Discussion: Clubs and map ownership

I am curious what models clubs use for getting value from the maps they so lovingly create. Maps are our biggest expenditure. Do you take steps to protect the copyright? Do you share the maps freely? How do you think about map ownership? How do you deal with liability (both legal and in terms of landowner relations) for people who take the map and visit the area without landowner permission? Are there clubs that share maps in a way that you find inspiring? What is the relative return for open sharing of maps vs careful restriction of access?

This is how we have done it in my Swedish club.

I realise that this may not be possible in US and it is probably very unusual even in Sweden. Map sales are a very small part of the club´s income even without the new system above so I don´t think it matters very much from that point of view.

Your question/point about landowners is covered in this agreement since bigger parties still have to take some kind of contact through us.

Protecting copyright could be one way to go - that doesn´t stop "illegal" copying though. We very often share our OCAD files with our neighbouring clubs (and they their files with us). Once one such a file is out of your hands there is no way you can control the use, but what the h***, it benefits the whole orienteering community... That is really the best value you can get out of a map rather than keeping it locked up trying to get the extra $$ where possible.

That sounds like a fair way to control/promote proper use of maps for actual orienteering.

It seems to me that posting maps with courses and routes on them after a meet is a different matter. If the map is a low-quality scan (<200dpi), with a course and a route on it, it's not much use as a real map for orienteering. Does your club discourage or prohibit or care at all if runners post their maps w/ routes after a race?

Agree with DanF. The copyright battle is lost. Anyone who really wants to reproduce our maps can easily acquire them and then try to make a profit from them. The saving grace is that not many people will try this because the general public demand for our maps is very small. O-meets and adventure races are really the only way to earn significant revenue.

Rather than restricting distribution, the better option is getting the maps into as many hands and onto as many computer screens as possible. This is a solid way to promote the sport and increase our meet revenues.

Thank you for your helpful postings!

I agree with most of what is said above. However it is possible for another party to make a profit from an orienteering map.
Some years ago a private company used an out-of-date version of one of our maps as a basis of a commercially produced "adventure map". No credit was given. They advertised that it based on original surveys. It is still being sold today (and it still has the same mistakes that were on our map).

I know BOK (in NC) sells their maps through REI and derives a significant (majority?) portion of their revenue from said map sales. This has the additional benefit that once you establish yourself as the source of maps, it's hard for a third party to cut into your market share with a copy of your map.

Does your club discourage or prohibit or care at all if runners post their maps w/ routes after a race?

I think it is obvious from the example above - where you can print the clean map - that it´s no big issue either if our maps are posted with routes after a race.

About 15 years ago our club had the idea to try a program of selling our maps in bookstores and places like REI or Park Visitor's Centers. Soon it became clear that this would be much more effort than any club member was willing to take on. First you must make sales call on each of these places. If you make the sale you must keep the stores constantly supplied or they will pull your maps from the rack. We couldn't find anyone willing to put in all this work on a long term basis so the program fizzled.

BAOC maps can be purchased via our web site. Non event map sales bring in no more than 1 or 2 percent of our revenue each year. Would be interested to hear more about BOK's REI program and other club's long term successes with map sales.

@bshields: Who buys the BOK maps through REI? What are they used for? I wonder who at BOK does all the hard work (and how much work they find it to be) that Geoman describes. Any suggestion about someone I could ask at BOK?

@GHOSlow: How is that stolen map being used? By which I mean, who buys it?

What is the line between a derived work and copyright violation? If you refer to various maps in generating a new map, what is the right thing for the newmapmaker to do in terms of copyright, financial profit, etc.?

>How is that stolen map being used? By which I mean, who buys it?

the general public

My understanding is that REI customers, who frequent Umstead Park, buy the maps. jhuberman is the person to talk to.

In my opinion users of quality maps need to pay for their upkeep. If the copyright is not upheld , then pretty soon there are no funds to pay for map upkeep or new maps. The MNOC website is now known as the place to go to get up to date quality maps (for both plain maps and POC's) . Each map is sealed in a polybag also.

We typically charge $4 to $5 per map and around $4 for shipping and handling for each order. We have income of over $1000/year (~50% POCs, 50% plain O maps) as a result . Once people understand the link between the money and the quality they seem happy to pay for it and to respect the copyright.

iriharding> You make a good point. Does anyone now how much the club in question in the original discussion, NEOC, spend on map upkeep and updates?

