Fwd: A question on your German postal code polygons

[Dan Putler]

FYI

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Arnulf Christl" <arnulf.christl at ccgis.de>
> Date: November 22, 2006 3:41:48 PM PST
> To: "Dan Putler" <putler at sauder.ubc.ca>
> Subject: Re: A question on your German postal code polygons
> Reply-To: <arnulf.christl at ccgis.de>
>
>
> On Wed, November 22, 2006 20:24, Dan Putler wrote:
>> Hi Arnulf,
>>
>> We are working on creating a Canadian postal code map which we plan
>> on using to augment a publicly available road network file. Having
>> seen your post on the public geodata mailing list, I was wondering if
>> you created these layers yourself, or are packaging data from a  
>> third-
>> party. If you created them yourself, I was interested in learning
>> about the process you used to do this to see what we can learn from
>> your experience.
>>
>> Dan
>>
>>
>
> Hi,
> we have bought the existing data from a third party. The customer who
> ordered the data was happy to let us pulish them online even  
> although he
> paid a fair amount. The origin of the data is from the Deutsche Post
> itself which pulished paperwork and did not specify any  
> restrictions of
> people using them as digitizing originals. Hence the digital version.
>
> We have had severe discussions with a great many people on whether the
> geometry of the postal codes themselves are intrinsically  
> copyrighted and
> thus cannot be created by anybody but the originating entity.
>
> My take was that if the data would be spread out broadly in the  
> Internet
> general usage principles will take over and make it simply  
> impossible for
> anybody to claim proprietary rights.
>
> Funny detail: The Deutsche Post itself is also using this data in an
> application that we built for them using an Open Source  
> infrastructure.
> They were simply not capable of getting their own data operative  
> within
> any realistic time span without ending up in twitching revulsions  
> between
> the different departments of their own infrastructure. This was an  
> awsome
> experience.
>
> Sorry that I cannot be of more help. I have no idea how to "detect"  
> the
> postal code boundaries other than by digitizing from a paper  
> version that
> is made available publicly.
>
> Best regards,
> Arnulf.
>
> -- 
> Arnulf Christl
> http://www.ccgis.de
>