OS: More Access, Simpler Structure

Ordnance Survey (UK) last week revealed the second phase of its new pricing and licensing model to current Licensed Partners, aiming to enable greater access to its products and geographic datasets under a simplified structure. The second phase saw the launch of two new contracts, available for use from 1st April 2011, to build on the practice of making fewer, broader licences covering commercial activities: the 'Printed Products' contract and the 'View, Tracking and Scheduling' contract.

Speaking at the launch, Stefan Wells, Licensed Partner account manager for Ordnance Survey, explained: "The new Printed Products contract has been created from three existing contracts. The new terms ensure our Partners can produce paper or electronic mapping from a range of our data products. There are no minimum or maximum print runs and no size restrictions on the printed products. We hope this will make it easier for our Partners to work with our products."

The details of the new Viewing, Tracking and Scheduling contract were launched by Mark Salter, head of Sales for Licensed Partners at Ordnance Survey. Speaking at the event in the national mapping agency's new business centre, Mark said, "We created this contract by amalgamating the terms of seven existing contracts. It covers the Partners' hosted service or a software package where the primary purpose is tracking or scheduling."

The two new contracts are in addition to the Consumer Applications and Websites contract, the Distribution contract and the Navigation contract which were, together with the Framework, made available for use from 18th November 2010. The five new contracts have been substantially revised to be shorter and written in clearer English.

As well as creating fewer, broader licences covering commercial activities, among the changes presented last year was the introduction of terms to allow partner businesses to licence and resell almost all Ordnance Survey products, including its flagship dataset, OS MasterMap Topography Layer. Together with greater flexibility in onward licensing, this gives customers greater choice of where they source their Ordnance Survey data.

The new pricing and licensing model also provides 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.

The event supports and builds upon the work that has been happening since Ordnance Survey launched its Business Strategy in April 2009. Following the launch there has been a number of developments that have influenced and shaped pricing and licensing; most notably the launch of the free mapping service OS OpenData, on 1st April 2010, and the signing of the Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA) for England and Wales which also launches on 1st April 2011.