7 ms·

My Boston T map used in “The Last of Us” PS3 game

37 points by martingordon 13y ago

jaytaylor 13y ago
You made a map, then someone used the map. Isn't that nice? If someone using the work you published on the internet is a big problem then contact them, and if they won't remove it then file a lawsuit. This comes off as the rantings of a childish whiner.
- 100k 13y ago
  > If someone using the work you published on the internet is a big problem then contact them, and if they won't remove it then file a lawsuit. Sounds like exactly what he's doing: "I am attempting to open communications with them now to ask where they came across the image, how it ended up in their game (with very pointed questions about their approvals and legal process), and what kind of compensation I can expect for the theft of my work." Not exactly "childish" whining.
  - mc32 13y ago
    I wonder if he realizes (I imagine he does) how Vignelli-inspired his looks. I think the childish part is yelling to the world his complaint. Sure, lodge a complaint with the company, then, if they ignore you, go postal on the internet, in the meantime, give the infringer the benefit of civilization.
- bluetooth 13y ago
  > You made a map, then someone used the map. Isn't that nice? Yeah, if that map was free to use, then sure. But that's not the case. It's become all too common I see this type of argument used in cases where big name studios rip work of others without attribution. This is an extremely weak (not to mention somewhat offensive) argument which is analogous to telling a rape victim "you should be happy the rapist found you attractive."
  - bigiain 13y ago
    In the inimitable words of @mike_ftw http://vimeo.com/22053820 http://vimeo.com/22053820 (marginally NSFW)
- bigiain 13y ago
  How do you suppose that line of argument will pan out when someone uses it this way: "You made a game, then I downloaded it and used it! Isn't that nice?"? I think the guy is right to be furious - the game industry depends on copyright and actively litigates copyright infringement. To do that while also being actively involved in copyright infringement is the height of hypocrisy, and fully deserving of sneering public ranting. If you want to live by the "copying is theft" interpretation, you need to be prepared to be held to account for "stealing".
jforman 13y ago
Furious? He just got a pay day — I'm sure he can find a lawyer to take the case on contingency. Should be a pretty quick settlement.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - jforman 13y ago
    That's not correct — he can't claim statutory damages (those prescribed by written law) but copyright infringement is a tort that will bring damages through civil action even without registration.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
jeffgreco 13y ago
What likely happened: Developer needs an official MBTA map. They do an image search. That map is one of the first five results. They take it from there and use it. Seems like getting "fucking furious" is a bit overkill.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- shock-value 13y ago
  Yeah and that's completely negligent if you are an artist working on the game. This is like intellectual property 101, and people in the game design field, especially at that level, should know better. Absolutely inexcusable and obviously illegal as well.
  - alex_doom 13y ago
    As someone who's worked in production. Mostly likely someone was told to find an image for FPO purposes, and it escaped QA rounds OR the production dept said something and a manager told them to "fuck off no one is going to notice". That's an actual quote from an old manager.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- snogglethorpe 13y ago
  I agree. It's understandable that he's annoyed, and by all means he should pursue the matter and get due recompense, but still, his reaction seems a wee bit over the top. If he were to be polite and businesslike, and arrange a mutually agreeable deal, who knows, maybe he could find himself as the go-to guy for game companies that need a transit map.... I wouldn't be surprised if N.D.'s official policies are much stricter, and would normally call for any art to be freely-available/purchased/redrawn/etc, but in this case the artist found a map, had a tight deadline, and thought to himself "oh, all these maps look the same, who's gonna notice"... [The answer obviously is: "Transit map nerds are gonna notice, that's who...especially the one who drew the map..." :] I've read the Transit Maps blog for ages, and it's a great blog; over the top or not, the reaction's kinda in character... oO;
donutdan4114 13y ago
Yea, I think the author could have approached this issue with a little more grace. He should have tried to contact Naughty Dog and try to work something out before spiddling his rage into that post. Then, if Naughty Dog chooses to ignore the author's claims of copyright infringement, he could make a big stink over it. Personally, if I was the author, I'd be honored to be in a game of that magnitude at all. In other words, it should be a good selling point for the author from now on. "Oh yea, you know that best selling, perfect game, The Last of Us? Yea, they used some of my art in there... Oh yea, no big deal." Truthfully, if they had contacted the author before incorporating it into the game, and they found out it would cost money, they probably would have found another map, or make one of their own. A company that large has the man power to make a subway map. I won't argue that the author has a right to be upset, but don't just start some type of flame war against a company that people love right now.
