-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	Re: MAPS-L: US maps copyrighted with no claim to copyright - Huh?
Date:	Fri, 19 May 2006 14:54:18 -0400
From:	Paige Andrew <[log in to unmask]>
To:	Maps, Air Photo & Geospatial Systems Forum <[log in to unmask]>

Everyone,

Being a journal editor or co-editor does have some nice "side benefits" -- in this case in reply to Andrew's comment I would say that government documents and their copyright association is not as cut-and-dry as it used to be, particularly in the realm of digital cartographic data! In a forthcoming article by Kent Lee in the Journal of Map & Geography Libraries I learned that in the case of NGA products there are cases where if some portion of the data was obtained under copyright or Crown restrictions that that has an impact on the use of the data itself, even if the percentage of copyrighted data makes up the minority of the entire package. So, it doesn't hurt to ask these kinds of questions now and then as it seems what is or is not copyrighted is getting to be as clear as mud these days...

Paige Andrew
Maps Cataloging Librarian
Pennsylvania State University

At 02:24 PM 5/19/2006, you wrote:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Map copyrights
Date: Fri, 19 May 2006 13:54:08 -0400
From: Nitz, Andrew M. <[log in to unmask]>
To: '[log in to unmask]' <[log in to unmask]>

Government documents are in the public domain, and have no
copyright
restrictions. If a private contractor produced the map for the
government,
they may have a copyright on it, but you would see their name on the map
somewhere. Hope this helps.

Andrew Nitz
Cataloger
Bibliographic Systems Branch
Sales Management Division
Superintendent of Documents
United States Government Printing Office
710 North Capitol Street, NW
Washington DC 20401
202-512-1705
202-512-1655 (fax)