[OSM-talk] Old maps from Royal Collection UK

[Andy Mabbett]

On Thu, 6 Feb 2020 at 20:30, Colin Smale <colin.smale at xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
> On 2020-02-06 21:10, Andy Mabbett wrote:
>
> George III's collection of military maps

> Remarkably, though, they are claiming copyright over these maps.

> As I read it, they are claiming copyright in the images on the
> website, which is probably fair enough. I cannot see where they
> claim copyright in the maps themselves. But they do have
> ownership on their side; can they be forced to make the original
> maps available for someone else to photograph/scan?

Those images are flat reproductions of entire maps, not artistic
renditions; for example:

   https://militarymaps.rct.uk/other-17th-century-conflicts/siege-of-vercelli-1617-lassedio-di-vercelli

The UK Intellectual Property Office guidance says:

   According to the Court of Justice of the European Union which has effect
   in UK law, copyright can only subsist in subject matter that is
original in the
   sense that it is the author’s own ‘intellectual creation’. Given
this criteria, it
   seems unlikely that what is merely a retouched, digitised image of an older
   work can be considered as ‘original’. This is because there will generally
   be minimal scope for a creator to exercise free and creative choices if their
   aim is simply to make a faithful reproduction of an existing work.

-- 
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
http://pigsonthewing.org.uk