademark in such a work (and I would include the OSM database or a map in there) is permitted and that the worst thing that could happen is that SchweizMobil is coming and wants a notice that its their trademark.
As I pointed out earlier, I'm not particularly in favour of the current naming scheme, it's just been in place for a couple of years, and I don't see a reason to unilaterally change it without a concrete issue at hand or a community consensus to do so.
That's why I posted here first. To see whether there is any opposition to change the definition for the name tag on that wiki page.
I am planning to do just that in a few days if there are no objections.
Matthias