Canada's Copyright Act doesn't contain any provisions specifically aimed at or with maps in mind. Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co. is repeatedly cited as an explination. Essentially, copyright legislation in the US and Canada only covers certain elements of maps; because copyright is designed to protect artistic works, only artistic choices are protected. When dealing with a movie or song this definition covers the whole work, however when dealing with maps the raw data typically has no artistic aspect, but is rather 'discovered'. Inevitably all maps will contain some sort of errors, but all readers of a map can in good faith believe that any specific piece of information is a valid fact and not artistic creation. Creative decisions (which are protected) can include the types of data presented, the extent of the data presented, unique data symbols, unique colour combinations and other such choices. As such, although one can't photocopy an entire map without permission, they can extract data from it.
Since I wanted to encourage people to use the map to it's maximum potential, I decided early on that I wanted to give people the option of acquiring the map under a license under than copyright. After a lot of thought, I decided on a Creative Commons license. This license is essentially me surrendering some of these rights granted by the Copyright Act in order to allow the map's users to enjoy more freedoms.
Essentially, under certain conditions (you must make clear to others the licence terms of this work,) you are permitted to distribute this work to whomever you'd like. You can copy it, print it, etc. 100% legally and with my blessing. Additionally you may create derivate works (i.e. you can add or remove data or you can crop and share large portions of the map,) provided you attribute the original work (but not in any way that suggests that I endorse you or your use of the work), if you do so non-commercially and your derivate work is published under a similar license. If you have any questions read the full license (this is just a summary,) or contact me.
You're more than welcome to reject this license if you don't like the terms, but then the Copyright Act would apply to you, making it an offense to copy, share or acquire the map without paying a fee. Don't worry though, if you do have a problem I'd like to address it rather than ignore it.
Since I wanted to encourage people to use the map to it's maximum potential, I decided early on that I wanted to give people the option of acquiring the map under a license under than copyright. After a lot of thought, I decided on a Creative Commons license. This license is essentially me surrendering some of these rights granted by the Copyright Act in order to allow the map's users to enjoy more freedoms.
Essentially, under certain conditions (you must make clear to others the licence terms of this work,) you are permitted to distribute this work to whomever you'd like. You can copy it, print it, etc. 100% legally and with my blessing. Additionally you may create derivate works (i.e. you can add or remove data or you can crop and share large portions of the map,) provided you attribute the original work (but not in any way that suggests that I endorse you or your use of the work), if you do so non-commercially and your derivate work is published under a similar license. If you have any questions read the full license (this is just a summary,) or contact me.
You're more than welcome to reject this license if you don't like the terms, but then the Copyright Act would apply to you, making it an offense to copy, share or acquire the map without paying a fee. Don't worry though, if you do have a problem I'd like to address it rather than ignore it.
