NearMap PhotoMaps

NearMap is an Australian aerial imagery and location based media company that (amongst other things) creates high resolution aerial imagery of Australian cities and surrounding areas.

Nearmap imagery was used for OSM tracing from 2009 up until June 17, 2011. Many objects currently in OSM are still sourced from Nearmap imagery.

In June 2011, Ben Last of NearMap clarified that the new OpenStreetMap license would not be compatible with the CC-BY-SA style license under which data can be derived from NearMap PhotoMaps.

Use of Nearmap aerial imagery as a source for OpenStreetMap was permitted by NearMap until 17 June 2011, and Nearmap agreed that existing derived data could remain in the OpenStreetMap database post-licence change.

In December 2012 Nearmap removed the remaining no-charge access options for Nearmap imagery.

Post 2011 use

Occasionally customers of Nearmap make edits to OSM based on their imagery, until these contributors can prove the legality of this, edits which use Nearmap aren't permitted.

In the Nearmap terms of use clause 7.3 mention derivative works, " the Licensee is granted a non-exclusive right to produce and use Derivative Works for a Permitted Purpose" where "Permitted Purpose" is later defined to exclude any "Commercial Purpose". It also says "Unless otherwise notified to the Licensee by Nearmap, the Licensee may continue using Derivative Works following termination or expiry of this Agreement." so while it's good that those derivative works can still be used upon termination of the agreement, the fact that "unless otherwise notified" is mentioned makes this problematic. It's unclear if that "otherwise notified" means notified before the derivative works are produced or if it could be applied retrospectively to derivative works. If the latter, than that would be in conflict with OpenStreetMap terms where no such retrospective change in use can be applied.

The terms of use don't specifically say if derived vector data is considered a derivative work or not, so we must assume they are.

Limited Waivers

In February 2020 Nearmap provided a waiver for use of their imagery limited to participants of the SSSI National Bushfire Recovery Map-a-thon File:OpenStreetMap_Waiver_21022020_NEA.pdf and again in October 2020 File:OpenStreetMap_Waiver_20201027_NEA_AWsigned.pdf