Earlier this week a Facebook status existed on the issue of bloggers using copyrighted material without permission of the copyright holder. In the case of that status the copyright holder had a bit of trouble with a blogger who used maps on their blog without asking permission.
This prompted some thoughtful internal discussion on my end. Some information was missing such as who the blogger is, how did they use the maps, did they try to get permission (was it denied), are they making money from the maps, etc etc.
Digging into the topic revealed some answers, which led to discussion between myself and another blogger. We spent most of our conversation feeling out where we stand on the issue. The blogger I spoke with said their first thought would not have been to contact the copyright holder. They would credit the maps, provide links to the content, and leave it as such.
This is a tricky subject, which I do not claim to have any legal training, expertise, or formal experience with. I don’t have the answers here. But, I do know what I do.
