Copyright and Cartography: Understanding the past, shaping the future

Funding: 2016: $54,000
2017: $60,000
2018: $80,000

Project Member(s): Alexander, I.

Funding or Partner Organisation: Australian Research Council (ARC Discovery Projects)

Start year: 2016

Summary: This project seeks to discover what is at stake when we regulate the production and dissemination of geographic data. It examines the history of copyright in maps, charts and plans in the United Kingdom and Australia. Making extensive use of the historical archive, it investigates how maps came to be included in the copyright regime and how this inclusion affected both the production and dissemination of maps as well as copyright legal doctrine.

Publications:

Alexander, IJ 2018, 'Cartography, Empire and Copyright Law in Colonial Australia', law&history, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 24-53.

Alexander, I 2017, 'Sayer v. Moore (1785)' in Landmark Cases in Intellectual Property Law, Hart Publishing Limited, UK, pp. 59-86.

Alexander, I & Jankowska, M 2017, 'Rights in geospatial information: A shifting legal terrain', Melbourne University Law Review, vol. 41, no. 3, pp. 957-998.

Alexander, I, Burrell, R, Handler, M, Hudson, E & Weatherall, KG 2014, 'Addressing Copyright Infringement Online Through Secondary Liability and Website Blocking: A Submission to the Australian Government'.

Keywords: Intellectual property, copyright, maps, legal history, cartography

FOR Codes: Intellectual Property Law, Expanding Knowledge in Law and Legal Studies, Law Reform, Legal Processes

Acknowledgement of Country

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands our university stands. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.