God's Eye View's MIT licence: can you share screenshots and videos?

God's Eye View is open source under the MIT licence. That licence lets anyone use, copy and change the code. But it covers only the code, not the pictures on your screen. The satellite photos, the 3D cities, the planes and the sea cables each come from a different company or group. Each has its own rules.

So the real question is not "is it open source?" It is "may I post this screenshot, or use this recording in a video?" We read the rules of each data provider to find out. The honest answer: it depends on the provider and on what you want to do.

This is the third article in our series. The first explains what God's Eye View does and what you need to run it. The second covers the free Cesium ion route to 3D cities. A fourth looks at what is live, delayed and simulated in the app.

What does the MIT licence cover?

The project is clear about this, and that deserves praise. Its LICENSE file has the standard MIT text. Below it is a note in capital letters: "THE MIT LICENSE ABOVE COVERS THE SOURCE CODE ONLY." Data that comes with the app, and everything it fetches from providers while it runs, "are owned by their respective sources and are NOT licensed under MIT". In plain words: that data belongs to the providers, not to the project.

A second file, DATA_SOURCES.md, lists dozens of sources. It gives a licence and a credit for each one. We used it as a map of what to check, not as the final answer. It is the maker's own summary. In two places, it did not match what we found at the provider. We come back to both below.

The README, the project's main instruction page, also says something about the project's own demo clips. They show Google's 3D tiles "used promotionally with in-frame attribution; they aren't licensed for standalone reuse". So the clips are only for promotion, with credits in the picture, and may not be reused on their own. If the makers are that careful with their own clips, it is smart to be careful with yours.

Three different things: a screenshot, a video, reusing the data

Rules of use rarely just say "commercial use: yes or no". Instead, they describe situations. Three of them matter here.

• A screenshot in a blog post, a forum or on social media. That is a still picture of what the app showed.
• A video, such as a screen recording on YouTube, with or without ads. Some providers have separate rules for video. Some have separate rules again for videos that earn money.
• Reusing the data: building your own app, dashboard or product on the same data. That is a much bigger question, with stricter answers. It needs its own research, and we do not cover it here.

One more point. A free account does not mean you may reuse things freely. A provider can give you access for free and still limit what you publish. Cesium ion's free plan and OpenSky's access without an account both work that way.

What is on your screen?

Start the app without any API key, the code you get from a service to use its data. Then four providers fill the first screen. The satellite photos come from Esri. The shape of the land comes from Re:Earth. The planes come from the OpenSky Network, with adsb.lol as a backup. Roads and places come from OpenStreetMap.

Add a free Cesium ion token, and the picture changes to Google's lifelike 3D tiles, sent through Cesium. From then on, two more sets of rules apply: Cesium's and Google's.

In the bottom-left corner of the app, there is a small link called Data attribution. It opens the panel in our cover image. That panel is a good place to find out which providers you are looking at. Some layers can come from more than one source, like the planes. Then also check which source gave you the layer in your picture. The app itself writes "(non-commercial)" after OpenSky and "NonCommercial" after the sea cable data.

What does each provider say?

We read the rules below on 17 September 2026. "Not stated" means the page we read does not mention that use. It does not mean the use is forbidden. It also does not mean it is allowed.

OpenStreetMap has the clearest rules. Its attribution guidelines name still images and video. For video, they make a difference between two cases. Is a map only visible for a moment, for example on a laptop in the background? Then you must not remove the credit that is already there, and you need to do nothing more. Is the map "a major component of what is shown"? Then the credit "should typically appear in a corner of the map, in addition to attribution in the end credits or description". It does not have to stay in view while you move and zoom, as long as it was on screen long enough to read. A screen recording of this app falls in the second group.

Esri publishes rules for still maps, and it counts screenshots as still maps. It names reports, presentations, marketing material, a company website and academic papers as allowed, with credit. "For any other uses, you must first obtain permission from Esri." It gives "commercial monetization and direct resale" as examples: making money from it, and selling it on. The page is written for users of ArcGIS Online, Esri's own map service. It does not say whether it also covers the free photo service this app uses without a key. It does not mention video.

Google is where it gets hard. The rules page for its map tiles service has a part about video. It allows promotional videos, under conditions. No Street View pictures, "no more than 30 seconds in length", "about the capabilities of your application(s)", marked "for promotional purposes only", and with credit. A ten-minute YouTube video about your city is not a promotional video for your app. The page says nothing about it. We read that as "not covered", not as "forbidden".

Do not mix this up with Google's friendlier guidelines for Google Maps and Google Earth. Those say you do not need permission for a video that teaches or entertains with Google Earth content, "even if your work is monetized". But they are written for the apps that normal users use. They are not for map pieces that an app fetches through Google's paid connection for developers, the API. God's Eye View uses the API.

Cesium ion adds its own rules. Its content usage guide says: "You may also create and publish renderings of your projects, such as videos, that include assets provided by Cesium ion. Some third-party data providers limit the use of renderings that include their data." Then its terms for Google content list things you will not do. One of them: "include any Google Maps Content in any electronic or printed documents". For a screenshot in an article, we could not make those two sentences fit together. Our own second article has such screenshots. On 17 September 2026, we asked Cesium if these screenshots are allowed, and if any images or credits need to change.

