Maptown buys rights to sell them. Think if these maps as the phone book. I can share the data/image of the phone book pages all I want. I can't sell it though.
Let's say I have a large stamp collection, and I take pictures of it. Let's assume you'd like to see the pictures to study or just observe them. I'm free to show you them, and you can download the images but that doesn't mean you can use them as stamps or sell them as stamps.
Think of Maptown as the corner store that sells stamps for the post office. Or as Staples that will print you off a copy of the picture for a fee.
Some counties put their maps online, for free. They charge you for a hard copy because the paper and printing costs them, that's all.
If the counties really wanted to they could copyright these maps and go after every penny they could for them. Yet we're talking about a form of government here. We all pay quite enough in property taxes not to worry if the counties aren't profiting of landowner maps. Which by the way is just an overlay of our information on a map. Maybe I should get a cut of the profits since I've contributed.
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