I work for the government, we work in Geospatial Information matters, that provides topographic maps, basemaps, natural features of our country, one of them is rivers.
There are some suspicion of evidence here and there that even Google Maps using some of our vector features. We can see it clearly when zooming in, the shape and angle of every drawing is exactly the same.
Unlike roads, small rivers should be more unique from one company to another company to draw, because it’s not really clearly seen from satellite imagery. So when it’s exactly the same shape and angle of every vertex, it’s seems they copied ours. Ours are drawn in early 2000s.
But our data can be downloaded easily and free in our website, that’s must be the case, it’s free. But some recognition and attribution could be nice though.
Government materials like that are public domain as far as I know, so anyone is well within their rights to use it in whatever way they see fit, even without attribution. I think that’s a cool feature of the government, not a bug.
And I think we are more than happy we have something that used by other people, for greater community
Certainly it is better than just ended up in box on our warehouse, or just a file in a server no one will ever see it exist, (unless they are academia, scientists or other bodies of government that needs that maps for their work).
I see your point though. It’s all about marketing. And in this capitalist economy that’s sucking us all dry, it should be a law at least to credit the govt in a meaningful and reasonable way, so awareness is raised about govt programs and features.
That tax dollars contribute to perfecting a product that, ultimately, mines the tax payers is just sad. And that people don’t know about it compounds it.
Needs to be a change so that government-funded stuff is free to use for non-commercial purposes, but anyone using it for commercial purposes has to pay a licensing fee.
One case a few years back, a TV station filed a DMCA takedown notice against another site that had posted footage that was frame-by-frame identical to a clip on one of their news broadcasts. The “pirated” footage? Footage from the Mars rover. The site they filed the takedown notice against? NASA.
I don’t see why we should pay a fee to use the works commercially when, by participating in this country’s society, we already pay the fee to use it through taxes. We pay the government to make these materials for our free use.
The news station thing is stupid, and has no legs to stand on, legally speaking. It’d just be thrown out when it’s fought.
Even more so as these multi national corporations are always trying hard to destroy the little things in life by, I don’t know- lobbying against pro-consumer laws.
I work for the government, we work in Geospatial Information matters, that provides topographic maps, basemaps, natural features of our country, one of them is rivers.
There are some suspicion of evidence here and there that even Google Maps using some of our vector features. We can see it clearly when zooming in, the shape and angle of every drawing is exactly the same.
Unlike roads, small rivers should be more unique from one company to another company to draw, because it’s not really clearly seen from satellite imagery. So when it’s exactly the same shape and angle of every vertex, it’s seems they copied ours. Ours are drawn in early 2000s.
But our data can be downloaded easily and free in our website, that’s must be the case, it’s free. But some recognition and attribution could be nice though.
Government materials like that are public domain as far as I know, so anyone is well within their rights to use it in whatever way they see fit, even without attribution. I think that’s a cool feature of the government, not a bug.
Yea I guess you’re right.
And I think we are more than happy we have something that used by other people, for greater community
Certainly it is better than just ended up in box on our warehouse, or just a file in a server no one will ever see it exist, (unless they are academia, scientists or other bodies of government that needs that maps for their work).
I see your point though. It’s all about marketing. And in this capitalist economy that’s sucking us all dry, it should be a law at least to credit the govt in a meaningful and reasonable way, so awareness is raised about govt programs and features.
That tax dollars contribute to perfecting a product that, ultimately, mines the tax payers is just sad. And that people don’t know about it compounds it.
Needs to be a change so that government-funded stuff is free to use for non-commercial purposes, but anyone using it for commercial purposes has to pay a licensing fee.
One case a few years back, a TV station filed a DMCA takedown notice against another site that had posted footage that was frame-by-frame identical to a clip on one of their news broadcasts. The “pirated” footage? Footage from the Mars rover. The site they filed the takedown notice against? NASA.
Incredible, what stupidity. Idiocracy is a documentary…
I don’t see why we should pay a fee to use the works commercially when, by participating in this country’s society, we already pay the fee to use it through taxes. We pay the government to make these materials for our free use.
The news station thing is stupid, and has no legs to stand on, legally speaking. It’d just be thrown out when it’s fought.
Because using it commercially means making money off government resources.
Even more so as these multi national corporations are always trying hard to destroy the little things in life by, I don’t know- lobbying against pro-consumer laws.
Nothing wrong with using government data. It belongs to the public.