There isn't a single answer because there are various types of orienteering maps, and potential users. Here are some of them.
1. Park maps. One club has established a "free list" of its small maps, and it puts them on its website in pdf form for free download. (There is some fine print there.) The rationale is to encourage orienteering by schools and community groups - and a defence against regular requests to organise courses for such groups. It would be nice to agree to such requests, but hard for volunteers to do.
2. Competition maps. The market for these maps outside of events is regrettably limited to a very few dedicated orienteers. They know enough to use copies already owned or to negotiate with the club. The issues may not be dollars so much as a wish to limit training on new maps until they have been used in competition a few times, or to impose embargo periods before planned events.
3. The club above has its urban and surrounding area mapped to "improved topographical" standard for street events, rogaines and MTBO. This would seem to have a wider market potential, except that only a minority appreciate or care about accuracy/completeness compared to eg Google.

I think there's a trend from "protection" to "getting maps out there and used". That seems to be George Oogle's approach too:-))

It seems that orienteers that post maps online do not realize they break a "law". And also map owners are usually not aware what is happening with their maps in the internet world.

On the other hand I think that the orienteering community greatly benefit from maps online. However some generally accepted maps-online-ethics would be good.

1. The map owners should realize that their maps online is a reality.
2. The map owners should decide whether they encourage or discourage online copying.
3. If this is encouraged something like this could be on maps: "This map may be published online. Restrictions apply: scanned in maximum 200DPI, only the whole map including logos, credits, only a map with course, not a blank map."
4. Some publicity about copyright shall be done among "archivers".

Personally I think having maps online is a potentially great marketing tool for O. Perhaps change the copyright statement on maps to allow for personal use and one-offs, but prohibit commercial use of the map. I don't think the clubs are really losing any single-map sales because the likely users of such maps fall into two camps:

Regular orienteers who use the map copies for training - these folks are going to go to regular meets and pay the usual fees anyway.

Newcomers - families, scouts etc - allow them to copy a map - and clubs should make permanent course maps readily available online - so that they can go out and try it on their own, and hopefully become interested enough to come to a meet and become regular customers. The flipside to this, and as an Asst Scoutmaster I'm thinking of scouts in particular here, is that if quality maps/courses aren't readily available to work on orienteering requirements, troops will end up using sub-par USGS or park trail maps to 'teach' orienteering. Scouts end up with an inaccurate impression of the sport and never take it any further. Give them a quality map for free (and maybe include helpful tips and contact information right on the map) and maybe you'll see some of these folks coming to regular meets.

Just my thoughts....

It seems that orienteers that post maps online do not realize they break a "law"

Is this actually true? Any copyright lawyers in the audience? It has always been my understanding that posting a cropped scan with your routes drawn on fell under the "Fair Use" provisions of copyright law in the US, but WDIK?

(one would think the diciest test in the Fair Use doctrine would be test #3, and the Fair Use argument would hinge on the importance of quality in an orienteering map, and the fact that a scanned repo in one's blog is not a large enough portion of the original quality to be useful to anyone).

Anyway, I would still remove a scan if the club asked me to (even tho I don't believe I'm legally obliged to) (I've never been asked -- on one occasion I've been asked to keep a map secret -- which I have).

I think its more about common sense than "breaking the law" in any case.

I remember being startled to open a long-awaited issue of Orienteering Today and see our (CAOC's) Waterfall Glen map published in there. Although not the most exciting terrain, it is unique as a complete ring of mapped land around the Argonne National Labs. I understand, from talking to a soldier formerly stationed there, that this was a military buffer around the sensitive DoE facility during the Cold War. Anyway...
So there's our map in Orienteering Today. It did not even occur to me to ask my fellow board members whether any of them had been contacted for permission. It's likely that the Czech mapper & publisher were friends and just found a cool-looking map for the magazine. Were Olles & OT breaking copyright "law"?? Maybe, but so what. It's one thing to spend your time debating copyright and another entirely to assert it. Who wants to get worked-up about that when there are so many fun things to do with your spare time?
Disclaimer... I am biased. As an open source software user & developer, I appreciate this minimal copyright culture. I'm not saying that OS development would work for maps, just that it would be unfun (and hypocritical) for me to be chasing copyrights. Oh yeah, it is also hypocritical to print a copyrighted map and then pontificate about copyright "law."

