Copying and sharing other user's maps

Question

I kind of realize that once you make a map public others have the ability to save that map to their own account.  However if they then make that map public too, it can get rather confusing to the casual user that just wants to view the map from an "official" source.  Is there a way to prevent this?

In my case, I am a publisher with an agency that has an AGOL Organization account.  We published a map of reefs

http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=a2450313c87648c780e0edb8e7e3fa3a

but another user has copied it, saved it to their account and how has publicly shared it

https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=860fc06960ae43c1958f85fe545349e6

And now it's difficult to tell what's the "official" version.

Thanks!

MatthewKing · Answer

Jason,

Thanks for the reply.  I'll try the contacting the other user approach and see if that works.

You're correct in that the copied work doesn't not misrepresent the original, but they did include other non-reef points further south, they have the exact same description and they also used the exact same title.  Using the same title is an issue when someone is search for this map, whether online or through ESRI's ArcGIS mobile app and they see two of the exact same maps pop-up.

-Matt

JasonSchwartz · Answer

Mathew,

That's a great question. Short answer is "No, not yet."

Until such time that restricted use permissions are introduced (i.e. public "view" , "copy", but not "re-publish") are available, I suggest a couple of steps (in a manual process) for managing this issue:

(sorry in advance that this is going to sound like an effort in metadata / rights management)

1) Clearly and carefully spell out the Access and Use Constraints in the Map and each of the Layers. Specifically identify the authoritative origin as being a single AGS Online account and prohibit in writing the re-publication of the map for non-authorized uses.

(I assume your organization wants people to use your work, just not to republish it as their own.)

2) Communicate within/across your organization about the potential issues involved with copying and public publishing of non-authoritative maps. -- the objective is to get buy-in within the organization for a structured publication process.

3) Routinely search for and identify AGS Online maps that are re-published, non-authoritative sources of your organization's work products. Enter into polite communication with the authors of these alternate publications asking them to either a)keep those maps private or b)clearly revise the maps to not be a duplicate of your authoritative source.

(In the examples above, changing the background may not be enough to be a different map product, in my opinion.)

4) Finally, if you choose to do so (or maybe a public information person should do this) you could add a public comment in the other map stating "this work is based entirely on the authoritative work from ESRI and your agency"

then include a link to the original map URI.

And purely as my opinion, the second map makes no claim to being an official source, nor does it misrepresent PBCDERM, so placing links to the original source may help the AGS Online community establish increased transparency and trust.

Good Luck,
Jason S.; Las Vegas, NV