Taken from todays "Times."
"Last week the OS itself changed, radically, after agreeing to provide free and unrestricted online access to many of its maps. For the first time, British map users can now download accurate and official cartographical data without paying a penny.
The decision to open up most of the OS maps comes at the end of a long public consultation. With online services such as Multimap and Streetmap offering free mapping in a host of new ways, the Government has come under increasing pressure to release its cartographical databanks.
Hitherto, the State has retained copyright in anything created using OS data. By waiving that copyright, the path is now open to entrepreneurs to use the information to create new businesses incorporating this trove of information. A report by a team at Cambridge University found that making OS data free would cost the Government £12 million, but bring commercial benefits worth some £156 million — and sufficient taxes to compensate for the loss of income.
But the Government could not bring itself to part with all its cartographical jewels. To the dismay of ramblers and other countryside groups, the free data released last week does not include digital versions of the 1:25,000 Explorer and 1:50,000 Landranger series, the most popular paper maps.
These are precisely the maps that most people use to explore the countryside, something the Government says it is keen to encourage. It seems perverse that while businesses can now obtain sophisticated OS data for free, the public must still pay, directly contradicting the principle that information gathered at the expense of taxpayers should (with the exception of data relating to national security) be available to those taxpayers at no additional cost."