MP Postal Code Lookups

[Cory Horner]

Hi Folks,

I am pleased to present, at long last, a Postal Code to Member of Parliament web service:

http://howdtheyvote.ca/news.php?i=free-postal-code-lookup-service

Sadly the raw data cannot be shared, but fortunately the terms of the licence dictate that its use in a web service is permitted.

Cheers,
Cory.

[Jennifer Bell]

That's fantastic.  Congratulations and thanks.

One suggestion: Could you make the service licensing more clear on the site that describes the API?

Jennifer
http://visiblegovernment.ca

--- On Thu, 2/25/10, Cory Horner <[hidden email]> wrote:

> From: Cory Horner <[hidden email]>
> Subject: [CivicAccess-discuss] MP Postal Code Lookups
> To: "civicaccess discuss" <[hidden email]>
> Received: Thursday, February 25, 2010, 2:04 AM
> Hi Folks,
>
> I am pleased to present, at long last, a Postal Code to
> Member of Parliament web service:
>
> http://howdtheyvote.ca/news.php?i=free-postal-code-lookup-service
>
> Sadly the raw data cannot be shared, but fortunately the
> terms of the licence dictate that its use in a web service
> is permitted.
>
> Cheers,
> Cory.
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
>

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[Cory Horner]

On 2010-02-25, at 11:02 AM, Jennifer Bell wrote:

> One suggestion: Could you make the service licensing more clear on the site that describes the API?

Good point.

This will get complicated fast, as each API call may have a different license depending on the data sources.  Limiting our scope to the MP postal code lookup, it also gets weird as there are 2 licenses to merge, and this is a derivative work (postal code is used to find a riding which is used to find attributes for the MP, and only the attributes for the MP are returned).

For the postal code data, I am constrained as follows:

"You may not make the Data publicly available in easily downloadable format (i.e. PKZip files or static HTML pages) on public network such as bulletin boards, online services, or the internet.  However, the Data may be used on public networks (i.e. the internet) if used within a 'Lookup Application' and a reasonable daily limit of queries per IP address is imposed."

For the riding boundaries:

"The Licensee shall ensure that the following copyright notice appears in an
appropriate and visible location in the Licensee's Product, where any of the Work
is contained within the Product '© The federal Electoral Districts Boundaries (Representation Order 2003) and Polling Division
Boundaries (39th General Election), Elections Canada.  All rights reserved. Reproduced with the
permission of Elections Canada, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0M6 Canada (2007).'"

I'm happy to put such a note on my website, since I want to applaud their data sharing practices (and their work is technically "in" my site), but I don't think users of the API would be bound by this, as no elections canada "works" are included in the data they got (it was just used as an intermediary step).

The How'd They Vote license is effectively "do anything you want, but be aware of the original license of the source data".  I consider the MP basic attributes (name, riding, phone number, website, ...) to be public domain facts, so no problem there.

Taking these all together, I would think there shouldn't be a problem storing the result of a postal code lookup in your database, but you probably can't republish the data with the postal code attached.

Do you guys agree with this assessment? If so, how might we boil this down to a concise terms of use?

Thanks,
Cory.

[Russell McOrmond-2]

On Fri, 26 Feb 2010, Cory Horner wrote:

> Taking these all together, I would think there shouldn't be a problem
> storing the result of a postal code lookup in your database, but you
> probably can't republish the data with the postal code attached.
>
> Do you guys agree with this assessment? If so, how might we boil this
> down to a concise terms of use?

IANAL, TINLA, but I agree with your assessment.

   I wouldn't put it in a license, but as a user I'd be more liberal on my
usage as far as the postal code.  It is more based on the idea that I
wouldn't expect to ever be sued than believing that it is clear under our
overly complex/restrictive copyright laws.


   Thanks for doing this.

BTW: I've had on my TODO for months to write something simple that uses
the riding boundary shapes and converts a lat/long into an EDID.   This is
what would be needed to make a simple GoogleMaps application to convert a
click on ones home into MP information.

