Two news items popped up today about online map providers in court defending themselves against mapping agencies.
Green Amps in the United Kingdom has been threatened with prison if they continue to use Ordnance Survey (OS) data. Green Amps provides a software program for streamlining wind turbine planning that uses OS map data. They were told by OS that they could obtain a commercial license for £16,000, but have decided to fight the action instead. The Free Our Data campaign is sympathetic with their cause.
Virtual Map of Singapore is defending copyright infringement suit brought by Singapore Land Authority (SLA). The original suit was won by SLA, with the latest appearance being an appeal by Virtual Map. SLA insists that Virtual Map used their maps as the framework for their streetdirectory.com travel guide and service to Singapore. SLA insists that phantom elements in their maps that were designed to catch those that would copy and use their data have been replicated verbatim in the streetdirectory.com online maps.
In both cases, it appears that the data is being used without license. In the case of Green Amps, they’re riding the wave of free data advocacy, insisting that maps are crucial to planning and no alternative exists. They insist that the charges go against the EU INSPIRE directive that has provisions for free data access for the purpose of environmental protection. They’ve even gone so far as to claim that the high license fees of the data constitutes a breach of human rights.
As the ubiquity of excellent map data becomes available for map mashups and web services through Google, Microsoft and other platforms, I get the feeling that these actions might constitute a last gasp of the old-guard mapping agencies.
I realize that there’s a great lack of digital map data in the world at large, but with aggressive collection efforts and commitments to “gather the globe” from both Microsoft and Google, my guess is that this type of action won’t be necessary in the near future. Provided, that is, that such online map efforts build their applications upon the platforms owned by these two companies.
What will happen to these mapping agencies when licensing fees dry up? Will governments continue to fund their efforts as a matter of national security or will they simply fade into history?
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