Out-of-copyright maps

About out-of-copyright maps

What is an out-of-copyright map?

Simply, an old map where the copyright has expired. The copyright expiry date varies for different countries and map producers:

UK

• Maps published by the Ordnance Surveyare Crown Copyright as stipulated in the terms of The Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1998 (http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_19880048_en_1.htm). Therein, Chapter X. Section 163, states:

"(3) Crown copyright in a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work continues to subsist—

(a) until the end of the period of 125 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was made, or

(b) if the work is published commercially before the end of the period of 75 years from the end of the calendar year in which it was made, until the end of the period of 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which it was first so published."

Since most Ordnance Survey maps have been published and and are classed as literary or artistic works produced by a government organisation, not one indetifiable person, Crown Copyright on them expires 50 years after the end of the calendar year in which a mapsheet was FIRST published.

Most post World War II Ordnance Survey maps state in the lower margin when the mapsheet was published and, if the mapsheet was revised or corected since initial publication, when this occurred. Consider this actual example for OS 2.5" inch map NZ25 (edition code B/): "Made and published by the Director General of the Ordnance Survey, Chessington, 1954. Reprinted with corrections 1959". The date of first publication is by definition the stated date of publication and for this mapsheet is 1954 (not 1959, which indicates it is only a reprint made in 1959). Thus, for this mapsheet Crown Copyright will have expired at 24.00UTC December 31st 2004, even though it shows information correct as of 1959.

Or, if the map is unpublished, the later of the end of 2039 and the end of the calender year 125 years after creation.

• In the UK, for a map which was produced by one person alone, copyright expires 70 years after the end of the calendar year in which the cartographer died.
• In the UK, for any other map, copyright expires 70 years after the end of the calendar year in which the last (major) contributor died.
  • It's up to you (not up to the current copyright holder!) to figure out who the main contributors were, and when they died.
  • As it's so hard to find out when a non government produced UK map comes out of copyright, it may be best to just contact the company and ask them if they mind licensing the old map to us under suitable terms

US

• In the US, maps which are produced by the federal government are automatically public domain
• In the US, maps which were published prior to 1923 are in the public domain
• In the US, maps which were not published prior to 2003 have copyright expire 70 years after the end of the calendar year in which the author died
• In the US the copyright term for maps published between 1923 and 1964 is complicated: whether or not they are in the public domain depends on whether the copyright was renewed
• In the US, maps published between 1965 and 1978 have a copyright term of 95 years
• In the US, maps published after 1978 which were produced as work-for-hire (most commerical mapping), copyright expires 95 years after then end of the calendar year in which the map was produced
• In the US, maps published after 1978 which were not works for hire, copyright expires 70 years after the end of the calendar year in which the last living author dies

Other Jurisdictions

For other countries, you need to:

• Figure out what special terms exist for government produced works
• Figure out if there's a work-for-hire fixed term for commercial maps
• Figure out what the term is for maps produced by one person (or many, if there's no work-for-hire provision)

How to date old maps

Old maps are often not dated.

Geographers Map Company maps have a three or four letter code in one corner, that can be turned into the cartographic date. There are also clues from the company name and address. See their wikipedia article for details on the encoding scheme and key company dates.

OS maps have been extensively and authoritatively bibliographised, including edition dates. See, for example, Leslie Watson's site, the books of Richard Oliver, and the collected wisdom of the Charles Close Society.

Otherwise, you're on your own! Try looking for new roads and railways. Look for changing road numbers, too. Pick up clues from the typography (for example, is a 'modern' typeface like Gill Sans used?).

Buying and scanning old maps

eBay and abebooks are your friends. Secondhand bookshops are also your friends and are more likely to turn up bargains. When you need to complete a collection, look at professional dealers such as (for OS maps) David Archer and Forbes Robertson... but bear in mind they're likely to be more expensive than secondhand bookshop finds.

What are you looking for? Well, unless your interest is purely historical (and maybe we could start tagging segments with 'start-date' and 'end-date'... ;) ), you want something with a regular projection, so it can be scanned and then orthorectified.

Paper maps are easier to scan than cloth maps. Flat paper maps are better still. (Ex-military maps are a good way of collecting the latter.) Preview Services (based near Heathrow, UK) are very reasonable for large quantities of scanning.

