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I never understand why these agencies hold such tight control over their maps and schedules. I remember there was another case where (I think San Francisco but

I never understand why these agencies hold such tight control over their maps and schedules. I remember there was another case where (I think San Francisco but I am not sure) they blocked an app because they asserted copyright over their schedule. Instead they should embrace and encourage anybody who helps getting them a bigger audience. In general government data should be public domain.

th0ma5 7y ago
Then they might be liable for mistakes. Also, if they don't protect their trademark, trademark law says they could lose it.
- cblades 7y ago
  I can't imagine a scenario in which the authority could be help liable for mistakes made by a third party in scheduled times for public transport.
- syshum 7y ago
  Sorry no, trademark law does not require companies tirelessly censor internet https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not-require-companies-tirelessly-censor-internet https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not...
- tssva 7y ago
  They aren't claiming trademark violations. Copyright and trademark are two very different things with very different laws governing them.
onion2k 7y ago
If the choice is between blocking a well-made, free app and not blocking it then it's clear that they'd benefit more from not blocking it. Everyone would win. But that's not the choice. It's really a choice between blocking a well-made, free app and hundreds of other apps that vary in quality, price, etc, or not blocking any of them, or trying to assess each app on an individual basis. Not blocking anything means their own app will be lost in a swarm of low-quality rip-offs. Assessing each app is hard, and opens the door to complaints (and maybe law suits) about why one app was allowed and another wasn't. It's far simpler, easier, and dare I say fairer to block everything.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  This line of thinking is what pushes me more and more against patents and copyright. A lot of creativity and innovation gets killed because somebody has a diffuse fear of something bad happening so let’s just kill everything.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  This line of thinking is pretty sad IMO, even if pragmatic at times. The best way to get rid of low-quality copycat apps isn't to ban all apps, it's to go after the reason those low-quality copycats exist in the first place. That is, advertising. There's no point in making a garbage app unless you can trick some people into installing it, and monetize them before they notice and delete the app. Advertising (in general, meaning both showing ads and harvesting data for the advertising industry) is what enables these apps. Curtail that, and there won't be a need to make any choice here.
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    The free market should separate good from bad apps like it does with everything else.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      The free market doesn't work well with fly-by-night operations, or with sticker price being 0 and money being made indirectly. Advertising as main revenue source destroys the mechanism of competition and its consumer-facing benefits.
    - onion2k 7y ago
      App stores don't work like a free market.
- abnry 7y ago
  You could argue this saves money in the long run. If a 3rd party resource is not clearly marked as third party, you can get angry people wasting customer service resources over a poorly made product.
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
Government agencies really don't like reversing course or admitting mistakes and will generally fight tooth and nail to avoid doing so unless ordered to by new management or a judge (don't get me wrong, private organizations do this too but they're much more apt to quietly make things right once it's clear they won't win in the court of public opinion). So just by luck of the draw whatever bureaucrat came across Berman's map first thought to themselves "hey they can't do that" instead of "oh look, the public is building useful things on our work" and all the mechanisms used to fight a political turf war kicked into motion and once that happened there was no turning back.
mannykannot 7y ago
MTA bus schedules, being works of fiction, may fall under copyright laws.
- romwell 7y ago
  thunderous applause Bravo!
- elfexec 7y ago
  I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. Well done. Kudos.
jerf 7y ago
Because if someone get a map that says train A leaves at time B, and it doesn't, it's MTA employees who will be on the receiving end of the angry customer, a good proportion of which won't care that it wasn't an official schedule (and some small fraction of that basically won't understand the difference between official and unofficial schedule). The fact the train didn't show up will also impact your reputation for timeliness, even if it was never your promise it would be there. Plus, you know, if we can stretch our imaginations for a moment and imagine that maybe the organization gives a fractional iota of a damn about the customer's lives even beyond the direct impact to them, it's not a good customer experience for bad info to be floating around either. (Maybe not, you know, the NYC MTA, but at least some organizations are still small enough to at least think about that sometimes.)
- nybble41 7y ago
  They're not suing over bad data (unless it came from them to begin with). As this is a copyright case, they're suing over the parts that match their own official publications. It's also not necessarily true that third-party data is worse than the official sources; in some cases it can even be superior.
  - jerf 7y ago
    The post I was replying to asked why the agencies exert control at all, a broader context than this particular copyright issue. I was explaining why they might find that in their interests. "It's also not necessarily true that third-party data is worse than the official sources; in some cases it can even be superior." Well, an organization is hardly going to use that as part of its decision making. Organizations are essentially incapable of admitting that their job is being better done by someone else. So in terms of answering the question as it was asked it's not terribly relevant. If you want to know why an organization might want to control its schedules, you need to empathize with it and put yourself it its/their shoes, not come at it as if you're still an outsider. Having extreme distaste for the organization merely means you're going to empathize and put yourself in the shoes of an organization you don't like; it doesn't change the basic procedure for understanding it.