- shock-value 13y ago
  > Personally, if I was the author, I'd be honored to be in a game of that magnitude at all. You'd be selling yourself short then. If you had any confidence in your work, you would not be flattered just because some project that happens to have been created by hundreds of people ripped you off.
  - donutdan4114 13y ago
    In this particular case, I don't think he would be "selling himself short". We are talking about a global, best selling, extremely popular, and well-received game. If his work was used in something demeaning like "Leisure Suit Larry", than he should probably be more pissed. But, like I said, "if I was the author." I am not the author, and I am only stating my opinion on how I would feel.
    - shock-value 13y ago
      I guess I just have no idea where your viewpoint is coming from. I can almost see being flattered if someone just took, say, a painting you painted, submitted it to a prestigious painting competition under their name, and won. I'd be extremely angry and would do everything in my power to assume credit (and any potential prize), but I would perhaps feel good about my work being recognized. But the videogame is hardly being praised for the inclusion of this map alone! It's such a tiny piece of of the game; many players would probably not even notice it. This does not in any way diminish its quality -- it's just not the focus of the game experience. Basically they just ripped him off in the name of "filling in the edges" of their art design. Which is totally unacceptable, especially for a respected development studio.
Ellipsis753 13y ago
I wish he'd just handled this in private. If they refuse to settle then sure, complain online. But this could have very well been on honest mistake that could have been quietly settled out of the public eye. Now this is going to end up being far more of a big thing that it really had to be. Also the use of the screenshot without permission may also be copyright infringement.
- connortomas 13y ago
  I'm not sure "honest mistake" is really acceptable. This is a multi-million-dollar Triple A game. I think it's reasonable to expect their legal team should have double- and triple-check the rights to all arts assets. Ye, there are a lot of assets used in a game of TLoU's magnitude, but the subway map is so prominent I can't understand how it would have been skipped over. If they had time to include the asset, they should have had time to secure rights. The screencap used to demonstrate the theft constitutes fair use, by the way. Cameron's using it to make a point to support his argument, which is totally legal.
  - alexqgb 13y ago
    If true, "honest mistake" is an acceptable answer. But it's not one you bring up with the person whose work you appropriated. It's one you bring up with your insurance company when they're following up on the errors and omissions claim (E&O) you filed in order to cover the losses incurred by your own negligence. Protip: When you're in this situation DO NOT blame an intern. Interns - by definition - are unskilled, unpaid, and uninvested. If your insurance company finds out that interns are the only thing standing between them and damages for an IP lawsuit, they'll strongly consider yanking your insurance altogether, at which point you've got a snowball's chance in hell of finding a distributer. That's because copyright law allows rights-holders to sue not just the author of the illegally derivative work, but the author's distributors. Since the distributors have no way to be absolutely certain that the authors they buy from have actually cleared every single underlying right, they insist that the authors carry insurance that will cover any losses suffered by the distributer in cases just like this. In any human enterprise, a certain number of errors will happen. That's normal. But if a production company develops a history of recklessness, it may find itself uninsurable, and that's the end of commercial viability. Handling Rights & Clearances is work that is both skilled and tedious, meaning it should pay well. Employers that "inadvertently" screw artists by cutting this particular corner deserved to get hit as hard as the law allows.
piratebroadcast 13y ago
I wouldnt have thought that that map was a single persons property- I thought it was a city made map. Way to be a drama queen about it.
- bigiain 13y ago
  Do you think Naughty Dog would be any more "in the right" if they'd used a "city made map" without authorisation? (And cynical follow-up question: Do you suspect as I do that the reason they _didn't_ use the official Boston map is because they knew damn well that the Boston Metro people have lawyers on retainer, where some random designer on the internet selling his own personally created version of the Bostem T Map - which are arguably better then the official versions - has probably no on-hand legal representation, and can probably do no more that whine on his blog when we "steal" from him?)
- alexqgb 13y ago
  "I thought it was a city made map." Probably because you didn't actually read the post.
benguild 13y ago
I think this is a load of baloney and a huge flaw in the "copyright" system. Those maps are everywhere in Boston … in tourists' photographs, floating around on the street, on peoples' phones. If that's not public domain, I don't know what it is. It seems like this guy is just upset that he feels entitled to additional compensation when in reality he's already had his work licensed by the MBTA for their system … which is available to the public. Is that not public domain?