Maps which we can use

Old maps which OSM people have

Map/series	Description	Date	Coverage	Belongs to	Notes	Link
Ordnance Survey New Popular Edition	1in to the mile (1:63,360), 114 sheets	1940s/early 50s	England & Wales	Richard	Fully scanned and orthorectified. OSGB projection (National Grid). Mike Calder also has a full set of these, but not scanned.	npemap.org.uk
Ordnance Survey Scottish Popular Edition	1in to the mile (1:63,360), 91 sheets	late 1940s based on 1920s surveys, corrected	Scotland	Mike Calder	Fully scanned. OSGB projection (National Grid).	npemap.org.uk Scotland DVD by request to Mike Calder
Ordnance Survey Second War Revision 1940	1in to the mile (1:63,360), 146 sheets	1940 based on 1920s surveys, corrected	England and Wales	Mike Calder	Not Scanned. National Grid overprint.
Ordnance Survey Quarter-Inch Series	1/4in to the mile (1:253,440), 18 sheets	1940s	Great Britain	Richard	Fully scanned, to be orthorectified. OSGB projection (National Grid).
Ordnance Survey Atlas of England and Wales	1/4in to the mile (1:253,440), 24 large folios	1922	England & Wales	Richard	Not yet scanned. Pre-National Grid. Mercator projection? (Andrew Rowbottom comments: given the date, the projection used is probably the same as for the Popular Edition 1" maps, which is a Cassini projection centered on Delamere Forest)
Ordnance Survey Atlas of England and Wales	1/4in to the mile (1:253,440), 24 large folios	1922	England & Wales	Mike Calder	Scanned, copy on the web	Click here and follow the link to "Map Site"
Ordnance Survey Quarter-Inch Series	1/4in to the mile (1:253,440), 18 sheets	1940s	Great Britain	Richard	Fully scanned, to be orthorectified. OSGB projection (National Grid).
Geological Survey "Ten Mile" map	10 inches to the mile, two sheets	1948	England, Wales, and Scotland	Mike Calder	Scanned.
Hydrographer of the Navy - Atlas of Tides and Tidal Streams British Isles and Adjacent Waters	16 charts, 20 inches by 24, plus notes and diagrams	1946	British Isles and Adjacent Waters	Mike Calder	Not yet scanned.
Newnes Motorists' Touring Guide	1/4in to the mile (1:253,440) except Highlands/Ireland, 96 near-A4 sheets	1920s	UK & Ireland	Richard	Not yet scanned. Bartholomew mapping. Unknown projection.
Daily Express Road Book of Great Britain	16 A4 sheets	1920s/30s	GB	Richard	Not yet scanned. Unknown projection.
ABC Street Atlas of London	31 near-A4 sheets	1933/34	London	Richard	Fully scanned.	Torrent & see [1]

(I've got quite a few more, smaller ones which I'll eventually summarise here, too - Richard)

I've got quite a collection of o-o-c mapping at 6-inch to the mile (mainly Somerset and Gloucestershire - includes all of Bristol I think) as well as more at 1", and 5miles to the inch for the whole UK. I will be cataloguing in the near future. Blackadder 06:53, 26 Apr 2006 (UTC)

Old maps found elsewhere on the web

• Hipkiss' Scanned Old Maps
• 3rd Military Mapping Survey of Austria-Hungary Central Europe (1:200 000) published about 1910
• Scans of the OS Popular Edition (~1930s E&W) displayed using the Google maps API. Only partial coverage and not as up to date as the New Popular Edition, but may be of interest.
• www.old-maps.co.uk
• www.visionofbritain.org.uk
• Scotland in the 1920s
• MAPCO : Map And Plan Collection Online
• MOTCO maps
• Old London Maps
• Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection of The University of Texas at Austin and their Historical Maps
• Old maps of Czechia, e.g. from Military Surveys of Austro-Hungarian Monarchy
• http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/
• London Underground Maps the ones from 1937 might be crown copyright (which would've expired), or might be copyright "Geographia Ltd" - needs further investigation
• United States Geographic Survey maps from the early 1900s
• Russian Topographic Maps
• Soviet Topographic Maps covering ex-USSR, Asia and some Europe; in TIFF, Pulkovo-42 not WGS84 Warning European maps on that site aren't out-of-copyright
• Map server - mapy.mk.cvut.cz
• The World of Maps - maps.ethz.ch
• The Libre Map project - Contains 24k scale USGS topographic maps for all 50 states, SVG border files for all US states, and US Census TIGER data.

Operators of these sites often claim a new copyright for their scans. Whether this is valid, or whether arguments similar to those in Bridgeman v Corel would apply, is arguable and may well vary by jurisdiction.

Old maps found in recent books

(please insert lots of lovely comments here)

Note especially Bridgeman v Corel, a US ruling that says no copyright can exist in 'facsimile' reproductions of out-of-copyright documents. The judge also ruled that, in his opinion, this would also be the case under UK law. However, specialist lawyers in the UK appear to be of the opinion that Bridgeman vs Corel does not work under UK law and that such copyright does exist (source: some legal book I found in Blackwell's which I must get round to buying some day -- Richard).

See also

• Soviet military maps

How to use old maps

Once you have a scanned image of the map you can open it in a program such as GPS utility, and then trace the image of the feature (road, railway line, river etc) you want to record. This track can then be exported as a GPX file ready for import into OSM.

For the New Popular Edition maps, you can use http://gpx.npemap.org.uk/ to generate a GPX by clicking around on the map.

Wouldn't it be interesting to have a server which stores all such maps? E.g. when you have a location, the program or site offers you a list in which you can browse all those maps in which that location is included? Or overlay or side-by-side them in some useful way. The browse feature could also include a timeline to pick from. So you can follow the development of a place over time, and the data gets shared for everyone. Basically, it would need a (probably rather big) storage thingy for people to upload maps to, and some facility to georeference the maps' areas and tag them appropriately, so they can be found easily.