[R-sig-Geo] Rights to publish data based on Google satellite images in scientific journals?

[Hanna Meyer]

Dear all,

Please excuse that my question is not about R in the first place but I 
guess it's still a good place to ask this question.

I downloaded google satellite images via the dismo R package. With the 
RGB values of the images I did a land cover classification.

Now I wonder whether I can use the results for a publication in a 
scientific journal.
Though a number of publications using the data in a similar way exist, 
according to the terms of service of google maps it is not allowed to 
produce derived products.
However, if the project falls under the term of "fair use" it might be 
possible (http://www.google.com/permissions/geoguidelines.html).
On the google maps API terms of service they highlight that the created 
products (https://developers.google.com/maps/terms) must be freely 
available which would be the case.

Do you have any experiences about this issue?

Best regards
Hanna

-- 
Hanna Meyer
  
Department of Geography
Environmental Informatics
Philipps-Universität Marburg
Deutschhausstr. 12
35032 Marburg
Phone: +49 6421-2825954

http://www.environmentalinformatics-marburg.de/