COPYRIGHT OS copyright documentation referred to in the text can be found at: http://www.ordsvy.gov.uk/about_us/copyrite/index.html There were quite a number of questions raised about the copyright procedure of the British Ordnance Survey and other commercial companies. We tackled as many as we could in the hour or so available. Many are aimed at the OS but some are more general and discussion featured other map publishers. Robin Knights (OS Copyright Division) and John Rollin (OS Representative on BCS Council) answered questions on behalf of the OS. Representatives of other British mapping companies and organisations spoke as they wished and voiced a wide range opinions. Questions about what may be legally and morally claimed as copyright Most questions were posed under this heading. Can a map publisher claim copyright over geographical names on their maps, their placement or their spelling? Is there any basis for this in copyright law or judgement? OS. Yes! A compilation is a copyright work and as the placement of names on a map represents the individual effort of a company, then this also represents a part of their intellectual copyright. This position was hotly disputed by many present. a. How can anyone copyright something which is common knowledge? i.e. in the public domain? This would only apply if the names were unique in some way, i.e. derived from original research and not available from any other source. b. Copyright is based on the whole or substantial part of the work in its information and graphic arrangement. Individual parts cannot be copyrighted separately. OS did not concede either of these points and insisted that anyone who took road or feature names from an OS map without permission or payment had infringed their intellectual copyright. Why does deriving a map from an air photograph involve cartographic copyright issues? Any owner of copyright may put whatever restrictions they wish on the use of their work, even if they were paid for the work by another body. Therefore any air survey company can restrict the use of its products for any particular purpose e.g. mapping. This was thought to be true but was in fact not a copyright issue. If photographs were sold then they can be used for derived mapping because there is no artistic or creative merit in them to copyright, and most survey companies would not impose such restrictions. May any publisher claim copyright over UK administrative boundary information? OS. Yes, we create the boundaries. We mere them on the ground. These boundaries represent our efforts and therefore our copyright even though we were paid for the work by the Boundary Commission. BCS. Many of the Design Group disagreed with this position. It was stated that as the Boundary Commission paid for the work they were the copyright owner. A letter will be sent to BC to clarify the situation. Can a publisher claim copyright over a map drawn from memory and without direct reference to any particular source? May a cartographic company claim rights to common knowledge, e.g. the names of the countries in the UK or the major street names in central London, the coastline of Britain, motorways etc. (May it be argued that cartographers are recorders of the landscape, not the owners of it). Memory in some circumstances can be a copy. Someone may see a musical score or hear a tune and then produce a new song with the same tune. In this case copyright has been infringed. However this position was disputed in that music is a creative art in the true sense of the copyright act, in a way that plotting items of fact were not. It was felt that in order to prove an infringement a publisher would have to justify the fact that his publication had been used and no other. Copyright infringements from the preparation of sketch maps from memory were felt to be an extreme view of the copyright act and could not be substantiated in law. A distinction comes, of course, when it is obvious that the planimetric accuracy belies sketching from memory. Is there a scale below which any maps are copyright free? OS. No! But OS waives its rights as directed by European Law to maps which are published below 1:1million, even if this work was compiled at larger scales, e.g. 1:625.000. However copyright would pertain if a map compiled at less than 1:1m were published at scales greater than 1:1m. The 1988 copyright act refers to infringements of copyright pertaining to the whole or a substantial part of a work. Part 1 para. 16. How do publishers regard a substantial' part? This question hangs on the quantitative or qualitative meaning of the word substantial in the 1988 act. The making of a facsimile copy of even an 2 cm square is regarded as substantial by the Ordnance Survey and there was some sympathy for this position from other publishers. The OS were just as vigorous where derived mapping was concerned. Some publishers agreed where as others were less prescriptive. However it was thought by some that the word substantial was beginning to lose its definition if it were taken as meaning even the tiniest scrap of information. This too has never been tested in law. The 1988 Act says that copyright is not infringed where the work is for the purpose of "pursuance of a statutory duty" Part 1 para. 46/47. Is this a correct interpretation and what