Public domain maps are not protected by copyright laws and can be used freely. They can be created by the government, use generally available information, or have expired copyrights. Most maps created before 1923 and those without a copyright notice printed before 1989 in the US are public domain.
Public domain maps are geographic maps that are not protected as intellectual property by copyright laws in a particular country. Maps can be copyrighted, just like other creative or artistic works, but those that are not copyrighted are considered to be in the public domain. There are several ways a map can be in the public domain, including maps made by the government and maps that use generally available information. Public domain maps may also include old maps for which copyright ownership has expired.
A map is generally considered to be the protected intellectual property of the person or company that creates or commissions it. This places such maps under copyright protection, just like a work of art, film or piece of literature, and requires that the copyright owner’s permission must be obtained before use of such maps. Public domain maps, however, are maps that are not protected by copyright law. This means that public domain maps can be used freely by anyone who wishes to do so, although it is still possible that someone could charge money for access to a copy of a public domain map owned by them.
There are several ways that maps can become public domain maps, although the most common is for a map to be created by a government agency. While copyright laws may differ from country to country, in the United States, for example, maps created by the federal government are in the public domain. This means that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of maps that have been created by the government and are free to use.
Public domain maps can also include those created using generally available information. Someone who sketches the outline of a country, or the lines between states and provinces, has generally not met the originality requirements for copyrighted works. Likewise, map keys, color codes, and geographic terrain markers are generally considered to be in the public domain and are not copyrighted.
There are also some public domain maps that were once copyrighted, but are no longer. Copyrights eventually expire, usually within a number of decades after the protected work is created, and most maps created before 1923 are no longer protected by copyright. Previous copyright laws also required any copyrighted map to include a copyright notice, so most maps printed before 1989 in the United States without a copyright notice are public domain maps.
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