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Subject: FW: JOGs, related maps, and copyright issues
Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005
From: "Julie Horns" <[log in to unmask]>





Subject:  question regarding Joint Operational Graphics (JOG)

The JOG (also known as Series 1501 by NGA and others) issue indeed seems
complex, but actually straightforward. Here is East View Cartographic's
perspective on this great and active thread.

In terms of bounding the problem, there are about 9781 JOG sheets on the
planet giving complete land and island coverage except for Antarctica.  Not
all 9781 have been published--far from it.  Perhaps about 6000 sheets have,
though, making it a very impressive topographic version of the Earth at
1:250,000 scale in English and, when and where available, basically pretty
cheap.

For those JOG sheets that have been published, there may be multiple
versions (JOG-A, JOG-G, JOG-C, etc.) that differ in important ways; each of
these versions may be published in multiple editions.  And most importantly
for copyright issues, multiple publishers are involved.

Far and away the largest producer of JOGs is the US DoD's NGA and its
predecessor agencies (NIMA, DMA, AMS).  Second place goes to the British
(DGIA, and its predecessors); then the various other military map
organizations of NATO, plus some formal US allies (Australia, New Zealand)
and co-production partners (Thailand, for example).

Basically the copyright rule is:  if the Americans produced it, it is a
public domain document.  Ergo, no copyright issues involved (at least in the
sense that no one's permission is required to reproduce, add value, etc. to
such a JOG, nor are any royalties due to anyone for such reproduction or
modification).  It's a lovely concept, it underscores virtually every
government-produced map in the US, it's why basic geospatial data is usually
cheap in this country, and--when taken to the digital GIS realm--it's why
companies like ESRI have been developed and thrived here.

Every other national producer of JOGs copyrights their respective maps.  If
one wishes to reproduce them, digitally or otherwise, one is advised to
appeal to the respective copyright holders.  Policies vary widely, and are
subject to change at any time.

How does one tell if a JOG is subject to copyright?  Simply check the
legend.  Invariably there is a statement in the lower left hand corner.  If
no one else except a USA agency is involved, you are safe and can proceed
with your reproduction, etc.

At East View, we have checked every available JOG (many thousands) and also
other major scale series, including the smaller-scale ones (TPCs ONC, JNCs,
GNCs) and the larger-scale ones (TLMs, City Graphics).  We have GIS
sheet-level control of all this data, and very soon you will all be able to
see this on our website with a nice geographic browser.  Some preliminary
data is already there.

A couple of related issues:

Many JOGs, regardless of producer, are technically restricted.  That is, at
the time of publication they were not intended to be made available to
commercial or other public distribution (such as FDLP).  The reality, of
course, is that many of these JOGs have nonetheless found their way into the
public (check eBay, for example--returning soldiers have put a lot of
interesting maps on the market this way).  This is the case with a lot of
American-produced JOGs in particular.  In any event, we consider this an
unusual gray area.

Particularly bold organizations, like
GlobalSecurity.org, have scanned and posted cartographic products like this
on their website as part of reporting on important world events, like the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  NGA officials have complained and
threatened action.  But this is not a copyright issue.  Nor is there an
Official Secrets Act in the USA (yet).  It has been pointed out that US-made
restrictions on maps (and there may be many) are purely for governing
dissemination within US governmental organizations, and between foreign
allies and other authorized users.  But once these documents enter the
public, their restrictions no longer apply.

It should be noted that NGA does plan to cease public distribution of all of
its aeronautical publications in the very near future.  Among the
publications that will cease to be available are JOGs, over 3000 such sheets
at last count.

Another issue regarding JOG copyright has direct relevance to the GIS vector
version of JOGs--the VMAP1 product.  It is composed of 234 distribution
quadrangles (one quad = 1 VMAP1 CD-ROM) covering the entire globe.  On
average, that's 42 JOGs per VMAP1 CD-ROM.  All 234 are produced, but only
about one-third are publicly available.  The biggest reason why more are not
available relates to copyright restrictions by a producers of the respective
JOGs.  Therefore, many VMAP1 CDs which contain over 95 percent public-domain
JOGs are not made available to the public.  (An example is VMAP1 tile no.
101--the single UK-produced JOG over Bermuda renders the entire tile, which
mostly covers territory in the southeastern United States and involves only
public-domain US-produced JOGs, unreleasable.)

Kent Lee
President/CEO
East View Cartographic, Inc.

[log in to unmask]
www.cartographic.com





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