Some aspects of the use of cartographic materials or how not to get on 300 thousand rubles. for the site map

Disclaimer: I am not a professional lawyer, so all of the following is an attempt to independently understand the issue based on a thoughtful reading of various sources. For professional legal advice is better to contact people who are engaged in this on an ongoing basis (they are called "lawyers").

Let's start with a clear example: you have a website of a commercial organization and you need to place a location map. You don’t think for a long time that you go to Yandex.Maps (Google Maps, 2Gis), take a screenshot, draw some landmarks in Photoshop so that a person doesn’t get confused, post it on your site in the “Contacts” section and ... get a fine of 300 thousand rubles. for the misuse of copyright.

Some theory

1. Maps are subject to copyright, which follows from the Civil Code
   GK code Article 1259. Objects of copyright
   geographical and other maps, plans, sketches and plastic works related to geography and other sciences;

   
   

2. According to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation Article 1270. The exclusive right to the work of the author belongs to the exclusive rights to distribute, reproduce, public display, processing, etc.

   
   

3. On the basis of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation Article 1286. A license agreement granting the right to use the work, it follows that the Rights Holder may transfer to another person full or partial rights to use the work. The transfer of rights is carried out on the basis of and within the framework of the contract.

   
   

4. Excerpt from wikipedia (the courts are similarly interpreted) : A limited liability company along with other types of business societies, as well as business partnerships, production cooperatives, state and municipal unitary enterprises, is a commercial organization, that is, an organization aiming at making profit as its main goal activities and distributing the profits among the participants. Those. because you place the card on a site that belongs to an organization that uses it for commercial profit and, therefore, the copyright object (a piece of the card) is used for commercial purposes.

   
   
5. Responsibility for violation occurs according to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. Article 1301. Responsibility for violation of the exclusive right to work and can be from 10,000 to 5,000,000 rubles. There is also administrative and criminal liability (I would hope that this does not apply to the topic of the article)

Nobody needs it, no one will do it

Here are examples of cases in which real payments were made.

→ Once
It follows from the case file that XXX, on the website xxx, posted fragments of electronic maps of the Nizhny Novgorod Region on the Internet, which indicate the location of the Nizhny Novgorod office and the Kstov branch of XXX limited liability company.

The result - the payment of 300,000 rubles. by settlement.

→ Two

The result - the payment of 300,000 rubles. by settlement.

Similarly, but the map was taken from a certain electronic atlas ("St. Petersburg. The Big Atlas of the City 2009) → three

The result - compensation of 200,000 rubles.

Here is a sample claim that was sent to the company.

A few more points:

• categorically do not use maps of unknown origin. You can run into the use of military maps and then the consequences will be very serious.

  
  
• if you draw a scheme on the basis of some other map / scheme, then the differences should be serious, otherwise the map / scheme will fall under the “reworking of the work”. Those. you cannot take a map as a substrate, circle the objects on the map in a vector editor and paint them a little differently. It will still be a violation, although more difficult to prove.

What are legal options?

• self-drawn scheme
• use OpenStreetMap (the question is not fully understood by me)
• I met the opinion that Yandex.Maps can be used by inserting their JS-code on the site, but this conflicts with their rules for using the service , namely clause 2.2

2.2. Any information used in the Service, including cartographic materials and data on the traffic situation (congestion status) (hereinafter referred to as “Data”), is intended solely for personal non-commercial use. , and as I wrote above, the site of a commercial company a priori implies commercial use

Perhaps representatives of Yandex will be able to give their comments. C Google the situation is similar.

Instead of conclusion

Ignorance of the laws does not exempt them from responsibility (c)
Who is warned - that is armed (with)