> Two American commercial satellite imagery firms — DigitalGlobe and GeoEye — have joined forces with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in support of the global team of space and satellite agencies that constitute the International Charter "Space and Major Disasters".
> GeoEye satellite imaging technology is state-of-the-art. The geospatial data we capture provides clients with the highest resolution, most accurate satellite imagery in the world. ... We own and operate a constellation of Earth-imaging satellites and an international network of ground stations.
^ They even have pictures of the satellites (in case there is still any question that GeoEye is being misleading when they use the word "satellite" ;P).
Can you say more? I am more than happy to believe I'm analyzing the copyright wrong. Is the idea that that location is covered by a few different things, and the copyright is based on the location, not the data actually being shown? I had assumed that there was some complex relationship between the USGS and the localities involved in the photography.
Not really, I don't know a lot about it. My assumption is that Google shows attributions by lat/long and not zoom. I found one page about it, it doesn't say much:
I also assume that the USGS collects imagery from localities, but I think they are simply aggregating anything of sufficient quality that would be available under a FOIA request (or so, basically, cooperating with anyone that cooperates).
edit: USGS would be pulling in local data because it was more recent.
> Two American commercial satellite imagery firms — DigitalGlobe and GeoEye — have joined forces with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in support of the global team of space and satellite agencies that constitute the International Charter "Space and Major Disasters".
-- http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1647
> GeoEye satellite imaging technology is state-of-the-art. The geospatial data we capture provides clients with the highest resolution, most accurate satellite imagery in the world. ... We own and operate a constellation of Earth-imaging satellites and an international network of ground stations.
-- http://www.geoeye.com/CorpSite/products/earth-imagery/geoeye...
^ They even have pictures of the satellites (in case there is still any question that GeoEye is being misleading when they use the word "satellite" ;P).