[OSM-talk] GPX tracing out of copyright maps

[Dave]

>
> The easy test case is to ask what would happen if a (slightly
> revised) 2nd edition were published a few years later?  Would the
> original "author" be asked for permission again and get new money?
> My guess is that this is the case for poetry, novels and
> textbooks, but not for encyclopedias and maps.  How many articles
> from the 11th edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911) were
> reused unmodified in the 12th edition?  Were the original authors
> of these articles paid anew?  Could individual article authors
> withdraw their contributions from the new edition, the way a
> copyright owner is supposed to control publication?


When you write poetry, novels etc you're generally not paid to do so, you
just sell the rights to publish the finished work when you complete it,
being careful to retain copyright and usually royalty payments. The
publisher would need your permission to include the work in a subsequent
edition unless you got a particularly bad publishing deal. When you work for
a company though, your work isn't owned by you, it's owned by the company.
As you don't own the copyright you get no royalties from it's use, and you
get no say in how it's used (unless you happen to have an explicit contract
saying otherwise).

If George Philip & Sons in 1960 reprinted a map from 1930, did
> they pay new royalties to the 1930 cartographers?  I guess not.


So no, probably not a chance they did.

So if they are going to claim copyright today, based on the death
> year of the 1930 cartographers, the heirs of said cartographers
> have some claims to royalties for all reprints in the 1960s.


Nope,  but it does give the company an incentive to keep all it's
(ex)employees healthy and alive ;-)
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