New pricing and licensing model revealed today
Today we’re running a special event for Licensed Partners where we’re unveiling our new pricing and licensing model, which aims to enable greater access to our data under a simplified structure.
Among the biggest changes is the introduction of terms to allow partner businesses to licence and resell almost all of our products, including our flagship dataset, OS MasterMap Topography Layer.
Here’s what we’ve said in our news release:
“There will also now be fewer, broader licences covering commercial activities. The three partner contracts unveiled today have been created as a result of amalgamating terms from 12 existing contracts – which have all been substantially revised to be shorter and written in clearer English. For example, the new Framework Licence for partners has been reduced from 37 to 16 pages.
“The new licences will also include improved terms covering warranties and liabilities.”
And there is news around the use of derived data:
“Perhaps the most discussed issue surrounding the use of Ordnance Survey data in recent years has been the use of so-called ‘derived data’ – where customers create features or attributes with direct reference to the underlying Ordnance Survey data.
“However, the mapping agency hopes greater clarity around the use of ‘derived data’ and the inclusion of new ‘Free to Use Data’ terms will alleviate many of those issues, allowing for greater sharing of information that has been inferred from existing features.”
A huge amount of work has gone into the new structure with the aim of removing many of the known issues that our partners and customers have raised over the years. We want to be easy to do business with, and this new structure, when combined with OS OpenData and the recently signed PSMA, means high quality GI has never been more accessible in this country. This in turn presents great opportunities for growth and innovation.
The new licences unveiled today will be available from 18 November ahead of a second phase release planned for early next year.
There is a whole host of additional information now on the licensing pages on our website, so why not have a read and let us know what you think.
Themocracy
Gemma
Well done to all at OS, it seems like a lot of work has gone in to creating these new licences, they also appear to be alot clearer.
I’m sure this will be a regular question but if I capture information, say a new housing development, where presently OS has either nothing or the old property outlines, I would be ok under the new terms and conditions, to publish the new property outlines on Google or another web mapping application without restriction from yourselves. As I have only used OS for context, the information I have created is infered and therefore free to use.
Following the link in your post leads to a page which says “New Pricing and Licensing Model to be Launched Soon”, followed by a list of umpteen different kinds of licence. Presumably these are the old licenses. It’s a rather complex and opaque business trying to find out about these new simple and transparent licenses.
Thanks for your comments so far. @ Steven, the Pricing and Licensing team were all out on Friday at the Partner launch event, but I’ll ask your question today and get back to you as soon as I can.
@ Keith, if you click on the ‘New Pricing and Licensing model to be launched soon’ link, it takes you through to tell you all about the new model. I’m sorry that wasn’t clear though and I’ll pass that feedback onto the team who worked on the new pages.
Thanks for that, Gemma. I did skim read that page before I posted above. I didn’t read it closely because it didn’t seem to be what I was looking for. Having now read it in detail, it seems, if I’m not mistaken, that the new contracts are not actually released until 19th November.
In an effort to find what I was looking for, and to get a handle on what has been “revealed today”, I ended up taking this route: follow your link to the licensing page. From there follow the link to New Pricing and Licensing Model to be Launched Soon. Right at the bottom the target of that link, follow the link to Partner Licensing Model. From there follow the link to Overview of the New Contacts. Right at the bottom of that page click the Contract/Product Matrix link, which opens a PDF, and seems to be closest thing I’ve found to the information I am looking for, though it’s still not great.
I appreciate that you have a broad client base to cater for, and I’m completely new to this site, but three things would be helpful: one, make it clear that the contracts are not available until November 19th; two, give the matrix tucked away in that PDF more prominence; three, find room somewhere to address the subject of filthy lucre.
In my travels, I learned that “The FCP is the overarching licence which sets out the contract terms and conditions through which we do business.” However, when I try to follow the link to that fundamental document, I find that it is password protected.
And nowhere in any of my wanderings did I see any mention of prices: what they are, what they will be, or how they might be obtained.
Thanks for your comments @keith, I’ll pass your thoughts on the web pages onto our web team. You also mention that you cannot read the FCP document, see any of the contracts or find any specific pricing detail – this is because we’re still in the process of notifiying our current Licensed Partners and direct customers of the changes which will come into place from 18 November. Our Licensed Partners already have a username and password that allows them to access this information over the next month or so before the changes come into place. Current partners and customers and new customers will also be able to use the new contracts from 18 October if they wish to, although they won’t come into effect until 18 November. We’ll be able to give more detail for future customers and partners after this time. If you are interested in becoming a partner or customer and have any questions, but haven’t made contact with us before, please do contact our Customer Service Centre.
Hi Gemma,
I was wondering, where would a charity fit into the new license model? The previous licenses were very much aimed at commercial/traditional business use and didn’t really fit the needs of charities, often significantly restricting the amount of data they could afford or the way they could use them.
