Question About Vintage Map Copyright (UK)

[EddieH]

Hi,

My first post here.

I wonder if anybody would be able to clarify a UK copyright issue for me please?


I'm working on a guide book (self published, not as a professional) in which I'd like to include small sections of vintage street maps relevant to locations.

I have two atlases I'd like to use, each published in the 1960s. Each atlas has a note in the front stating the maps are "based on" Ordnance Survey maps. To request use of the maps I've contacted the company who currently hold the rights to this series of books, but with no response.

So bearing in mind the Ordnance Survey aspect, here's my question:

In the UK Ordnance Survey maps (being Crown Copyright) go out of copyright 50 years after publication and become free for anyone to use as they see fit.

So if someone 50+ years ago published a map "based on" (and with permission of the Ordnance Survey), would the Crown Copyright rule applicable to Ordnance Survey maps remain in place for those maps?

Or (assuming they made changes to the data) would the maps come under new copyright ownership for those publishing it?

Thank you in advance for anyone who can help enlighten me in any way.

[Redrobes]

There's the data and then there is the artistic depiction of the data in map form. If the actual map was drawn by Ordnance Survey then maybe but its possible that the data was from ordnance survey but the map was rendered from it. I would imagine that you could use the data like the shape of the road system and names of streets etc but not necessarily the rendered map of those streets.

If you are interested in having a vintage street map then you could look to the old parish maps which were commissioned at about 1860 which are obviously not up to date but include most of the roads and basic features of a place. You can often get them from museum archives and many are expressly out of copyright.

You can get licensed Ordnance Survey data yourself from them using their open portal. I forget exactly how to use it but there are ways to use their data by including a similar tag mention that its from their data. I am not certain if that was for non commercial only use or not.

[EddieH]

Hi,

Thanks for the detailed reply.

Unfortunately I can't use maps from the 1800s as the maps need to be relevant to the period about which I'm writing. It's a handy tip to bear in mind though.

I'll certainly look into the Ordnance Survey portal aspect. I did previously contact them via their website but haven't yet recieved a response.

Thanks very much again!