@expresso Sure I had a permission to publish the map in Orienteering Today.

@randy The copyright law is different country to country... Instead of law maybe good manners, ethics is more appropriate.

Look for example at this map I found through Woo. It is scanned in high DPI and it has in the right bottom corner a prominent notice that say it is forbidden to reproduce this map.

I like the idea of clubs posting all their maps online. This can be done also centrally through Woo. Plus the maps can be georeferenced and then can be viewed in gps smartphones.

@olles Regardless, it was cool to see our map in there. I've often thought to host a goat event around the whole ring. Another novel nearby map is of Palos Hills. At our Sunday meet we'll have controls set atop of the world's first nuclear reactor. All are invited.

In my club in Ireland, we have POC's on alot of our assessable maps, all available for free download and available in the parks/forests themselves at the coffee shops/ information point.

Does it not make sense to promote the sport as much as possible and not be off the attitude that you have to scroung €5 off them for a map, which to them is just a piece of paper. If you think about it logically - you give them a map for free... they get interested, turning up to training events, and then events and finally joining the club.

Now charge them €5 for the map.... do you think they'll show up to an O event??

In relation to uploading the maps to blogs, I think it ties in with the whole GPS issue.
Its about promoting the sport - its hidden enough as it is without keeping all our maps "secret". Have people upload all the maps online, have routegadget in high quality, have bloggers do a quickroute... Its makes people interested to see where other orienteers went and how fast they were running.... It may even get other orienteers to travel to the events in future if the maps look fun. I had no interest in JWOC in Ozz, then I saw the maps and I busted my ass to get selected.

If the maps stay hidden, the sport stays hidden, the sport will slowly die out

Maybe this:

> It is still being sold today (and it still has the same mistakes that were on our map)

is an inadvertent copyright Easter Egg

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Copyright_Easte...

No. We didn't need to be that clever. The commercial firm used an out-of-date version of our map.
One of the most obvious changes that was made to the newer version of the map resulted from the construction of an earthen dam that was made by excavating a small hill. Any field surveyor who actually visited the area would have noticed that the hill wasn't there anymore.
The firm that stole our data claimed that they had done a new survey but they didn't notice this or the rerouting of major trails, removal of fences etc.

At our Sunday meet we'll have controls set atop of the world's first nuclear reactor.
First man-made nuclear reactor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklo

>Maybe this .... is an inadvertent copyright Easter Egg

After our map data was stolen we have started inserting "Easter Eggs" into our maps.

Well, here's my letter to USOF:

Dear Glen and Clare,

I'm writing on the topic of maps.

Maps are a major asset for clubs. It costs money or time or both to create a map. We get the investment back by putting on meets using those maps. Some clubs also sell their maps outside of meets, but generally that's not a major source of income.

As part of the strategic plan, I think it would be great for USOF to provide some centralized support for clubs around maps, including these things:

• Central web site from which clubs could share and sell electronic and printed versions of their maps. Hopefully indexed several ways including with a google-like map; you zoom in far enough and you see the map. There are several examples of how to do this including World of O and a nice Italian site - but I'm no expert.


• Suggested guidelines around map copyright, sharing maps, protecting maps, and getting value back from maps.


• Central web site for version control of OCAD files, with limited access (e.g., a club might designate a set of map updaters to have read and write access for that club's maps. Or they might allow any USOF-vetted person to have read access. A USOF-vetted person has to agree to rules about use of OCAD files including no redistribution, use restrictions, and maybe be 'recommended' by some trusted person...)


• Routegadget site (or other appropriate course review site) that any club could use for their maps - and support for clubs who don't know how to use it.

While some clubs have this all figured out, others don't. If USOF provided this technology (perhaps just by getting a couple of the clubs who already know how to do this stuff to set it up USOF-wide), then clubs who don't have people who have the time and tech-savviness to figure it out could really benefit. This might spur the creation and better management of clubs' maps, and attract more orienteers from here and abroad.

