OpenEuroData

Geodata Policy
A proposed EC Directive, establishing an infrastructure for spatial information in the Community (INSPIRE) has been in the the EC codecision process since July 2004. Efforts to establish a European Spatial Data Infrastructure (ESDI) have been ongoing since 1995, and a previous draft European Commission Communication, GI2000, was killed off in 1999. Previous efforts have focused on a common metadata infrastructure more than a geodata infrastructure.

The INSPIRE directive is being presented as Environmental legislation, and the list of thematic data types which it covers, was altered during a re-drafting process that was not transparent or consultative to exclude street level and address mapping data.

This study into transparency in the INSPIRE process (pdf) describes some of the background inititiatives. It states,

''The Task Force responsible for "re-scoping" INSPIRE's data content, comprising fewer that 15 non-Commission staff, reduced the datasets once proposed to comprise INSPIRE, first to 18 datasets designated as "core", 17 as important "thematic" data and the remaining 25 as to be "outside" the scope of INSPIRE... Later revisions reduced the scope to 16 "core" data sets and 19 "thematic"''

The non-transparency of the tender process, whereby the details of the "re-scoping" were not made public knowledge until after the closing date for public tender had passed.

The PublicSectorInformationDirective places a heavy emphasis on the importance of public sector geographic information, which might lead policymakers to assume that it is covered by it. However, at least in the UK, geographic data is explicitly exempted from the Directive as it is embodied in the FreedomOfInformationAct, as a Commercial interest.

Geodata Licensing
Modifying the INSPIRE Directive gives a short explanation of the key problems with the proposed Directive. INSPIRE does not take into account changes in web-based distribution methods and mandates an expensive "viewing" and "e-commerce" infrastructure for the data in the scope of INSPIRE. It suggests that viewing and metadata will be enough to determine whether a given data set is useful, which is seldom the case.

Worst of all, INSPIRE does not include any examination of data access and licensing policy. It defers a binding decision about licensing policy to the European Commission and its Expert Group at any point in the future after the Directive passes, to be imposed within three months.

This is despite the fact that the INSPIRE Working programme describes the establishment of a common licensing policy as a first priority and a milestone for an implementation of the Directive becoming law, probably in 2007. The establishment of an agreement, and the working out of common metadata standards between specialist domains and agencies, is likely to take up to 15-20 years.

INSPIRE has been designed by National Mapping Agency representatives, in order to facilitate each others' existences. An important debate on the exercise of a commercial monopoly on a public good, and the role of geodata collection agencies within the public sector, is simply being ignored.

OpenGeoDataWorldwide policy is in the direction of free access. GeoDataAndGovernment are inextricably intertwined.

Germany
there an article about map copyright in germany on the german wikipedia (in german)

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechte_an_Geoinformationen

short summary:

Maps are protected by 'Urheberrecht' (the german equivalent of copyright) for 70 years (after death of creator/after publication if anonymous). 70 years is the current time .. probably that war changed and older maps are protected for a shorter time.

According to a rulling of the Bundesgerichtshof (highest german court) only the map representation is protected, not the content. (BGH, Urteil vom 28. Mai 1998, Az. I ZR 81/96, Stadtplanwerk).

Additionaly - there is a 50 year rule for aerial photography (publishd + 50 y) - databases have a 15 year copyright