is the OS opinion? OS. Statutory work is exempt from copyright but this definition must be strictly applied. Many authorities exceed their legal requirement. If the statute says copies publicly displayed then any copies given away for information incur copyright royalties. BCS. This position is at variance with the act which states that: Where material is open to public inspection pursuant to a statutory requirement, copyright is not infringed by copying or issuing to the public of copies of the material, by or with the authority of the appropriate person, for the purpose of enabling the material to be inspected at a more convenient time or place, or otherwise facilitating the exercise of any right for the purpose of which the requirement was imposed. (1988 copyright act 47/2) Statutory bodies should be made aware of this provision in the act. General points made under this heading *Whilst accepting that facsimile copies of a cartographic product infringed the copyright of any publisher many of the group questioned the extreme interpretation of copyright law by the OS. especially as most of their assertions had not been tested in law, nor were they likely to be because of the cost. *The copyright act is very vague over matters of intellectual property in regard to maps as graphic products. An artistic work may have derivations based upon it (e.g.after Stanley), an author may read many works and then create a new work of his own as long as it does not reproduce a substantial part of any one source. But where the OS are concerned not a single word, line or building may be derived from their work without infringement. *The national grid is copyright free. *You may take any OS map (or other map source) which is out of copyright and use anything from it. *Crown copyright is 50 years from the end of the year in which the map, or edition, was published. *Copyright on all other maps is 70 years. However this definition was enacted only in June 1996, therefore any published map which had gone out of copyright before that date cannot come back into copyright. e.g. a map published in 1945 is out of copyright for all time whereas a map published in 1946 remains in copyright for another 20 years. * 'That a map may be used for its purpose' It is perfectly feasible to use an OS map to find out where any relevant changes have taken place in order to go to those places and make your own notes and measurements. This position was clarified by Ben Hill at the meeting. * OS copyright refers soley to the content of the work and not to it's specification. Most of those present were amazed that the OS took this view because primarily this is the copyrightable part of a map. Its overall look which identifies it as a product of that company. However the OS repeated the statement when asked for clarification. It is the BCS view that the content is the more vulnerable of the OS claims to copyright, despite the fact that the whole of their royalty revenue comes from this interpretation. Questions about pricing structure and availability of OS maps Does the OS have the right to withhold elements of the national mapping database in its own commercial interest? Even where information is made available why does the OS withhold the national database from those who do not have a commercial publishers licence? Why does this cost £200? (copyright 4 para. 10) We will only consider giving permission to produce sheet maps and road maps at scales of 1:25 000 or smaller if you have a commercial publishers licence. If we give permission to produce a map in this scale range, you can only include the main road networks of larger towns and cities and show little detail of the landscape. Is this a restrictive practice? OS. This restriction is not totally to do with our commercial interest but more to do with our commitment to produce maps of uniform scale for the whole country, even those areas which are not commercially viable. If we allowed others to cherry pick the honey pot areas this would affect our capability to give overall coverage. BCS. This does not alter the fact that parts of the national archive are withheld from other cartographic agencies purely in the commercial interests of the OS (This is without doubt to prevent any competitive publications, which would be illegal behaviour on the part of a private sector publisher). We believe this to be a restrictive practice at variance with the OS's own policy in other areas. The OS does licence publishers to compete with them but does not allow a level playing field. The national database cannot be seen as the preserve of the organisation which was given the task of originating it. The database was created for the public good, paid for from the public purse, and all of it (even if under licence) should be made available. As long as the OS remains a public body it cannot act as a free range commercial company, and if it does, it should not act illegally. The OS copyright fee for basing an A4 map on OS data is 2.45p per copy printed. Does any matter of degree come into the OS pricing structure. Does a cartographer pay the same price whether he derives just one short section of motorway or the whole map? Because of time restrictions this question was left to another session. Questions About The Lack Of Clarity In The OS Guidelines