# In NYT story author got inspiration for story from the Straight Dope & book is now to be a movie! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 29, 2014, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-nyt-story-author-got-inspiration-for-story-from-the-straight-dope-book-is-now-to-be-a-movie/684811 "2014-03-29T02:33:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2014, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-nyt-story-author-got-inspiration-for-story-from-the-straight-dope-book-is-now-to-be-a-movie/684811/1 "2014-03-29T02:33:03Z")
[Interesting story here](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/29/nyregion/in-search-of-agloe-ny-a-town-on-the-border-of-fiction-and-reality.html) > [@](#): > > SOMEWHERE NEAR AGLOE, N.Y. — It is one thing to lose your keys or your iPhone, even the love of your life, but to lose an entire town? Yet that is what just happened in upstate New York. Last week, Google did something it almost never does — it wiped a town off its maps. > > Don’t blame Google. The town’s provenance was suspect. > > How, Agloe, a speck of a hamlet in the western Catskills, wound up on maps 90 years ago remains a cartographic enigma. How it persevered is an existential riddle. > [@](#): > > As recently as 2008, Agloe gained a modicum of notoriety, and, since then, an occasional teenage tourist, because it figured in the climax to John Green’s young adult novel “Paper Towns.” (Last week, Fox 2000 announced that it would turn the novel into a film.) > > “I’d accidentally come across a copyright trap on a road trip with the woman I was dating at the time — I believe that fake town was called Holen, S.D. — and when researching the phenomenon came across a mention of Agloe in\*\* The Straight Dope website\*\*,” Mr. Green recalled. “Of course, the idea that a fiction created on paper could become real was really encouraging to me as a writer.” ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2014, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-nyt-story-author-got-inspiration-for-story-from-the-straight-dope-book-is-now-to-be-a-movie/684811/2 "2014-03-29T03:28:34Z")
So mapmakers would invent towns so that if they saw the fake town on another mapmaker’s map, they’d have proof of copyright violation? Clever. A Facebook acquaintance saw that article and posted on our hometown’s page, asking about a couple of towns that he’d seen on area maps but could never find. As it turns out, those towns did exist at one time but are totally gone now. I wonder if the book is any good. Anyone read it? ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2014, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-nyt-story-author-got-inspiration-for-story-from-the-straight-dope-book-is-now-to-be-a-movie/684811/3 "2014-03-29T10:40:00Z")
Cool! I think I might have contributed in a modest way to that thread, about eight years ago, because there was a supposed “copyright trap” right on the street I grew up on (in the Hagstrom’s Street Atlas) – the street was shown as crossing a creek when in fact it did not. The trap idea was explained to me by a real mapmaker I befriended when I was ten years old. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2014, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-nyt-story-author-got-inspiration-for-story-from-the-straight-dope-book-is-now-to-be-a-movie/684811/4 "2014-03-29T14:25:43Z")
My first career was as a mapmaker with both of the only two digital mapping companies at the time, before google got into the business. I was one of those who added some of these copyright traps to the maps. The electronic maps we were creating would have been easy to copy, so this was an important security step. Usually, the trap was a small street added somewhere, with no name or addresses, and may have been a one-way cul-de-sac, so no navigation would occur on it. The trap had to be captured and recorded somewhere so someone could later check other maps to ensure our maps were not being used by unauthorized users. I am not sure how/if they even do this today. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2014, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-nyt-story-author-got-inspiration-for-story-from-the-straight-dope-book-is-now-to-be-a-movie/684811/5 "2014-03-29T17:27:08Z")
So did you ever catch any map thieves? ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2014, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-nyt-story-author-got-inspiration-for-story-from-the-straight-dope-book-is-now-to-be-a-movie/684811/6 "2014-03-29T17:43:19Z")
It could be populated with copyright infringement-bait from Who’s Who, or perhaps that noted recluse Lt Kije. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2014, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-nyt-story-author-got-inspiration-for-story-from-the-straight-dope-book-is-now-to-be-a-movie/684811/7 "2014-03-29T19:02:44Z")
It’s been done. ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2014, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-nyt-story-author-got-inspiration-for-story-from-the-straight-dope-book-is-now-to-be-a-movie/684811/8 "2014-03-29T21:25:43Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > I am not sure how/if they even do this today. They don’t do this any more. There was a thread about the original article and 10-15 years ago the courts said that maps were a depiction of something real, and real things can’t be copyrighted. The depiction can be, but not the information. A lot of these towns are either really old, or really small, or both. A lot of times they are a house or two. Sometimes the are on really old maps and have since gone away but get caught up when the cartographers reference older maps. Then sometimes there’s the cartographers that like to add a little something themselves. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2014, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-nyt-story-author-got-inspiration-for-story-from-the-straight-dope-book-is-now-to-be-a-movie/684811/9 "2014-03-29T22:38:28Z")