I’ve had a look through the pages/documents and it seems like the standard direct license is the only real option available. The eligibility criteria for this type of license is quoted as ‘any standard commercial customer’, so does this mean charities will be treated and charged just like any other commercial organisation?
With the move towards a ‘Big Society’ and the substantial spending cuts on the horizon, the hope is that charities will take over many of the services traditionally performed by government. Will the new licenses – and pricing – recognise that charities core business use is not to generate income or profit, but to deliver benefits to us all?
Many thanks
Ann
Thanks Gemma. The frustration arose from reading this press release/blog post, headlined: New Pricing and Licensing Model Released Today, and then spending a lot of time looking around the site for details of the new pricing and licenses, eventually to find that the prices are not released until 18th October, and the contracts are not available until 18th November. I’m pleased to see the date is now in the post.
I don’t really understand why the fact that you’re currently notifying existing customers of the changes precludes you from giving the same information to new customers. Anyway, I’ll check again in a couple of weeks. I understand that you are in a period of transition.
I’ve e-mailed you for pricing of Openspace Pro. I couldn’t find any mention of the cost anywhere on the site.
Hi @ Steven, I’ve got an answer for you from our Pricing and Licensing team:
“Thank you for your question. Yes, you have correctly understood the intention of the new licences and the rights they will grant under free to use data. If you capture information yourself or from an independent source and simply use Ordnance Survey data you have licensed to infer the position of the new data, in your example a new housing development, then providing the data you create does not represent existing features in Ordnance Survey data, then it is considered free to use data. So yes, providing what you produce does not contain the original Ordnance Survey boundaries from which you have inferred the new housing development location, then you can publish that on Google.
Anticipating what may be a follow-up question, if Ordnance Survey subsequently captured that new housing development, then we would not require you to re-licence or delete the free to use data you collected. The rights for the free to use data are granted at the time the data is created and providing written records are maintained that show the date the data was created, Ordnance Survey would not be able to revoke those free to use rights.
I hope this is clear, but we’re happy to comment further or to provide more detailed feedback on a specific enquiry through our Customer Service Centre.”
Hi @ Ann, thanks for your comments. To a certain extent you are correct in that if charities wish to purchase our data then the most suitable licence is the current framework direct licence (soon to be replaced by a new version called the Framework Contract). However, if your charity is undertaking work or performing services that are considered part of a public sector organisation’s core business, then you would be able to access our data free of charge if the public sector organisation is a member of the Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA). If you do take on services in the future that were previously carried out by a public sector organisation, then you should discuss with the relevant department and confirm if you are eligible to receive data under the PSMA. If you would like to know more about either our direct licence or the PSMA, then please contact our Customer Service Centre.
Hi Gemma,
Thanks for the info. With this option, would a charity be able to access the data for its general use (excluding activities generating income) or would it only be able to access specific bits of data for specific projects that the public body authorised on a case by case basis? Also would the charity ‘own’ any derived data created using the data or would this belong to the public body?
One final question (sorry for so many!), in the explanation of ‘free to use’ data it says the data is free to use as long as it ‘does not copy a Feature in whole, and does not copy Feature Attribution in whole or in part’. In the outdoor activity map example, the camp outline traces sections of a number of different field boundaries from the OS map and is classed as derived and not ‘free to use’. Given that the boundary hasn’t traced a feature in whole, but a number in part, wouldn’t this make it ‘free to use’ by this definition? If not, would a boundary that traced sections of objects on the map but that was also drawn independently of such features be ‘free to use’?
Hi again,
I was just wondering if there were any answers to my last set of questions?
Hi Ann, So sorry we missed your question. I’ve asked one of our licensing experts to look at your question and I’ll post a response as soon as I have one. Sorry again!
Hi Ann, It’s difficult to answer your fist question without knowing the specifics, which is probably best done off line by emailing our Customer Contact team – customerservices@ordnancesurvey.co.uk. I hope that’s ok – I’m certain they can help you.
In regard to your other question, I’ve spoken with Robin in our licensing team. This is what he told me:
“I’ve had similar questions to this previously and the confusion relates to the definition of a feature. A common misconception is that the field is the feature. However, quoting from the information on our website,
‘Feature’ means any feature represented in a topographic dataset, including any ‘line’, ‘polygon’, ‘symbol’ or ‘text’.
So any one side of a field constitutes a feature in its own right – a ‘line’. The Adventure Camp example traces the whole of one side of a field in a number of cases – that is, it copies several ‘lines’. Therefore the whole of several features have been copied and the data is therefore not ‘free to use’.
If the boundary had only traced part of the side of one or more fields, then it would not be copying the whole feature and would be ‘free to use’.”
I hope that makes sense, Ann, but if not do come back to me.