To add a bit to flexie's comments, I'm not from Denmark but from Iceland, which used to be a Danish colony, so it shares some of the same legal framework. But what I'm about to point out is true in much of Europe.
Much of the culture clash you're seeing between comments from Europeans and Americans in this thread comes down to the difference in how the funding for public institutions is managed when it comes to copyrighted works.
In the US it's federal law that any work the government produces be placed in the public domain, no questions asked. So e.g. when the USGS produces a map it's fully funded by the government and placed in the public domain.
In Europe it's common for public (and pseudo-public, like the DIN) institutions to have a hybrid funding model, they're partially funded by taxpayers, but are expected to collect a nominal fee from the public or industry that expects to directly use some of their work.
Both models have their advantaged and disadvantages. One obvious one over in Europe is that if you partially depend on direct public funding you're more likely to actively serve the public, whereas in the US institutions would me more likely to gravitate towards serving the government itself, since it's only the government they depend on for funding.
Another aspect is that hypothetically it costs around the same thing to produce a map in Europe and America, but in Europe the general population will be taxed less for it, but people who directly use it (and buy it) will disproportionally pay for it.
Much of this is changing over in Europe, e.g. the National Land Survey of Iceland now gives out its map data under a free license, because indirect value to society of having freely available maps was judged greater than the sum of the nominal fee they previously charged for a license to use those maps.
This gets especially hairy in cases like these where some of this data being charged for is referenced directly or indirectly by law.
In the Reykjavík area in Iceland you can't do significant construction work without spending a relatively trivial sum to buy a ridiculously accurate map from the city (I think it's accurate down to 1-2 millimeters) showing where all the pipes and electrical cabling is installed. The surveying effort is mostly funded by private construction companies.
Would it be better if the average citizen just paid more in taxes and that map was made freely available, is some private citizen who isn't going to build a whole road but just do some significant yard work being overcharged because he has to legally comply with proprietary information?
I don't know, but the trade-offs involved aren't very clear in my mind.
Much of the culture clash you're seeing between comments from Europeans and Americans in this thread comes down to the difference in how the funding for public institutions is managed when it comes to copyrighted works.
In the US it's federal law that any work the government produces be placed in the public domain, no questions asked. So e.g. when the USGS produces a map it's fully funded by the government and placed in the public domain.
In Europe it's common for public (and pseudo-public, like the DIN) institutions to have a hybrid funding model, they're partially funded by taxpayers, but are expected to collect a nominal fee from the public or industry that expects to directly use some of their work.
Both models have their advantaged and disadvantages. One obvious one over in Europe is that if you partially depend on direct public funding you're more likely to actively serve the public, whereas in the US institutions would me more likely to gravitate towards serving the government itself, since it's only the government they depend on for funding.
Another aspect is that hypothetically it costs around the same thing to produce a map in Europe and America, but in Europe the general population will be taxed less for it, but people who directly use it (and buy it) will disproportionally pay for it.
Much of this is changing over in Europe, e.g. the National Land Survey of Iceland now gives out its map data under a free license, because indirect value to society of having freely available maps was judged greater than the sum of the nominal fee they previously charged for a license to use those maps.
This gets especially hairy in cases like these where some of this data being charged for is referenced directly or indirectly by law.
In the Reykjavík area in Iceland you can't do significant construction work without spending a relatively trivial sum to buy a ridiculously accurate map from the city (I think it's accurate down to 1-2 millimeters) showing where all the pipes and electrical cabling is installed. The surveying effort is mostly funded by private construction companies.
Would it be better if the average citizen just paid more in taxes and that map was made freely available, is some private citizen who isn't going to build a whole road but just do some significant yard work being overcharged because he has to legally comply with proprietary information?
I don't know, but the trade-offs involved aren't very clear in my mind.