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Re: elections canada

Posted by Hugh McGuire on Feb 06, 2007; 11:14pm
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/elections-canada-tp814p863.html

has anyone thought of using an Access to Information request to get  
at this data?



On Feb 6, 2007, at 4:09 PM, Russell McOrmond wrote:

> Stéphane Zagar wrote:
>
>> What's the real problem with district localization (ZIP and EDID)
>> - is it because it's covered by a copyright that make it  
>> impossible to
>> use even if we get it ?
>
>    Zip is US, and in the USA there is no crown copyright and thus they
> don't have that problem.
>
>    In Canada the problem is that Statistics Canada has crown copyright
> on the data and a "cost recovery" scheme where they sell the data  
> under
> a draconian EULA.
>
>    Elections Canada has their own version, but doesn't publicly  
> release
> it because Statistics Canada sells it.
>
>> Let's say we find a way to build a mapping database (district/edid/
>> zip),
>> do we risk anything ?
>
>     If we did our own work of matching the geographical database,  
> we can
> then release the information under any license we want (or dedicate to
> the public domain).  This would become the third known group creating
> this mapping  (Elections Canada, Statistics Canada, and then us).
>
> Note: I believe we would have to purchase data from Canada Post to do
> this, but given we wouldn't be redistributing this data it would be a
> fixed fee and not something that would impact on us freely  
> distributing
> the results of our work.
>
>    The most efficient thing to have happen is for one of the two
> government departments to make their version available under a
> royalty-free license.  Charge if they want to send the data to us, but
> one organization could fund that and then freely distribute it to
> everyone else.
>
> --
>   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://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/
>
>   "The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware
>    manufacturers, can pry my camcorder, computer, home theatre, or
>    portable media player from my cold dead hands!"
>
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