Hello everybody,
Is there an archive of street maps freely accessible on the Web ?
Particularly a street map of Strasbourg (France) from 1999 or 2000.
I had a look at the OSM Wiki pages for France, that were not helpful.
Thanks for your help !
OpenStreetMap is project about providing data of the current situation. With that data people can make maps, either for websites, mobile devices or print. The project started only in 2005.
You are probably looking for digitized versions of printed maps from that period. That’s something totally different. I doubt that maps published around 2000 are already out of copyright. AFAIK a copyright on a printed map holds longer than 17 years. This makes me wonder whether you will find such scanned maps that are freely accessible.
OK
Do you know how long exactly does a copyright hold on a printed map ?
Does this delay depend on the engineering (geographer) company ? the printer ? other parties ?
Does it also vary with the country in which the map was created, and with the period of creation ?
It will depend on the country. The author doesn’t get to choose the duration, except to the extent that they can influence the year in which they die.
A printed map, in this context, will probably get the same treatment as a work of art, which I think, in the UK, is 70 years from the year of death of the author. (Ordnance survey maps are in a special category, as they are Crown Copyright and get 50 years from creation.)
The information encoded by the map may have lesser protection (minimum of 15 years from creation, in the UK), if it is deemed that there was no element of creativity involved. You should consult a lawyer before relying on that in any specific case. As this would require redrawing the map, it is unlikely to be of use for your use case, although it may be relevant for OSM. (In my view, there is a element of creativity in most features in OSM - except for raw GPX traces.)