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NYC & SF iPod Subway Map Controversy

Posted by Zonk on from the free-as-in-beer dept.

scruffy323 writes "NYC and San Francisco are claiming copyright violations for freely distributed subway maps." From the Wired piece: "More than 9,000 people downloaded the map, which was viewable on either an iPod or an iPod nano, before Bright received a Sept. 14 letter from Lester Freundlich, a senior associate counsel at New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority, saying that Bright had infringed the MTA's copyright and that he needed a license to post the map and to authorize others to download it."

7 of 361 comments (clear)

  1. Someone, someday will RTFA by The+Slashdotted · · Score: 4, Informative

    Bright also used a map that became outdated when the BART system extended one of its lines and shortened another, said Jim Allison, a spokesman for BART. "We don't have a problem with people disseminating information about BART," Allison said. "We do have a problem with people pirating information that is incorrect," he said. The spokesman added that BART is preparing to unveil its own free, downloadable iPod map on its website. So they don't want wrong info, and they will provide their own info for FREE soon. They need to protect their trademark for it to be valid. Why is this a problem? It does not "search for a station". It is a resized JPG. NeXT thing you know Apple will go after him for a "Ipod map"

  2. Re:I grew up in NYC by gowen · · Score: 3, Informative
    A downloadable map makes a world of sense
    Doesn't it just. That's probably why THE MTA ALREADY PROVIDES ONE. I found this one by typing "NY Subway Map" into google and hitting "I feel lucky".
    --
    Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
  3. Might not be copyrightable information by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 3, Informative
    I wonder if the MTA can own a copyright? Federal government can not. I think MTA is a regional government organization...

    While the rendering of the map might be copyrightable, the information about the routes is not. He should have someone else render a map.

    Bruce

    --
    Bruce Perens.
  4. Re:Technically, they're right by jafiwam · · Score: 3, Informative

    Copyright Violation = copying or distributing without permission

    Trademark Violation = using _symbolism_ or _words_ too similar to a protected logo or symbol

    There's no trademark violation here. Its a copyright violation.

  5. Re:Technically, they're wrong by 1u3hr · · Score: 3, Informative
    You can not copyright factual information. See eg Feist v Rural Telephone where the US Supreme Court ruled that lists of numbers in a phone book was not copyrightable.

    The map in question is highly stylised, and not to scale. That makes it copyrightable.

  6. Re:i think he is rendering his own? i read AN arti by rhizome · · Score: 3, Informative

    we all know that if you let copyrights slide on one area, the other can be harder to enforce.

    For the millionth time, this is only true of trademarks.

    --
    When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
  7. Re:Feh by LMariachi · · Score: 3, Informative
    They're not "grossly distorted," they're distorted for clarity. If they weren't, they'd have to either be about six times bigger to cover the distant lands of Queens and Staten Island (which shouldn't be on the subway map to begin with since it has its own system, disconnected from the rest) or all the stations in midtown Manhattan would have to be smooshed together in overlapping 3-point type. The NYC subway map is famously considered to be a usable balance between legibility and actual geography, unlike for instance the London tube map, which blows off geography altogether.

    What they should do is dump the ill-advised redesign of a few years ago (the one that introduced the pointless yellow background, the clutter of useless bus stop connection lists, and Staten Island.)