Copyright in Today’s Web Mapping World

GIS professional Nicholas Duggan has written an excellent article and a flowchart to help mapmakers and GIS analysts decide if they can legally use specific data sets in their work.

As Duggan points out, “anyone can make maps”, and as we emphasize in our book, today’s web mapping environment makes accessing data easier than ever.  But even though it is possible to use a specific data set, does that mean that we legally have the right to do so?  Duggan’s flowchart can help make these decisions.  About his flowchart, Duggan says that “it does not cover the plethora of data or map license types, this chart provides an easy reference as to whether you may or may not use the material you intend to use. Of course this may vary from country to country and on a case by case basis; also this does not serve as a legal document; legal advice should be obtained in case of dispute.”  I find the flowchart to be very useful and applaud Mr Duggan for creating and sharing it.

And yes, following his own advice and ours that we wrote about in the book, I did ask his permission if we could refer to his resource in this blog!  Thank you Nicholas.

Nicholas Duggan’s helpful article and flowchart to help GIS users decide if they can use a data set.