text: Well, yeah. That was kind of my point. That there's no universal copyright law and it varies by what suburb etc you live in. So its ridiculous to even discuss it in the first place unless its an obviously egregious infraction (like that one time I mapped that shopper center...Good times). Otherwise people's eyes are just going to roll into the back of their heads. Which is why it usually requires admin removal due to a company sending them a take down notice. Most of the time even people that are whole hog importing data from a commercial map can't rationalize why its a problem. That's why I think constantly reminding the naive mapper masses about it is futile. Especially when its just from someone posting a link to a map (that might or not be copyrighted) and isn't even adding the data to the map. Let alone advocating someone else do it by disregarding copyright.
  
  I especially take issue him saying "Using sources of data to build OSM is a very big violation of the rules and can get you banned for life from editing OSM." Not only is it just wrong, but it also might dissuade people from even for legitimate sources they can use. Plus, it just comes off like he thinks people are ignorant and can't figure this stuff out without being explicitly told (which undermines my early argument to that effect, but its coming from a different place. So whatever). 
  
  Ultimately, its  maxolasersquad's prerogative if he wants to lecture people and quote useless information, but its also my prerogative if I want to be like "hey man, I've had this conversation 100 times and it never went anywhere because copyright is screwed up, and know one can figure it out. Plus, posting a link to a government map isn't a violation anyway. Even if its copyright. Which you have zero way of known and I didn't insinuate wasn't."
  
  Even if I had of linked to Google maps and explicitly said it was OK to copy, it wouldn't be an issue unless someone put it on the map. I've given people crap for that myself. 