It was very interesting to read that Ramesh Shrestha (Maps in a difficult terrain, #39) from the Himalaya Map House blames the lack of copyright ethics in Nepal, because his company has been copying our maps. Karto-Atelier is the company that did the first high quality maps of Pokhara and Kathmandu. At that time there was no good map base and no information about infrastructure available. We did all the research ourselves?hundreds of hotels, restaurants, shops, ministries, temples and infrastructure. The Pokhara City Map of the Himalaya Map House is absolutely identical to our map. In Europe, the sale of such products would be forbidden by law. The new Kathmandu Map of Shangri La Maps is proof of this thesis. Bidur Dangol is using our map content, but he is afraid of adding more information to make a better map because others could copy him! Without copyright there is no progress possible. Cartography is a serious profession, just making a copy of the Schneider Annapurna map is no cartography.

Arne Rohweder
Karto-Atelier, Switzerland