This Intellectual Property Malarkey is Quite Confusing
210 November 2008 by Ian Davis
I have through my “skill and judgement” interpreted where to locate the recycling centres, as they locations don’t appear on either the mapping or the original website.
So the locations are not derived…
Or are they? Some very interesting debate on the nature of derivative works based on maps and satellite images. Ed Parsons was formerly the CTO of the Ordnance Survey and is now at Google so you’d think he’d know, but it seems that the real answer is… it depends.
In the US it would be simple, because factual data like the real-world location of a place are not protected by copyright at all, and rarely protected by any other intellectual property. (Perhaps trade secret in some odd circumstances). In the UK and Europe, I’m not sure. But if Ed Parsons works for Google, maybe he’s used to US law now, and thus the confusion.
Jonathan, facts aren’t protected here too, but the confusion is around the use of a map to determine those facts. A map is a creative work based on raw uncopyrightable facts. Could the points have been plotted without reference to the map and thus using the effort applied by Google (or others) to create it? Probably not in this case. I don’t think there would be an issue if you went out with a GPS and marked each location independently. However if all you have is a description of the location (e.g. intersection of roads) then you are using the map to derive one fact from another.