- LoganCale 13y ago
  This is not the official MBTA map, this is an unsanctioned redesign he made of it to demonstrate his idea for how to improve the official map. It is his property alone.
  - chimeracoder 13y ago
    To the untrained eye, this probably looks indistinguishable from the actual map. I lived in Boston for many years, took the T on a regular basis, had that map committed to memory at one point, and I still didn't realize until I looked a second time that it wasn't the official map. They should certainly have double-checked this before copying it, but I can see why the confusion would arise.
  - benguild 13y ago
    Got it, well then it was probably unintentional. Furthermore, the actual damages in this are, I imagine, nil as long as they replace the texture in a patch.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
martingordon 13y ago
Mods: I submitted this post with a different title since I am not the author of the post. Please change the title to reflect this; I don't want to mislead anyone.
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  Side note. It is actually kind of lame when people post their own blog posts to HN, so I never assume the person posting the link is the person who wrote the article. In that regard the personal pronoun is not ambiguous. That said, I totally understand the desire by people writing blog posts wanting to get HN's take on it. But that is a different problem.
  - hdra 13y ago
    Why is that? I never posted my own writing to HN, but I actually thought a lot of people share their work on HN, and I don't think that is a bad thing.
  - nitrogen 13y ago
    Not being able to submit your own blog post presents a bootstrapping problem for new, potentially useful blogs. Also, HN's guidelines recommend submitting a blog post if you want to add your own commentary to an article (or at least they used to). As someone who occasionally posts a Show HN from my own blog, and whose current career was heavily influenced by one such post making the front page a couple of years ago, I hope you'll reconsider your opposition. :-)
    - ChuckMcM 13y ago
      I don't oppose it per se, it's just somewhat awkward. It is annoying when the only contribution some user on the site has is to submit their blog entries to it. For folks who are contributing members that annoyance doesn't apply. And to be perfectly clear this is just my own take on it, I also think it is awkward when someone at a meeting opens the conversation with my by pitching their company or project. Thinking about it a bit more deeply as I write this I think that is the crux of the issue. Amongst people I know, having them suggest something they have done, or are working on, sort of out of the blue feels like "catching up" whereas for people I don't know that feels more awkward. I don't have a lot of context to evaluate what they are pitching and for me, perhaps for others, it's uncomfortable.
tylerritchie 13y ago
I don't understand the commenters saying that it's cool that a large company flush with cash shouldn't be expected to pay for copyrighted works it uses to make a profit. I'm a biologist, not a lawyer, but it seems like our system is setup pretty well to protect the rights in this case. He should have consulted with a copyright attorney and started with a bill and cease and desist for $10,000 or whatever makes him happy. If they don't pay he can file a lawsuit. At this point someone would look at what the cost of the legal battle would be, and the cost of having to pull all of the existing copies of the game and re-issue it if they lose and offer to cut him a check.
- fuzzywalrus 13y ago
  Indeed, Naughty Dog copy protects its work, it should respect others. There's a lot of speculation be it: interns, lazy artists, bad production managers etc. What I'd like to know is if any other work is directly derivative in the game.
  - hackinthebochs 13y ago
    >What I'd like to know is if any other work is directly derivative in the game. You mean besides Ellen Page's face? (http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/06/24/video-game-stole-my-face-actress-ellen-page-says/ http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/06/24/video-game-stole-my-f...)
jpark 13y ago
Just curious. Did the author get the proper permissions to use the MBTA logo in his map? It would be ironic if the map itself violated MBTA IP.
- mortenjorck 13y ago
  I highly doubt he got MBTA approval for the use of their trademark. That said, it's not like he's selling posters of it, in which case his product could conceivably be mistaken for licensed MBTA merchandise.
  - alex_doom 13y ago
    Yeah he's selling copies of it; http://www.cambooth.net/for-sale#bostonrail http://www.cambooth.net/for-sale#bostonrail
    - mortenjorck 13y ago
      Interesting. Looks like he still thought it out, though: The T logo is missing in the wall prints.
      - alexqgb 13y ago
        Judging from the exchanges in his blog's comments, he's a guy who knows his copyright, and has been careful about using the MTA's logo only in situations where Fair Use allows it to appear, and not using in situations where it doesn't. I can see why he's so pissed, by the way. Having taken the time to understand the rules and operate within them, he's going to take an especially dim view of others who should have, and didn't.

