Google licenses the imagery for the commercial providers so don’t usually own the copyright. I can’t make any promises about making the imagery available to anybody outside of Map Maker users therefore sorry.

@Frank,

You are able to draw any feature you like on the maps using the api tools, however you must not trace (copy) any feature such as a road for example, or the shape of a lake with the intention of exporting the data to a different application. These are licensing restrictions imposed by Googles commercial data providers.

David Earl, above, and a few others cannot see why people would donate their time to adding to Google Maps. He cannot see the thousands of websites that use Google Maps, and cannot hear the moans of those users when they see that the maps do not have their homes on them.

These users want the big glass of beer.
They will work that hour for that “free” beer. Openstreetmap, for their hour, doesn’t even give them half a shandy – just instructions for a home brew, and the promise of great tasting things to come. (One side effect of making more people mapping alcoholics should be more appreciation of the finer tasting open geodata brews).

Ed is correct, (at this time) most users and developers couldn’t care less where their maps come from. Some may say this view is mistaken – time will see.