Thoughts - Ask the Owners of the Images! Not the Users!
Last week, in my naive excitement to share a product idea with readers of this blog, I did something wrong. Sharing the product idea - that was fine. However, it was brought to my attention that my proposed product sounded like a real product. IT IS NOT A REAL PRODUCT! It is merely an idea I shared to solicit feedback on its potential viability as an image tool.
I admit, as I reread my post,it sounded as if I were offering the proposed product for sale, something I would NEVER do without permission from both DigitalGlobe and Google Earth. It seems one of my readers took offense at the language of the post and an offer to let readers view a product prototype, at no cost. After thinking about my offer to allow readers to download the proposed product, I decided that it was a poor idea for a number of reasons, so I withdrew that post and previous posts that discussed this proposed product. I will handle this proposed product idea with the parties involved and not with my readers
Now I want to share what I felt as my motives and character were being discussed by strangers via a comment thread on the blogsite Technical Ramblings. First, I felt pissed that my innocent motives were being challenged by someone who doesn't know me, and only knows my posts. I felt I was being called a thief for allegedly stealing images from both DigitalGlobe and Google Earth. Worst, this individual intimated that I was doing this knowingly. I attempted to defend my motives and apologize for any misleading statements I might have made, to no avail. The scolding continued and a suggestion that I read a September thread discussing the proper uses of Google Earth images. I read the thread and, thank God, after reading it I snapped out of it.
The next morning, I contacted a well-placed representative of DigitalGlobe about the "fair use" of their imagery taken from Google Earth. This individual is well aware of my work and has viewed it a number of times. He assured me that my use of their product, to derive my island maps from, was okay! His only caveat was that my maps and the use of their images was not to be used in a commercial operation and I DO NOT sell my maps or their images, DigitalGlobe is fine with what I do. As to my proposed product idea, that is now between me and DigitalGlobe.
When I first began making maps of islands, using DigitalGlobe images fround in Google Earth, I spoke with a Google Earth representative who repeated the same approval of my island mapping and the use of their imagery to better share my mapping efforts. I was told to include all appropriate trademarks on the images and to not produce maps or to use their images for profit. This person suggested I contact DigitalGlobe to secure their permission as well, which I did.
This is my lesson learned - avoid threads, no matter how well intended the parties might be. Most often the comments are strictly opinions of people like you and me, they just sound more learned then we do. The bottom line is if you want to determine once and for all if your actual or intended use of images or derivatives taken from those images is "fair use" or allowed or how ever you want to describe it, ask the owners of the images, in my case DigitalGlobe and Google Earth. Both parties approved my use of their images. So, that's that.
Labels: DigitalGlobe, Google Earth, images
You said...
The bottom line is if you want to determine once and for all if your actual or intended use of images or derivatives taken from those images is "fair use" or allowed or how ever you want to describe it, ask the owners of the images...
I can't help but comment on this because you missed a critical step. Ask the owners and then contact a lawyer. Pay a little money and you'll be better off. Many companies will insist their 'rights' reach further than they actually (read.. legally) do. A good example is derived products from licensed data (or service) If you have a commercial license it should be okay. 'Derived' does get a little murky sometimes though. Usually it requires that some form of interpretation needs to happen. If you took DigialGlobe's images and simply resmapled them to 2 bit grey images to define land and water I don't think that would count as a derived product. And that is why you need a layer.
Posted by
Cam W. |
12/12/2007 01:00:00 PM
Cam.
Thanks for the advice. Since both owners of the images I use have approved the specific way I use their product, and the way I use their images merely repeats, and does not change, I consider their okay to my efforts the ultimate approval. If they should ever change their minds and tell me to cease and desist, I'll go back to working exclusively off of Landsat ETM+. Either way, I get to make maps of islands.
Posted by
Mr Minton |
12/12/2007 04:10:00 PM
For the record, my personal belief, supported to some extent by legal advice that I have heard, is that the island maps you are putting together is Fair Use as it is a Transformative -- and I definitely love the maps you have put together. I do think that they are well done, and very interesting as a way to explore islands in a way that I would never be able to do.
I'd like to say that I feel like we've had a miscommunication somewhere: You think that I find what you're doing wrong in some way. With a very limited exception -- specifically, publishing the 7.7MB "DGIM" image -- I think what you're doing is great work all around. Even the idea of the DGIM is great, and the images used to publicize it really demonstrated exactly what you were trying to achieve.
However, I think that there was just a bit too much haste in demonstrating what you thought was an awesome product -- something I'm equally susceptible to -- for readers who hadn't followed along the chain of posts. Specifically, I found myself *very* confused as to whether this was something that existed, or didn't exist. I hadn't read PlanetGS for a couple days due to working on OpenAerialMap, and I came back to find this product being advertised that I was reading about for 20 minutes before realizing it wasn't a product.
The problem with what you want is not what you want to exist. That's a great thing. However, from a "free data rights" point of view, I often feel like users of the great imagery that Google Earth makes available have a tendancy to forget the important thing about the data: *it's not yours*. There are many limitations about what you can do with the data, and to act as if it's acceptable to simply copy images out of Google Earth for whatever purpose you see fit is to act with a brazen attitude that I feel duty bound to at least make clear *migh* not be acceptable to data providers. It seems clear that DigitalGlobe is happy with you doing it -- but that doesn't mean they're happy with people doing it for commercial purposes, for example. So they might be less happy if you were selling your island maps -- or even if Digital Globe weren't, Google might decide they weren't happy with it, and do something about it.
Free data has a number of benefits: My post was really geared towards talking about that. My shots at you were somewhat unfair, but mostly in jest. However, when you said that your DGIM could be reproduced by anyone by just "copying the images out of Google Earth", my free data zealotry comes out: because many users *can't* just do that, and to lead them to believe they can is exactly that: misleading. *Some* cases may have their problems solved by something like DGIM. However, at least some cases will not be able to use the imagery in the way they want to -- the canonical example of that being the inability to use DG imagery for "display on the web" above a certain resolution -- because of contract restrictions.
I like what you're doing. I encourage you to keep doing it so long as you are able -- but be aware that doing it may not always fly, and the way in which it won't fly isn't something you can know ahead of time. With Free -- as in Libre/Freedom, rather than beer -- Data, you know what the restrictions are on your usage, if any. With data collected in the US by governments, much of it is Public Domain, and with that, you really can do whatever you want. I believe that's an important freedom, and I think it's an important thing to be aware of.
I'm sorry that you felt like I was scolding you. That was unintentional: As a hacker, I sometimes turn off my politeness filter a bit too easily, which leads me to falling into traps when conversing with people who aren't used to the same method of interaction. I certainly wasn't intending to scold: simply to draw your attention to some misleading statements, but more importantly, to draw the distinction that there is something that "Freedom" can provide which even purchasing data (sometimes) can not.
Posted by
crschmidt |
12/12/2007 06:43:00 PM