37 points by martingordon 13y ago

You made a map, then someone used the map. Isn't that nice? If someone using the work you published on the internet is a big problem then contact them, and if they won't remove it then file a lawsuit. This comes off as the rantings of a childish whiner.

100k 13y ago
> If someone using the work you published on the internet is a big problem then contact them, and if they won't remove it then file a lawsuit. Sounds like exactly what he's doing: "I am attempting to open communications with them now to ask where they came across the image, how it ended up in their game (with very pointed questions about their approvals and legal process), and what kind of compensation I can expect for the theft of my work." Not exactly "childish" whining.
- mc32 13y ago
  I wonder if he realizes (I imagine he does) how Vignelli-inspired his looks. I think the childish part is yelling to the world his complaint. Sure, lodge a complaint with the company, then, if they ignore you, go postal on the internet, in the meantime, give the infringer the benefit of civilization.
bluetooth 13y ago
> You made a map, then someone used the map. Isn't that nice? Yeah, if that map was free to use, then sure. But that's not the case. It's become all too common I see this type of argument used in cases where big name studios rip work of others without attribution. This is an extremely weak (not to mention somewhat offensive) argument which is analogous to telling a rape victim "you should be happy the rapist found you attractive."
- bigiain 13y ago
  In the inimitable words of @mike_ftw http://vimeo.com/22053820 http://vimeo.com/22053820 (marginally NSFW)
bigiain 13y ago
How do you suppose that line of argument will pan out when someone uses it this way: "You made a game, then I downloaded it and used it! Isn't that nice?"? I think the guy is right to be furious - the game industry depends on copyright and actively litigates copyright infringement. To do that while also being actively involved in copyright infringement is the height of hypocrisy, and fully deserving of sneering public ranting. If you want to live by the "copying is theft" interpretation, you need to be prepared to be held to account for "stealing".

jforman 13y ago

Furious? He just got a pay day — I'm sure he can find a lawyer to take the case on contingency. Should be a pretty quick settlement.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- jforman 13y ago
  That's not correct — he can't claim statutory damages (those prescribed by written law) but copyright infringement is a tort that will bring damages through civil action even without registration.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]

jeffgreco 13y ago

What likely happened: Developer needs an official MBTA map. They do an image search. That map is one of the first five results. They take it from there and use it. Seems like getting "fucking furious" is a bit overkill.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
shock-value 13y ago
Yeah and that's completely negligent if you are an artist working on the game. This is like intellectual property 101, and people in the game design field, especially at that level, should know better. Absolutely inexcusable and obviously illegal as well.
- alex_doom 13y ago
  As someone who's worked in production. Mostly likely someone was told to find an image for FPO purposes, and it escaped QA rounds OR the production dept said something and a manager told them to "fuck off no one is going to notice". That's an actual quote from an old manager.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
snogglethorpe 13y ago
I agree. It's understandable that he's annoyed, and by all means he should pursue the matter and get due recompense, but still, his reaction seems a wee bit over the top. If he were to be polite and businesslike, and arrange a mutually agreeable deal, who knows, maybe he could find himself as the go-to guy for game companies that need a transit map.... I wouldn't be surprised if N.D.'s official policies are much stricter, and would normally call for any art to be freely-available/purchased/redrawn/etc, but in this case the artist found a map, had a tight deadline, and thought to himself "oh, all these maps look the same, who's gonna notice"... [The answer obviously is: "Transit map nerds are gonna notice, that's who...especially the one who drew the map..." :] I've read the Transit Maps blog for ages, and it's a great blog; over the top or not, the reaction's kinda in character... oO;

donutdan4114 13y ago

Yea, I think the author could have approached this issue with a little more grace. He should have tried to contact Naughty Dog and try to work something out before spiddling his rage into that post. Then, if Naughty Dog chooses to ignore the author's claims of copyright infringement, he could make a big stink over it. Personally, if I was the author, I'd be honored to be in a game of that magnitude at all. In other words, it should be a good selling point for the author from now on. "Oh yea, you know that best selling, perfect game, The Last of Us? Yea, they used some of my art in there... Oh yea, no big deal." Truthfully, if they had contacted the author before incorporating it into the game, and they found out it would cost money, they probably would have found another map, or make one of their own. A company that large has the man power to make a subway map. I won't argue that the author has a right to be upset, but don't just start some type of flame war against a company that people love right now.