In the OS copyright note 2 para. 5 it says you will not have to pay if a map is drawn from OS 1:1,000,000 or smaller, but does not mention that if you scan the map in order to draw it you must pay a 1200 pound data transfer fee (presumably if you trace it and scribe it the data transfer is free. Why?), or that you must also have a commercial publishers licence, copyright 3 para. 3(£200 minimum). Or that you will also need an Ordnance survey digital copyright licence also, copyright 3 para. 7 (£200?) Will the OS introduce, or provide to the BCS for reference, a much clearer guideline as to what is covered by OS copyright and a full explanation of its charges? The OS agreed that whilst they have made every effort to make their guidelines as clear as possible, they would welcome recommendations from the BCS as to how they might be improved. Many companies carry out service work for LA's who are bound by OS Service Level Agreements. How can a company ensure it is not infringing OS copyright when it cannot see the agreement under which it is working? It was agreed that a cartographic company working for a body with a Service level agreement with OS, should have access to extracts of the agreement so that the cartographer does not inadvertently infringe copyright. QUESTIONS CONCERNING COPYRIGHT IN OTHER SOURCES OF CARTOGRAPHIC DUse of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at E:\listplex\SYSTEM\SCRIPTS\filearea.cgi line 455, line 349. ATA Because of the high cost of using British national data many cartographers are looking at sources outside the UK. Do map publishers in this country have any copyright claims over mapping produced by other national mapping agencies or cartographic companies? E.g. Russian mapping, USGS digital map of the world, Michelin, KFCmmerley-Frey etc.? We know that the OS has given a view about the Red Army mapping of the UK. Can this be made more widely available? OS. Whatever the position between OS and other mapping agencies, cartographers must always ensure that they comply with copyright regulations of their sources. However there are a number of potential sources which base much of their work on the Ordnance Survey. In this country they include Estate Publications, AtoZ, Goad Plans etc. But also some overseas agencies base their work on OS maps. Many people have use Michelin maps as a source but this is in fact an OS source. ONC mapping of UK is also an OS source. As regards the Red Army maps these have not yet been fully investigated by the OS. We will make our decision known at the earliest opportunity. BCS We thank you for these clarifications. In the case of Michelin we have a number of cartographers who have use this source in the past, being assured by Michelin themselves that their mapping was free of any copyright considerations other than their own. Subsequently these cartographers have been challenged. BCS recommends that such cases be noted but that the OS extracts no financial penalty for this inadvertent infringement. From initial investigations it appears that the Red army maps do not owe a debt to the OS. This judgement is based on the recording of errors in the Russian mapping in that they exhibit mistakes which one would expect in remote sensed sources. (road classifications, tunnels, underpasses, etc. and the contour information is different to that found on OS maps. It was also pointed out that the USSR were not signatories to the Berne Convention on copyright and cannot therefore exhort copyright claims outside their own borders. BCS will study the situation and report back to members. OS WORKING PRACTICES There is a common conception that the OS are not just vigorous in their pursuit of alleged copyright infringements but in some cases are proactive. Documentary evidence exists of the OS alleging copyright infringements before they have investigated the map concerned. (E.g.. We have received a copy of map x. As it is unlikely that this map has been draughted without reference to OS information.....The cartographer or publisher is then asked to prove innocence of guilt rather than being innocent until proved guilty. This approach is unacceptable and contrary to British justice. Would the OS kindly give an assurance that current working practices have corrected this matter and that there are clear and demonstrable grounds for allegations before they are made? OS stated quite clearly that its policy was never proactive and that some degree of concrete evidence always precedes an investigation into copyright infringement. If instances had occurred in the past where this was not the case this was regrettable and would not happen in future. How far back may the OS or any other cartographic publisher go back in pursuance of a claim for infringement, 5 years, 6 years, 7 years, 49 years? Does reprinting a work affect this pursuance?. E.g. a map produced 40 years ago is reprinted. Because if time constraints this question was left to another occasion. Alan Collinson, the Design Group convenor thanked the Robin Knights and John Rollin for their courteous response to some quite direct questioning by BCS members. This text is Copyright to Alan Collinson and the Design Group of the British Cartographic Society 1997. Alan is convenor of the Design Group and can be contacted on 01492 878023.