th0ma5 7y ago

Then they might be liable for mistakes. Also, if they don't protect their trademark, trademark law says they could lose it.

cblades 7y ago
I can't imagine a scenario in which the authority could be help liable for mistakes made by a third party in scheduled times for public transport.
syshum 7y ago
Sorry no, trademark law does not require companies tirelessly censor internet https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not-require-companies-tirelessly-censor-internet https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not...
tssva 7y ago
They aren't claiming trademark violations. Copyright and trademark are two very different things with very different laws governing them.

onion2k 7y ago

If the choice is between blocking a well-made, free app and not blocking it then it's clear that they'd benefit more from not blocking it. Everyone would win. But that's not the choice. It's really a choice between blocking a well-made, free app and hundreds of other apps that vary in quality, price, etc, or not blocking any of them, or trying to assess each app on an individual basis. Not blocking anything means their own app will be lost in a swarm of low-quality rip-offs. Assessing each app is hard, and opens the door to complaints (and maybe law suits) about why one app was allowed and another wasn't. It's far simpler, easier, and dare I say fairer to block everything.

Ididntdothis 7y ago
This line of thinking is what pushes me more and more against patents and copyright. A lot of creativity and innovation gets killed because somebody has a diffuse fear of something bad happening so let’s just kill everything.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
This line of thinking is pretty sad IMO, even if pragmatic at times. The best way to get rid of low-quality copycat apps isn't to ban all apps, it's to go after the reason those low-quality copycats exist in the first place. That is, advertising. There's no point in making a garbage app unless you can trick some people into installing it, and monetize them before they notice and delete the app. Advertising (in general, meaning both showing ads and harvesting data for the advertising industry) is what enables these apps. Curtail that, and there won't be a need to make any choice here.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  The free market should separate good from bad apps like it does with everything else.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    The free market doesn't work well with fly-by-night operations, or with sticker price being 0 and money being made indirectly. Advertising as main revenue source destroys the mechanism of competition and its consumer-facing benefits.
  - onion2k 7y ago
    App stores don't work like a free market.
abnry 7y ago
You could argue this saves money in the long run. If a 3rd party resource is not clearly marked as third party, you can get angry people wasting customer service resources over a poorly made product.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

Government agencies really don't like reversing course or admitting mistakes and will generally fight tooth and nail to avoid doing so unless ordered to by new management or a judge (don't get me wrong, private organizations do this too but they're much more apt to quietly make things right once it's clear they won't win in the court of public opinion). So just by luck of the draw whatever bureaucrat came across Berman's map first thought to themselves "hey they can't do that" instead of "oh look, the public is building useful things on our work" and all the mechanisms used to fight a political turf war kicked into motion and once that happened there was no turning back.

mannykannot 7y ago

MTA bus schedules, being works of fiction, may fall under copyright laws.

romwell 7y ago
thunderous applause Bravo!
elfexec 7y ago
I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. Well done. Kudos.

jerf 7y ago

Because if someone get a map that says train A leaves at time B, and it doesn't, it's MTA employees who will be on the receiving end of the angry customer, a good proportion of which won't care that it wasn't an official schedule (and some small fraction of that basically won't understand the difference between official and unofficial schedule). The fact the train didn't show up will also impact your reputation for timeliness, even if it was never your promise it would be there. Plus, you know, if we can stretch our imaginations for a moment and imagine that maybe the organization gives a fractional iota of a damn about the customer's lives even beyond the direct impact to them, it's not a good customer experience for bad info to be floating around either. (Maybe not, you know, the NYC MTA, but at least some organizations are still small enough to at least think about that sometimes.)

nybble41 7y ago
They're not suing over bad data (unless it came from them to begin with). As this is a copyright case, they're suing over the parts that match their own official publications. It's also not necessarily true that third-party data is worse than the official sources; in some cases it can even be superior.
- jerf 7y ago
  The post I was replying to asked why the agencies exert control at all, a broader context than this particular copyright issue. I was explaining why they might find that in their interests. "It's also not necessarily true that third-party data is worse than the official sources; in some cases it can even be superior." Well, an organization is hardly going to use that as part of its decision making. Organizations are essentially incapable of admitting that their job is being better done by someone else. So in terms of answering the question as it was asked it's not terribly relevant. If you want to know why an organization might want to control its schedules, you need to empathize with it and put yourself it its/their shoes, not come at it as if you're still an outsider. Having extreme distaste for the organization merely means you're going to empathize and put yourself in the shoes of an organization you don't like; it doesn't change the basic procedure for understanding it.