OpenSky supplies the planes you see when you start the app. Its terms of use give a licence "solely for the purpose of non-profit research and non-profit education". Any company that aims to make a profit needs a written licence. For publications, the terms ask three things. Hide the plane ID codes, cite OpenSky's paper, and send them a link. The terms are written for people who use the data. They do not say how they apply to someone who posts a screenshot of someone else's app. We asked OpenSky about this. In the meantime, we replaced our own cover image of the first article. It showed plane call signs across a whole continent.

Where do credits go in screenshots and video?

Every provider we read asks for credit, but not in the same place. Follow each provider's rules for credit for the format you publish. A caption or video description can add to the credits on screen. But it does not always replace them. There is also a catch that is easy to miss.

In the app, the credits are folded away. The corner shows a logo, "Powered by Esri" or "Google Maps", and the Data attribution link. In the app, people can click that link to open the panel. Whether that is enough depends on the provider. But in a screenshot or a video, nobody can click anything.

Cesium's guide says this clearly. For "static content like images or videos", "just showing the static 'Data attribution' link text is insufficient". It suggests three fixes: show the credits all the time, put them in the image caption, or list them at the end of the video. That is Cesium's advice for content from Cesium ion. Google's rules for its 3D tiles ask for more. All credits for the tiles on screen must be shown "in a line", "usually along the bottom of the rendering". So for Google's tiles, a caption adds to the line on screen. It does not replace it.

What we do ourselves:

• Do not cut off the bottom-left corner. The logos there are part of what the providers require. The project's own notes say the line stays visible even in its clean recording mode, for this reason.
• Open the Data attribution panel before you take the picture. Write down the providers for your view, and name them in your caption too. The Google credits change per place. For Amsterdam the panel listed Google and Airbus. For Austin it listed Google, Landsat / Copernicus and several providers of ocean data.
• For OpenStreetMap in video, show "© OpenStreetMap contributors" in a corner of the map. Also add it, with the link openstreetmap.org/copyright, to the end credits or description.

We now name the providers under every screenshot in this series. That is our own habit. It is not a rule that meets every provider's requirements.

What we could not find out

The sea cables. The project lists TeleGeography's cable data under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0. That licence does not allow commercial use. The app's own panel says "NonCommercial" too. But TeleGeography's current FAQ says something else. It says a TeleGeography map, web address or screenshot may be used under CC BY-SA 4.0. That licence has no ban on commercial use. The FAQ talks about maps and screenshots. It does not mention the two data files that come with the project. We found no licence statement for those files. We could not find out which licence applies to them. That is the question we sent to TeleGeography.

The adsb.lol plane data. The project lists it under ODbL 1.0. The licence page of adsb.lol says that people who send in data give up their rights under CC0. Both can be true at once: one for each person's data, one for the whole collection. But we did not find a page that says so. We have not confirmed which rules apply to screenshots of this data. Giving credit alone does not solve that.

Camera images. Several camera providers ask for credit, for example Transport for London and Fintraffic in Finland. But a licence is only half the question there. Camera pictures can show people and number plates. Privacy law applies, whatever the data licence says. We did not research that, and we do not publish camera pictures.

A short checklist before you post

• Note what is in the picture, and keep the corner. Write down the providers from the Data attribution panel. Leave the logos and the credit line in the picture.
• Follow each provider's credit rules for your format. A caption or description can add to the credits on screen. It does not always replace them.
• Planes in view? OpenSky's rules are the strictest of the standard layers. If you are not sure your use is allowed, turn off the flights layer before you take the picture. Or ask OpenSky first.
• Google's 3D cities in view? This is the least clear case in the rules we read. Ask Cesium or Google before you rely on it.
• Do you want to make money with it? That can matter even before you show ads. Check the rules that apply to your organisation and your plans, including making money later.
• Building a product on the data? That is a different and stricter question than anything above. Read each provider's full rules, or ask a lawyer.

How we checked

We read the project's LICENSE, README and DATA_SOURCES.md at commit 531ef52, one saved version of the code. We checked the provider pages linked in this article on 17 September 2026. Where we write "not stated", we mean that the page we read did not mention that use. That does not mean it is allowed, or that it is forbidden. Rules can change.

We made the screenshots ourselves on 17 September 2026, without any API keys. We only changed their size. The one exception is the close-up of the credit line, which we cut from the screenshot above it. We took the provider names in the captions from the app's Data attribution panel.

Replies from providers, 17 September 2026. We emailed TeleGeography, Cesium and the OpenSky Network with the questions described above. OpenSky sent a short reply, but did not answer each question separately. We have not yet had a reply from TeleGeography or Cesium. When they explain things that matter here, we will update this article with a dated note. We will ask permission before we quote their replies.

Our review covers screenshots and video. It does not look at reusing the data in products that make money, or at privacy and camera pictures. This is a review by our editors of the sources we read, not legal advice.

Update, 19 October 2026: we added our own diagrams and a framed excerpt from the LICENSE file to sections that did not have an image yet. They show what this article already says. No facts changed.