   If that magically showed up on an API elsewhere, that would of course be
great ;-)   Otherwise, once I finally get the work done I'll still
recommend you add such a function to your API as well.

   Are you running PostGIS and/or mapserver/mapscript at your end?

--
  Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
  Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property
  rights as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition!
  http://digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/     http://KillBillC61.ca

  "The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware
   manufacturers, can pry control over my camcorder, computer,
   home theatre, or portable media player from my cold dead hands!"

[Cory Horner]

On 2010-02-26, at 8:28 AM, Russell McOrmond wrote:

> BTW: I've had on my TODO for months to write something simple that uses the riding boundary shapes and converts a lat/long into an EDID.   This is what would be needed to make a simple GoogleMaps application to convert a click on ones home into MP information.
>
> If that magically showed up on an API elsewhere, that would of course be great ;-)   Otherwise, once I finally get the work done I'll still recommend you add such a function to your API as well.

You bet -- had procrastinated on that part, but i've added it now (latitude and longitude can be used instead of postal_code).

>  Are you running PostGIS and/or mapserver/mapscript at your end?

Yes, PostGIS is the spatial database.  I'm planning on adding a ridings overlay eventually, but have not yet decided if i'll run a WMS or just generate a set of tiles.

Cheers,
Cory.

[Jennifer Bell]

Personally, because I like to be safe, I would also link back to the original licenses.  Then you would be doing everything humanly possible.

I think it's wonderful that it's only $150 for the maps *and* they included a clause about an online lookup service.  Wow!  

If you need real (but probably non-binding) legal advice for this, let me know.  

Jennifer
http://visiblegovernment.ca

--- On Fri, 2/26/10, Cory Horner <[hidden email]> wrote:

> From: Cory Horner <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] MP Postal Code Lookups
> To: "civicaccess discuss" <[hidden email]>
> Received: Friday, February 26, 2010, 4:34 AM
> On 2010-02-25, at 11:02 AM, Jennifer
> Bell wrote:
>
> > One suggestion: Could you make the service licensing
> more clear on the site that describes the API?
>
> Good point.
>
> This will get complicated fast, as each API call may have a
> different license depending on the data sources. 
> Limiting our scope to the MP postal code lookup, it also
> gets weird as there are 2 licenses to merge, and this is a
> derivative work (postal code is used to find a riding which
> is used to find attributes for the MP, and only the
> attributes for the MP are returned).
>
> For the postal code data, I am constrained as follows:
>
> "You may not make the Data publicly available in easily
> downloadable format (i.e. PKZip files or static HTML pages)
> on public network such as bulletin boards, online services,
> or the internet.  However, the Data may be used on
> public networks (i.e. the internet) if used within a 'Lookup
> Application' and a reasonable daily limit of queries per IP
> address is imposed."
>
> For the riding boundaries:
>
> "The Licensee shall ensure that the following copyright
> notice appears in an
> appropriate and visible location in the Licensee's Product,
> where any of the Work
> is contained within the Product '© The federal Electoral
> Districts Boundaries (Representation Order 2003) and Polling
> Division
> Boundaries (39th General Election), Elections Canada. 
> All rights reserved. Reproduced with the
> permission of Elections Canada, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0M6
> Canada (2007).'"
>
> I'm happy to put such a note on my website, since I want to
> applaud their data sharing practices (and their work is
> technically "in" my site), but I don't think users of the
> API would be bound by this, as no elections canada "works"
> are included in the data they got (it was just used as an
> intermediary step).
>
> The How'd They Vote license is effectively "do anything you
> want, but be aware of the original license of the source
> data".  I consider the MP basic attributes (name,
> riding, phone number, website, ...) to be public domain
> facts, so no problem there.
>
> Taking these all together, I would think there shouldn't be
> a problem storing the result of a postal code lookup in your
> database, but you probably can't republish the data with the
> postal code attached.
>
> Do you guys agree with this assessment? If so, how might we
> boil this down to a concise terms of use?
>
> Thanks,
> Cory.
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
>

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