Dear talk-legal, I want to confirm the situation on OS crown copyright and specifically maps with a copyright notice and year in the bottom left of the map. Before 1959-ish, most OS maps did not have a copyright notice and the year of first publication was difficult to determine. The copyright notice was introduced in more recent maps. For example, on one arbitrary map sheet it has several different dates:
Difference from grid north, (2) mag north, about 9 deg west in 1965 Made and published by the Director General of the OS, Chessington, Surrey 1960 Reprinted with minor changes 1965 Crown copyright (C) 1960 Revision information Fully revised 1954-57 Major roads revised 1964 The "safe" move move might be to use the latest date. Now based on the Office of Public Service Information web page the copyright year IS the year of first publication: "6. All copyright works made by officers or servants of the Crown in the course of their duties qualify for Crown copyright protection under section 163 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA88). These copyrights are owned by Her Majesty the Queen. There is no departmental copyright. It is incorrect, therefore, to refer to works produced by government as being the copyright of a specific department. Accordingly, most of the material issued by departments should include the following statement: (C) Crown copyright [followed by year in which the work was first published]." [1] and the year of first publication is what determines when a sheet passes out of copyright: "(3) Crown copyright in a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work continues to subsist— (a) until the end of the period of 125 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was made, or (b) if the work is published commercially before the end of the period of 75 years from the end of the calendar year in which it was made, until the end of the period of 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which it was first so published." [2] Another way of stating my point is: what function does the copyright year serve if not determining the copyright elapse year? Any concerns with this interpretation? Is the OPSI website binding on the OS? Given the wonderfully anarchic style of mapping standards in OSM, not having an authority which could made a final decision is a mixed blessing. I imagine some might advise to play it safe on legal issues, but there is always a possibility someone (not necessarily me) will start tracing maps with ambiguous copyright status. A solution is to resolve this issue head on. Is it possible to get professional legal advice on this? Regards, TimSC [1] http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/crown-copyright/copyright-guidance/copyright-and-publishing [2] http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/ukpga_19880048_en_8 _______________________________________________ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
