[OSM-legal-talk] Okay to trace from public-domain USGS DOQs?

[Liz]

On Thu, 12 Feb 2009, Russ Nelson wrote:
>   All of  these are protected uses of a copyrighted work.

but not necessarily in every legal domain.
This is the law in Au, and presumably in US, from where I believe you are 
writing, but we have no evidence from elsewhere provided yet.

Case law in Au has taken a different turn from the written law and we are 
unsure where we actually stand. Accordingly, talk-au at openstreetmap.org 
members are very cautious about using copyright work in the way you have 
described.