Hi Rick. Thanks for all your neat maps lately. I really like the Tasmania one.
As for copyright law applying to the Internet... I hate to burst your bubble, but according to US law, "tangible medium of expression" includes electronic data. Basically it means you can't copyright something unless you record it in some way.
Nolo.com defines "fixed in a tangible medium of expression" as:
- "A requirement before a work can be protected by a copyright. The work must be recorded in some physical medium, whether on paper, audio tape or computer disk. This means that spontaneous speech or musicianship that is not recorded, (a jazz solo, for instance) is not protected by copyright."
Google Earth images would be great... except that the Google Earth website says:
- "You can personally use an image from the application (for example on your website, on a blog or in a word document) as long as you preserve the copyrights and attributions including the Google logo attribution. However, you cannot sell these to others, provide them as part of a service, or use them in a commercial product such as a book or TV show without first getting a rights clearance from Google."
I don't know whether maps in the Plugin Manager would be "personal use" or part of a "commercial product."
A good source for public domain maps, photographs and artwork is Wikimedia Commons (commons.wikimedia.org) because it displays the copyright status of all its images. Not all the images are public domain, but lots of them are.
Happy mapmaking!
