[Freegis-list] copyright on dcw data from www.gisdatadepot.com

[Jan-Oliver Wagner]

Hi Andreas,

On Tue, Jan 23, 2001 at 12:36:25AM +0100, Andreas Lange wrote:
> could someone explain to me the copyright/license of the Digital Chart
> of the World data from www.gisdatadepot.com?
> Is this the same dataset that is distributed by ESRI?
> >From http://www.maproom.psu.edu/dcw/faq/ques1.html i conclude that the
> DCW is copyright ESRI and not "free" in the real meaning of the word.

the US provide digital vector data as public domain (VMAP).
These data exist on different resolutions (VMAP Level 0 and Level 1
are both public domain because they are de-classified).
I don't know whether there is a Level 2.
Level 0 is about 1:1.000.000  and Level 1 about 1:100.000.

Several revisions of the VMAPs were published, DCW is based
on VMAP Level 0 Revision 2.
The current version is 3 and thus DCW is outdated.
Especially for Germany there are many outdated
information in DCW (like Karl-Marx-Stadt instead of Chemnitz).

The differences between DCW and VMAPL0R2 are:
* VMAP uses the VPF format, DCW uses ESRI e00 format.
* VMAP is public domain and hence has no copyright
	while DCW is copyrighted by ESRI.

DCW is _most probably_ free data. However, ESRI was able
to restrict State U. of Pennsylvania's distribution of the data
in some way. So better to use VMAPL0R3 for it is also more up-to-date.

Finally, VMAPL1 has been declassified, but it is not
possible to get them all downloaded from NIMA.
Some problems seem to be involved. On the one hand NIMA
seems to refuse (or at least delay) the realease of the data.
Furthermore, several national agencies have contributed to
the VMAP data, but with restricted rights. So actually the VMAP
data never could have been released as public domain.
For VMAPL0 there seem to be a (non-written) agreement of all
agencies to allow the public domain status (though you find e.g.
the UK crown copyright still in the documentation).
I have the feeling that it is far more complicated with L1
and perhaps that is the reason why NIMA has only some
of the L1 data on their ftp site.

There is a lot more to say about these data and there were
several long discussions about this.
Please refer to the archives of comp.infosystems.gis where
last was a long thread on this topic.

Cheers

		Jan

-- 
Jan-Oliver Wagner               http://intevation.de/~jan/

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