[Qgis-user] Copyright issues and credits of the base maps provided in the Quickmapservice plugin in QGIS

[chris hermansen]

Summer and list,

On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 12:53 PM Summer Y <summeryeung0808 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I have used QGIS to create maps for a paper that I am going to submit to
> an academic journal. However, the journal requires that all figures should
> be under cc-by 4.0 license, while on the QGIS website, it is stated that
> "If not stated otherwise, all content is licensed under Creative Commons
> Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license (CC BY-SA)". Does that mean I cannot use
> maps created by QGIS for this journal or any other open-source journal that
> require the same license?
>

Are you including any QGIS website content?  Specifically media or text?
If not then you have no worries at that end (using QGIS to make output
doesn't count; using material like images, data, text, videos from the QGIS
site would probably count).

>
> Also, I know that every user has to look for copyright permission and how
> to cite every base map respectively. I have used the ESRI satellite as the
> base map but found this
> http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=10df2279f9684e4a9f6a7f08febac2a9
> Does that mean that I cannot use these maps as the base maps if I am using
> QGIS instead of ArcGIS?
>

It seems that this specific ESRI content is licensed under there "master
license agreement" (see midway down the page you mentioned) and
specifically for use with other ESRI products and services.  You will have
to read that license in detail to determine whether or not you can even use
that imagery outside of an ESRI software context, much less republish the
imagery under a CC BY SA 4.0 license.  If I were in your position, I would
start off by doubting that such use is OK, particularly since it doesn't
involve the use of ESRI software.  But you won't know until you review it.
There may be specific freedoms allowed for academic use, for example.

Your university should have some kind of intellectual property office that
can advise on this kind of stuff, but whether you can access them or not.

You might also consider writing to the editor of the journal.

>
> I am new here so I am not quite sure if that's the right way to ask
> questions regarding QGIS. If it is inappropriate, please ignore my email.
> Or, does anyone know how can I contact the QGIS team directly?
>

In my opinion, for whatever that's worth, this is a good place to ask this
kind of question.


-- 
Chris Hermansen · clhermansen "at" gmail "dot" com

C'est ma façon de parler.
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