Can I legally use Strava Heatmap to contribute improvements to OpenStreetMap?

[das-g]

(Not looking for legal advice here (which you probably cannot provide) but rather for a pointer to either

• an official statement by Strava concerning this

  or to

• the relevant license or permission grants by Strava

that you think apply here.)

http://strava.github.io seems to host an iD editor fork modified to include the the Slide add-on (https://github.com/paulmach/slide) and set up so that one can improve OpenStreetMap data based on the Strava Heatmap data and contribute the improved data back to the OpenStreetMap project by uploading them.

Though, despite the editor being hosted on Strava's GitHub pages, I'm unsure whether they allow me to actually do so. Improving data based on the Strava Heatmap IMHO* makes the resulting, improved data a derivative work of the Strava Heatmap data (as well as of the original OSM data). Contributing the improved data back to OpenStreetMap however means to relicense it irrevocably to the OSMF for them to further sub-license it (including for commercial use) under (amongst others) the terms of the ODbL (cf. also http://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright):

[...]

Rights Granted

2. [...] You hereby grant to OSMF a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable licence to do any act that is restricted by copyright, database right or any related right over anything within the Contents, whether in the original medium or any other. These rights explicitly include commercial use, and do not exclude any field of endeavour. These rights include, without limitation, the right to sub-license the work through multiple tiers of sub-licensees and to sue for any copyright violation directly connected with OSMF's rights under these terms. To the extent allowable under applicable local laws and copyright conventions, You also waive and/or agree not to assert against OSMF or its licensees any moral rights that You may have in the Contents.

3. OSMF agrees that it may only use or sub-license Your Contents as part of a database and only under the terms of one or more of the following licences: ODbL 1.0 for the database and DbCL 1.0 for the individual contents of the database; CC-BY-SA 2.0; or such other free and open licence (for example, http://www.opendefinition.org/okd/) as may from time to time be chosen by a vote of the OSMF membership and approved by at least a 2/3 majority vote of active contributors.

[...]

(emphasis mine)

I've looked for a license or terms of use that might govern usage of the Strava Heatmap data (unfortunately, neither http://strava.github.io, http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/ nor http://labs.strava.com/blog/global-heatmap/ seem to name any, unless I've missed them) and the only potentially relevant documents I could find were the Strava Terms of Service and maybe the Strava API Agreement, both of which don't seem to allow such relicensing and to the contrary seem to repeatedly explicitly prohibit it, e.g. here:

Conduct

We expect you to honor Strava’s Stand With Us guidelines. The Services are for your personal and noncommercial use. You may not modify, copy, distribute, transmit, display, perform, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works from, transfer or sell for any commercial purposes any portion of the Services, use of the Services or access to Content. [...]

(emphasis mine; I'm unsure whether "access to Content" actually implies the content itself and copies and derivatives thereof, so this might or might not be applicable.)

and here:

Proprietary Rights

You acknowledge and agree that the Services, any necessary software used in connection with the Services (if any), any aggregated data based on Content on the Services, and any Content available or made available on the Services contain proprietary and confidential information that is protected by applicable intellectual property and other laws. Except as expressly permitted by applicable law or authorized by Strava or applicable third party service providers or advertisers, you agree not to modify, rent, lease, loan, sell, distribute or create derivative works based on the Services, the software or Content available on the Services (other than Content that you may submit), in whole or in part.

Strava grants you a personal, revocable, non-transferable and non-exclusive right and license to access and use the Services; provided that you do not (and do not allow any third party to) copy, modify, create a derivative work from, reverse engineer, reverse assemble or otherwise attempt to discover any source code, sell, assign, sublicense, grant a security interest in or otherwise transfer any right in the Services. You agree not to access the Services by any means other than through the interfaces that are provided by Strava.

[...]

(emphasis mine; In the second paragraph, I'm unsure whether "right in the Service" actually implies "right in content provided by the Service", so this might or might not be applicable.)

Are there any official statements by Strava about what terms apply to the heatmap data? Are we allowed to re-license derivative data under the OSMF Contributor Terms?

---

*IANALTINLAETC

[das-g]

I've brought this question up on the Swiss OSM mailing list.

[govvin]

Thank you for bringing this up @das-g . I also would like to hear a definite response from Strava about this.

[RobJN]

Here is a strava statement which provides permission albeit https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2019-November/083564.html