On 11/27/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 11/27/06, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
Wow. That's very interesting. I knew there was a lot of USGS data out there, but I didn't know there was *that* much.
Here's a list of most if not all of it. Some of these are apparently proprietary though (they are listed as for viewing only - no downloading).
http://seamless.usgs.gov/website/seamless/products/listofortho.asp
Where the coverage is (only in the US, but starting to get a lot of cities), the resolution is really good. That shot from Los Angeles was 0.3 meters (per pixel). Some of the data is at 0.15 meters. Geocover 2000, on the other hand, which covers the entire globe, is 14.25 meters. So outside the US most of the public domain imagery is not very good (I think, please prove me wrong!).
Is such satellite imagery copyrightable in the first place, in the U.S. anyway? Isn't it just mechanical imaging of the earth's surface, and therefore no more copyrightable than a mechanical reproduction of the Mona Lisa is?
The simple answer - maybe. Since Feist (which didn't deal with photography either), there has been very little Supreme Court precedent as to what creative input/originality is necessary to make a photograph copyrightable. AFAIK there are a few cases in which there was obvious creative input, and that's it.
Personally I think lack of copyright protection could be argued at least for the satellite imagery shot in true color. But until there's a Supreme Court precedent, we'll never know for sure.
Anthony