[WikiEN-l] Google Earth copyright (now that you bring it up)

Thu Jan 19 13:40:06 UTC 2006

On 1/19/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> The challenge to Google's claim of copyright on the image (which in
> itself was educational) didn't come until the image had already been
> up there for months.  In fact, the image itself didn't even include a
> claim of copyright by Google, it was from one of the very first
> editions of the software when Google didn't yet have the audacity to
> make such an obviously specious claim. (*)
>
> Anthony
>

(*) The image in question was exported from Google Earth (example at
http://www.newrecruit.org/images/blog/googleearth/paris.jpg).  The
compass on the bottom left was not present and neither was the
copyright notice on the bottom right (not because I removed them, but
because Google had not yet added them).  Like the image I presented
there were no 3-D elements.  I think it's clear to anyone with any
knowledge of copyright law that Google has *zero* copyright interest
in such an image.  You don't get copyright on something simply because
it is part of the output of a program you wrote, and all the rest of
the possibly copyrighted features are held by someone else (in the
case of my photo, the state of New Jersey).