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there is a copyright page on the web, but i haven't checked it. if
          anyone has time, there are two obvious issues: who's signed
          the Bern Copyright Conventions, and how they might differ
          from within and without a given country. LC
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
> >I was reading a little item about government copyright in a local Minneapolis
> >paper. Many non-federal governements that have not copyrighted material are
> >looking at copyright as a way to generate revenue. Much of the debate seems
> >to be that copyright might mean less public access (and it would mean map
> >publishers would have to pay to use govermenet base materials). It got me
> >thinking:
> >
> >1.  As I recall, crown (government) copyright in Britain is perpetual (I know
> >this is true of Oxford and Cambridge U. Presses). Am I remembering rightly?
> >
> >2.  Is this still true of Ordnance Survey with its reformation into a
> >semi-autonomous agency? In the US, once the Postal Service separated from the
> >governement in 1971, they were no longer considered governement publishers
> >and were able to copyright stamp designs.
 
In Ireland, the Ordnance Survey definitely claims copyright on anything and
everything it thinks it can get away with :-)
They even claim that use of the (Irish) National Grid is itself copyrightable
though I don't know how this would stand up in court...
Apparently this copyright extends back to old editions of still-current (and
I think superceded) maps, even if these were initially produced before
independence, when there was just one Ordnance Survey covering both Britain
and Ireland.
 
Darius Bartlett