As to suggested guidelines around map copyright, here are my starting thoughts: These should both respect the fact that clubs need to get return on their investment, and propose specific ways that clubs could use their maps to grow the sport of orienteering. I believe online posting of how people ran their courses should be encouraged, a la routegadget or scanned images. I think people should be able to download printable versions of maps (but each club could decide how to manage this), and be encouraged to use them freely for training purposes (but with suggested donation and blurb about how much it takes to create a map), but be asked to pay some amount when a large enough group has an event or puts on a meet. Use of the map for non-orienteering events should definitely be something that USOF should support clubs protecting their copyright - i.e., getting fair payment for use of the maps. Where there are access issues, there should be clear and prominent statement about getting permission from landowners, and ideally contact information for landowners. It would be great if USOF could contract with some quality printing outfits to print maps on demand and send them to people or to stores for reselling.

I'm sure there are many things USOF could do to support clubs in creating and using orienteering maps.

Nice letter. One thing I'll add is that I have no problem with the idea of there being a required royalty paid to a club every time a map is printed out. I see a big difference between a map on a screen and one that becomes paper, and I'd focus copyright concerns on the latter. I don't have any bright ideas about how to enforce payments for that, but I think there's enough honesty around that if it were easy to make payments, e.g. by PayPal, then if there's a prominent notice that payment is required if a map is printed from an online source, then people will generally be responsible enough to send a dollar or so when they make a print.

I think I like that. Maybe a benefit of club membership would be that you get unlimited printed maps from your club for personal use (training) and skip the royalty. All honor system. I think honor system could work well.

Great initiative & well said. I hope this becomes part of the strategic plan.
Centralized version control of OCAD files might not be supported by too many clubs but I appreciate the good intention of it.

Yes, hopefully it would be clear that the intention is not to give the maps to USOF but to have USOF provide technology for clubs to safely and easily store and version control their maps -- something I bet not every club has a good solution for.

Yes, that was clear in your letter. There still might be some reticence or at least inertia regarding OCAD files.
I see real value in the map download/printing service. It's great to have ready access to maps for training purposes when I travel. I often make requests of the local club prior to a trip and, although it feels like an imposition, they are great about providing them. Centralizing this would be great in a lot of ways.

In principle all this use of USOF website to do lots of very interactive stuff (store maps, sell maps + all kinds of uses (register for events etc as per the strategic plan ) is great.

It will however require very active (24 hr?) webmaster management and some $$$ because the implications of problems (orders not being filled, payments messed up , folks being unable to register , etc ) are no longer trivial (in contrast to the current static USOF website). I hope USOF would think about all of this before going or taking us down this path.

The difficult issue on this side of the ditch is agreeing on a pricing policy for sharing map use between clubs. Based on the spreadsheet I have been playing with, map prices vary greatly according to the terrain, age, outside subsidy, assumptions about discount rates and your policy about cost retrieval. How do other clubs put a price on their maps?

And as to this proposal about a centralised map service via the web, why think of it as a US service. It would be easier to do it through a European entity where the most maps and orienteers are located and provide the service internationally. Maybe a WorldofO opening?

Good suggestions but I agree with Ian. My sense is that if we wait for USOF to do something we will be waiting a long time -- not because "they" don't want to but because time, $ and volunteers are already spread thin. The effort will require new blood (a new committee?). The effort will require more funding (increase in club dues?). Perhaps there is some club who is already doing many of these things that may volunteer to broaden the scope of their efforts. Or perhaps through our discussions here we can evolve a more grassroots effort of clubs sharing ideas and technologies that help us all. I just don't think sending this up to Clare and Glen will get us far -- they are already very busy.

Barb suggests something that would be a very nice service to clubs, at least those that don't already have map copyright / ownership figured out. But is this the most valuable thing USOF can do with its limited resources?

As iriharding begins to suggest, administering a system like this will take time and money. I would much rather see USOF invest an equal amount of time into getting national sponsorship dollars, promoting orienteering to schools and teachers, developing maps and clubs in unserced population centers, or paying for coaching for national team and junior development. For the time and effort invested, I think that we could get much more value focusing elsewhere.