shock-value 13y ago
> Personally, if I was the author, I'd be honored to be in a game of that magnitude at all. You'd be selling yourself short then. If you had any confidence in your work, you would not be flattered just because some project that happens to have been created by hundreds of people ripped you off.
- donutdan4114 13y ago
  In this particular case, I don't think he would be "selling himself short". We are talking about a global, best selling, extremely popular, and well-received game. If his work was used in something demeaning like "Leisure Suit Larry", than he should probably be more pissed. But, like I said, "if I was the author." I am not the author, and I am only stating my opinion on how I would feel.
  - shock-value 13y ago
    I guess I just have no idea where your viewpoint is coming from. I can almost see being flattered if someone just took, say, a painting you painted, submitted it to a prestigious painting competition under their name, and won. I'd be extremely angry and would do everything in my power to assume credit (and any potential prize), but I would perhaps feel good about my work being recognized. But the videogame is hardly being praised for the inclusion of this map alone! It's such a tiny piece of of the game; many players would probably not even notice it. This does not in any way diminish its quality -- it's just not the focus of the game experience. Basically they just ripped him off in the name of "filling in the edges" of their art design. Which is totally unacceptable, especially for a respected development studio.

Ellipsis753 13y ago

I wish he'd just handled this in private. If they refuse to settle then sure, complain online. But this could have very well been on honest mistake that could have been quietly settled out of the public eye. Now this is going to end up being far more of a big thing that it really had to be. Also the use of the screenshot without permission may also be copyright infringement.

connortomas 13y ago
I'm not sure "honest mistake" is really acceptable. This is a multi-million-dollar Triple A game. I think it's reasonable to expect their legal team should have double- and triple-check the rights to all arts assets. Ye, there are a lot of assets used in a game of TLoU's magnitude, but the subway map is so prominent I can't understand how it would have been skipped over. If they had time to include the asset, they should have had time to secure rights. The screencap used to demonstrate the theft constitutes fair use, by the way. Cameron's using it to make a point to support his argument, which is totally legal.
- alexqgb 13y ago
  If true, "honest mistake" is an acceptable answer. But it's not one you bring up with the person whose work you appropriated. It's one you bring up with your insurance company when they're following up on the errors and omissions claim (E&O) you filed in order to cover the losses incurred by your own negligence. Protip: When you're in this situation DO NOT blame an intern. Interns - by definition - are unskilled, unpaid, and uninvested. If your insurance company finds out that interns are the only thing standing between them and damages for an IP lawsuit, they'll strongly consider yanking your insurance altogether, at which point you've got a snowball's chance in hell of finding a distributer. That's because copyright law allows rights-holders to sue not just the author of the illegally derivative work, but the author's distributors. Since the distributors have no way to be absolutely certain that the authors they buy from have actually cleared every single underlying right, they insist that the authors carry insurance that will cover any losses suffered by the distributer in cases just like this. In any human enterprise, a certain number of errors will happen. That's normal. But if a production company develops a history of recklessness, it may find itself uninsurable, and that's the end of commercial viability. Handling Rights & Clearances is work that is both skilled and tedious, meaning it should pay well. Employers that "inadvertently" screw artists by cutting this particular corner deserved to get hit as hard as the law allows.

piratebroadcast 13y ago

I wouldnt have thought that that map was a single persons property- I thought it was a city made map. Way to be a drama queen about it.

bigiain 13y ago
Do you think Naughty Dog would be any more "in the right" if they'd used a "city made map" without authorisation? (And cynical follow-up question: Do you suspect as I do that the reason they _didn't_ use the official Boston map is because they knew damn well that the Boston Metro people have lawyers on retainer, where some random designer on the internet selling his own personally created version of the Bostem T Map - which are arguably better then the official versions - has probably no on-hand legal representation, and can probably do no more that whine on his blog when we "steal" from him?)
alexqgb 13y ago
"I thought it was a city made map." Probably because you didn't actually read the post.

benguild 13y ago

I think this is a load of baloney and a huge flaw in the "copyright" system. Those maps are everywhere in Boston … in tourists' photographs, floating around on the street, on peoples' phones. If that's not public domain, I don't know what it is. It seems like this guy is just upset that he feels entitled to additional compensation when in reality he's already had his work licensed by the MBTA for their system … which is available to the public. Is that not public domain?

