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
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