Reports that two Aboriginal-owned businesses and the AFL have received cease and desist warnings over their use of the Aboriginal flag on clothing have left many Australians surprised and confused.

This article considers how copyright law applied in the analogue era to regulate the production and dissemination of geographic information, the effects of new technologies and digitisation on how law applies to geospatial data and associated products and systems, and whether either a database right or some other form of protection is required.

This article examines some of the earliest copyright cases to deal with works of geographical information, relating them to today’s discussions surrounding the treatment of factual works.