It all seems to come down to the interpretation of the TOU which are rather obscure and refer to a number of disjointed documents.
In the "Permission Guidelines for Google Maps and Google Earth" (http://www.google.com/permissions/geoguidelines.html) they first define "Fair Use" and then state: "Please do not request that we interpret whether your use of Content is a fair use. Google cannot tell you if your use of Content from our products would be a fair use or would be considered fair dealing; these are legal analyses that depend on all of the specific facts of your proposed use. We suggest you speak with an attorney if you have questions regarding fair use of copyrighted works." further along in this document they then give the following restrictions: "Specific Use Cases ------------------------------------- All uses of Google Maps and Google Earth and Content MUST provide attribution to Google and our suppliers. In no circumstance do we approve of any use of Content without proper attribution. Requests for exceptions will not be answered. ... Web/Software ------------------------------------ ... Offline Use: You may not scrape or otherwise export Content from Google Maps or Earth or save it for offline use. ... Print ------------------------------------ ... General guidelines for print use: Google Earth and Maps are geography exploration tools, and are not to be used to extract Content for derivative uses that do not relate to the products. ... as a rule you may not use this Content in print unless you are specifically making use of a distinctive aspect of our products. As always, you must follow the attribution guidelines as described above. Distinctive aspects include, but are not limited to: ... Satellite with labels (sometimes known as "hybrid") maps (example). (A standard satellite view (example) is not distinctive.) " I have never altered the attribution and where I include images in reports only use the hybrid image with an encoded polyline so image is as it comes from Google. The question now is: Are you only allowed to print paper copies? Is printing to PDF considered saving for offline use? Does my usage fall under "Fair Use"? Until I can get some clarity on this I have, for now, removed the Google images from the PDF reports and they are only available on the HTML reports. It does not seem like Google will be making a ruling on this, but at the same time it is unlikely that they would increase the quota unless one is paying for the Premier service. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Maps API" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-maps-api?hl=en.
