The Last Of Us Faces Another Rip-Off Accusation - UPDATED

[Roman Monaghan]

Accidental double post.

 

[Mersadeon]

Wait, am I understanding this right? This guy made a map that was more accurate than the official one, then basically uploaded it for everyone (since a traffic map is not really something you want to keep for yourself), and then gripes about his more accurate version being thought of as the official one? Dude, you made a subway map. Chill. Had they used the official map, the city wouldn't have sued either. You made this for the public. Now it's even more public. It's not like Naughty Dog made a single dollar more just because they had an accurate subway map.

Edit: I mean, don't get me wrong, I understand he technically has the right to sue. But really? You made this for public consumption! So that people can use it to get around. Wouldn't you WANT it to be seen as THE map and used in other media?

 

[Therumancer]

When your dealing with something like a street map, your dealing with the very ideal of public property, what's more it's a fairly unchanging thing (it does change, but slowly, over a period of time). The streets are where the streets are.

But that's not what the issue is. You can't copyright the streets themselves, but you can certainly copyright a representation of them such as a map or photograph. Just look at Google Maps, satellite images, street view, etc - all copyrighted views of public areas. Look at maps for GPS systems like TomTom and Garmin, etc. Copyrighted out the wazoo.

At any rate, it's not one specific law, but a lot of them, and precedents.

Except that's not true. The legal precedents are overwhelmingly that maps can be copyrighted. I prefer facts to making things up that suit your idea of how things should be.

You might be right in some states, but for the most part I'm going to say flat out that your wrong. They have even done shows about cartography on "History Channel" and the like and the bottom line to it is that the business can be pretty cutthroat because maps tend to only be valuable when your the only source for them. Once a map is out there the fact that anyone can copy it greatly reduces the value. Thus if your say doing underwater surveying for example, your charts become inherently valuable to begin with if nobody else has them for the region, but once you sell them a few times people are going to run off millions of copies of your info and unless you cut a deal to get royalties your pretty much SOOL. Granted I saw stuff on this years ago.

At any rate, we might eventually find out who is right and who is wrong depending on whether he successfully wins the case.

 

[Willard13]

While I suppose it is true that seeing as how he did technically create the design and changed a few routes, I can't help but wonder how far we can push copyright. Since when have maps of areas been copyright protected? Like, come on, next thing you know basic shapes will be copyright protected.

It's already been done. Apple has copyright on the colors white and grey, and the rectangular shape.