[OSM-talk] Copyright of old (Irish) maps

[Andy Robinson]

My experience is that anything that is recreated from out-of-copyright
documents/data can itself then be subject to copyright. If you buy a modern
copy of an out-of-copyright product that copy normally has a copyright
restriction because fits not the same as the original. I guess historical
data delivered in a new way fits the same line.

The key therefore is to have ownership of the historical documents in the
first place or get permission from the owner to reuse the historical
original.

I'm sure someone more in the know can give a stricter reason.

Andy Robinson
Andy_J_Robinson at blueyonder.co.uk 

>-----Original Message-----
>From: talk-bounces at openstreetmap.org [mailto:talk-
>bounces at openstreetmap.org] On Behalf Of Christian van den Bosch
>Sent: 15 May 2006 22:37
>To: talk at openstreetmap.org
>Subject: [OSM-talk] Copyright of old (Irish) maps
>
>Hi all,
>
>I asked OSi (the Ordnance Survey of Ireland) what the position is with
>regard to creating derivative works from copyright-expired maps.
>
>Their response:
>
>"The copyright on all OSi mapping expires after 75 years and if for
>example, you own an original 1846 six inch and wish to copy it, you may
>do so without copyright. But if you source the same map via the
>"Historical Data Base" copyright will apply as OSi own the intellectual
>property rights of all such mapping."
>
>To me, this seems very strange; I would have presumed that once
>copyright expires, it's expired for good.
>
>Anyone care to give an opinion on this?
>
>Cheers,
>
>Christian / cjb
>
>http://www.cjb.ie/
>
>
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