OLD MAPS WEBSITE - Insecure

I subscribe to Old-Maps and I am getting the same problems with speed and loading. I mainly use the NLS website, especially as 1969 maps are now avaialble. However Old-Maps is the only one to cover the gap of the seventies and early eighties when all airfields started to appear on maps in detail and not just white spaces.Also they started to show smaller items like quadrant shelters. I am reluctant to stop using it as it is a very useful resource and without a subscription the search is somewhat limited to larger towns and cities.

Checking today I do get the privacy error screen in Chrome but didn't at the weekend when I last logged in. I assume it is only due to it being HTTP and not the now required HTTPS. Since a lot of government sites are still HTTP this is going to cause a lot of problems with browsers automatically preventing access.

I get similar problems with websites using Flash, mainly mapping and aerial photo sites. It seems the big multinationals can afford to rewrite all the web based stuff but the smaller ones cannot justify the cost.

With Flash I tend to ignore the dire warnings but it seems I will now have to do the same with HTTP websites, of which there are many.

I thought the maps on NLS are now third-party copyright and cannot be used for commercial use only creative commons license. Therefore no good for publishing etc.

I got an email from them yesterday (18 JUN 2020) saying it will be back to normal shortly.

This copyright thing is most confusing, even after I have had it explained to me a dozen times, it still doesn't make sense. As far as I was aware all OS maps up to and including those published in 1969 (as of 2020) are free of copyright. I assume that if I have a map that is out of copyright I can use it in any publication. I don't see how NLS can then claim copyright as the maps have been in the public domain for 50 years. I suspect what they imply is that using the ones directly from their website in publications is not allowed without a licence or permission, which I suppose is fair enough providing it isn't too costly.

This is why I have been buying original maps, charts and documents so I don't have to worry about upsetting anyone, although these days the prices seem to have rocketed on eBay and many commercial sites. My small collection must be worth a fortune!

Isn't there copyright gained from the act of scanning things otherwise you could put a lot of time and effort into scanning out of copyright items and find someone then selling copies of your scans?

I thought the NLS were normally very cooperative with users, more so than many other large organisations.

As a subscriber I am more that a little bit miffed that I cannot get any maps to load properly, even the background map doesn't load. This has been going on for some months now and I still want to make regular use of the site, if I can't then I will have to stop payments. Paying over £100 pa for the privilege of not getting any maps is not on!

I think Martin is correct (post eight) there is copyright attached to scanning. Take RAFM plans as an example. Due to the Facebook fiasco a while back, when a certain individual was offering RAFM digitally scanned airfield plans for free via an email (when RAFM make a nominal charge). I reported this to the head of DORIS and now they have watermarked their plans as a result. The same plans are available at TNA (until it closed) but these are also Copyright TNA. Likewise we have a vast number of County series OS maps and when we get around to copying them they will be copyright ARG, despite the fact many of these will be available online by others including NLS. The whole thing is a farce.