LoganCale 13y ago
This is not the official MBTA map, this is an unsanctioned redesign he made of it to demonstrate his idea for how to improve the official map. It is his property alone.
- chimeracoder 13y ago
  To the untrained eye, this probably looks indistinguishable from the actual map. I lived in Boston for many years, took the T on a regular basis, had that map committed to memory at one point, and I still didn't realize until I looked a second time that it wasn't the official map. They should certainly have double-checked this before copying it, but I can see why the confusion would arise.
- benguild 13y ago
  Got it, well then it was probably unintentional. Furthermore, the actual damages in this are, I imagine, nil as long as they replace the texture in a patch.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

martingordon 13y ago

Mods: I submitted this post with a different title since I am not the author of the post. Please change the title to reflect this; I don't want to mislead anyone.

ChuckMcM 13y ago
Side note. It is actually kind of lame when people post their own blog posts to HN, so I never assume the person posting the link is the person who wrote the article. In that regard the personal pronoun is not ambiguous. That said, I totally understand the desire by people writing blog posts wanting to get HN's take on it. But that is a different problem.
- hdra 13y ago
  Why is that? I never posted my own writing to HN, but I actually thought a lot of people share their work on HN, and I don't think that is a bad thing.
- nitrogen 13y ago
  Not being able to submit your own blog post presents a bootstrapping problem for new, potentially useful blogs. Also, HN's guidelines recommend submitting a blog post if you want to add your own commentary to an article (or at least they used to). As someone who occasionally posts a Show HN from my own blog, and whose current career was heavily influenced by one such post making the front page a couple of years ago, I hope you'll reconsider your opposition. :-)
  - ChuckMcM 13y ago
    I don't oppose it per se, it's just somewhat awkward. It is annoying when the only contribution some user on the site has is to submit their blog entries to it. For folks who are contributing members that annoyance doesn't apply. And to be perfectly clear this is just my own take on it, I also think it is awkward when someone at a meeting opens the conversation with my by pitching their company or project. Thinking about it a bit more deeply as I write this I think that is the crux of the issue. Amongst people I know, having them suggest something they have done, or are working on, sort of out of the blue feels like "catching up" whereas for people I don't know that feels more awkward. I don't have a lot of context to evaluate what they are pitching and for me, perhaps for others, it's uncomfortable.

tylerritchie 13y ago

I don't understand the commenters saying that it's cool that a large company flush with cash shouldn't be expected to pay for copyrighted works it uses to make a profit. I'm a biologist, not a lawyer, but it seems like our system is setup pretty well to protect the rights in this case. He should have consulted with a copyright attorney and started with a bill and cease and desist for $10,000 or whatever makes him happy. If they don't pay he can file a lawsuit. At this point someone would look at what the cost of the legal battle would be, and the cost of having to pull all of the existing copies of the game and re-issue it if they lose and offer to cut him a check.

fuzzywalrus 13y ago
Indeed, Naughty Dog copy protects its work, it should respect others. There's a lot of speculation be it: interns, lazy artists, bad production managers etc. What I'd like to know is if any other work is directly derivative in the game.
- hackinthebochs 13y ago
  >What I'd like to know is if any other work is directly derivative in the game. You mean besides Ellen Page's face? (http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/06/24/video-game-stole-my-face-actress-ellen-page-says/ http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/06/24/video-game-stole-my-f...)

jpark 13y ago

Just curious. Did the author get the proper permissions to use the MBTA logo in his map? It would be ironic if the map itself violated MBTA IP.

mortenjorck 13y ago
I highly doubt he got MBTA approval for the use of their trademark. That said, it's not like he's selling posters of it, in which case his product could conceivably be mistaken for licensed MBTA merchandise.
- alex_doom 13y ago
  Yeah he's selling copies of it; http://www.cambooth.net/for-sale#bostonrail http://www.cambooth.net/for-sale#bostonrail
  - mortenjorck 13y ago
    Interesting. Looks like he still thought it out, though: The T logo is missing in the wall prints.
    - alexqgb 13y ago
      Judging from the exchanges in his blog's comments, he's a guy who knows his copyright, and has been careful about using the MTA's logo only in situations where Fair Use allows it to appear, and not using in situations where it doesn't. I can see why he's so pissed, by the way. Having taken the time to understand the rules and operate within them, he's going to take an especially dim view of others who should have, and didn't.