Perhaps as kamikazesquirrel suggests, there could be some individual or club willing to set up a service like this. Perhaps even a fee-based system that user clubs / map owners would support thru an annual membership fee or a percentage of royalties based on usage / maps printed? Here's an opportunity for an orienteer with an interest in serving the O' community with a web-based business that could pay for itself and maybe even turn a profit. I could see something working along the lines of SmugMug or other photosharing sites, where map owners could upload their maps, set which (if any) maps could be printed for free and which would be protected and require a fee payment.

For the same (required) amount of IT professional's compensation dollars or volunteer time, a unified registration and results system will have a much greater positive impact.

I’m coming a little late to this but just saw boardnet and these log posts
http://attackpoint.org/discussionthread.jsp/messag...
http://attackpoint.org/discussionthread.jsp/messag...

Does anyone know what the NEOC President/Board were thinking when they unleashed this sh*tstorm in the manner they did? It started when, out of the blue and without warning, the NEOC President sent lawyerly e-mails out that threatened legal action if the maps weren’t taken down immediately. Merits of the issue aside, this scorched earth approach by the NEOC President seems at odds with the way the O-community usual settles these matters i.e. discussion (sometimes heated). Starting off with the threat of legal action is usually the realm of bullies and others incapable of more normal social interaction.

The most irritating thing is that the NEOC President/Board (assuming she is speaking with the full authority and knowledge of the NEOC Board) could have avoided this mess by not jumping the gun. Per boardnet, it appears NEOC will now allow Routegadget on its website (freeware, ironically enough) and decide later how and if others can use the maps. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to first decide on a policy and then explain it without the strong arm tactics (which could always come in later, if reason fails)? The maps have been out there for a while and there would have been little impact if NEOC left them out there for another month while they got its ducks in a row. In the meantime, threads such as this one could provide valuable input and some good ideas about a course of action. Perhaps that approach would have engaged the O community to solve a problem rather than alienated it- a community which NEOC and all clubs relies on for so much (mapmaking, course setting, etc.)

Then I started thinking - was it really plausible that this could have been so mishandled by accident? Perhaps there is an ulterior strategy and someone wanted the chaos and acrimony that ensued. Just my skeptical nature but I can’t help but feel there is something going on here besides the copyright issue. Or, if it is just poor interpersonal skills, then it may be time for the NEOC members to rethink its leadership structure.

barb, this thread is taking exactly the correct approach. Keep up the good work and please consider running for NEOC Prez.

Barb, we need you at the Rogaine Committee. Please please don't give us less of your valuable time and insights.

sammy, I believe that the NEOC board is going to discuss the issue of maps online at their next board meeting. Hopefully they will have a productive discussion and come to a reasonable solution that satisfies most (if not all). So, for the time being, all is calm. The NEOC members using my DOMA archive appear to have voluntarily removed their NEOC maps, so there's not much to complain about on either "side".

My views are changing over time, from "protective" to "get them out there". The following observations though anecdotal might clarify some thoughts (including mine). Refer to three classes of maps in my earlier posting.

1. Park maps. We specifically WANT community groups to do orienteering. BY THEMSELVES. We plan an optimistic programme for ourselves so, there's no resource to service community groups. Missing sentence added: We best achieve our goals by encouraging download.

2. Competition maps. It would be wonderful if there was a huge interest in our competition maps. Around here, there is so little interest in training, or even looking at maps for amusement, that a fortnight after a major multiday involving 1200 starts, only 70 routes have been put into RouteGadget. There were 3 individual competitions so this probably represents about 25 people.

3. Improved-topo maps of the region. Could be lack of marketing, but even after major events using these maps have received good publicity, there are only a handful of post-event requests for them.

We should face the fact that only a few appreciate the special qualities of our maps - even among orienteers. Outside orienteering, other navigation products are becoming easier and cheaper. Eg Google Earth and Maps, and GPS's.

"... a web-based business that could pay for itself and maybe even turn a profit"? Get real.

The main value of our maps is the future events that they allow us to hold; so preserving "terrain as far as possible unfamiliar" may be the only cause for restriction.

"terrain as far as possible unfamiliar" I don't think this flies as a reason to keep maps secret, given that everybody who was at the event has their own copy and therefore if any of these are at a future event where the map has been kept secret they will have a huge advantage. So that conflicts with the overall "fair play" rule.