[http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1058/do-maps-have-copyright-traps-to-permit-detection-of-unauthorized-copies](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1058/do-maps-have-copyright-traps-to-permit-detection-of-unauthorized-copies) ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2014, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-nyt-story-author-got-inspiration-for-story-from-the-straight-dope-book-is-now-to-be-a-movie/684811/10 "2014-03-29T23:46:43Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > It’s been done. What has? ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-nyt-story-author-got-inspiration-for-story-from-the-straight-dope-book-is-now-to-be-a-movie/684811/11 "2014-03-30T00:38:13Z")
> [@TubaDiva](#): > > [Do maps have “copyright traps” to permit detection of unauthorized copies? - The Straight Dope](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1058/do-maps-have-copyright-traps-to-permit-detection-of-unauthorized-copies) Thanks! I had forgotten what a thorough column that was, and how long ago it was. It helped for Cecil’s research that Rand McNally was a Chicago-based company at the time; alas, I believe they have since succumbed to the digital world of virtual globes and GPS-enabled smartphone maps. Above, I mentioned that I grew up on a street wrongly depicted in a popular street atlas as crossing a certain creek – well, despite my cartographer friend’s assertion that it might have been a “copyright trap,” I think in this case it was probably just something else Cecil alluded to: a public right-of-way shown on an official village (or county, or city) plat map/planning map as a street, when in fact that street or street segment was never built. Just as Cecil concluded, I’m sure copyright traps abounded, though, and probably still do in a few contexts, though these days it would be harder to sustain without someone “publicizing” that they knew a particular feature was incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-nyt-story-author-got-inspiration-for-story-from-the-straight-dope-book-is-now-to-be-a-movie/684811/12 "2014-03-30T02:38:32Z")
Now I read Edward the Head’s post … So, after that court decision, I guess this isn’t done anymore at all. That would surprise me a little, but I trust that this is so. As Edward pointed out, though, some bored or mischievous cartographers will sometimes include fake items just for fun. (I once inserted a fake island on a nautical chart on April Fool’s Day, and persuaded my uncle, our chartered boat’s skipper, to set sail for it. I spilled the beans before we’d pulled up anchor.) ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-nyt-story-author-got-inspiration-for-story-from-the-straight-dope-book-is-now-to-be-a-movie/684811/13 "2014-03-30T04:45:14Z")
[A more recent follow-up.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=679898) To repeat myself, copyright traps were never as prevalent as the general public believes, and since 1991 (the _Feist_ decision) they have been of no legal use whatever. Virtually all map mistakes are just that: mistakes. Commercial map publishing was a low-margin business, and there was, unfortunately, no real market value to greater accuracy. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-nyt-story-author-got-inspiration-for-story-from-the-straight-dope-book-is-now-to-be-a-movie/684811/14 "2014-03-30T07:38:16Z")
Future movies based on Straight Dope columns, threads, and memes: Taking Off from the Conveyor Belt Stop or I’ll Shoot with My 1920’s-Style Death Ray Flying Down to Rio with Duran Duran Going the Whole Nine Yards ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-nyt-story-author-got-inspiration-for-story-from-the-straight-dope-book-is-now-to-be-a-movie/684811/15 "2014-03-30T09:56:01Z")
Thanks, Mr. Downtown. In my post #11, please replace “abounded” with “occasionally occurred.” Wendell – ha! Remember that film about Mohammmed’s life which cleverly avoided the Muslim structure against depicting the Prophet by filming the whole thing from Mohammed’s perspective? A Dope film could pull the same trick with its Cecil Adams character. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-nyt-story-author-got-inspiration-for-story-from-the-straight-dope-book-is-now-to-be-a-movie/684811/16 "2014-03-30T12:42:05Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Future movies based on Straight Dope columns, threads, and memes: > > Taking Off from the Conveyor Belt > Stop or I’ll Shoot with My 1920’s-Style Death Ray > Flying Down to Rio with Duran Duran > Going the Whole Nine Yards For shame, you missed the two romantic movies of: Hi Opal! and Rocks in the Quarry. I do know that at times too map makers will take the proposals for streets and throw them on maps and at times the roads never get finished. What I’ve always loved is that the mappers take the USGS quads, take all the information off of them, then copyright the info. They didn’t go and do the research themselves! One has to wonder why all the county maps I’ve seen are usually 1:24,000. Or better yet the companies that take a nautical chart, cut it up and take off the NOAA badges and copyright it and then say not for navigation on it. ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-nyt-story-author-got-inspiration-for-story-from-the-straight-dope-book-is-now-to-be-a-movie/684811/17 "2014-03-30T19:14:10Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Future movies based on Straight Dope columns, threads, and memes: \ And, no. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-nyt-story-author-got-inspiration-for-story-from-the-straight-dope-book-is-now-to-be-a-movie/684811/18 "2014-03-30T19:41:25Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Future movies based on Straight Dope columns, threads, and memes: > > Taking Off from the Conveyor Belt > Stop or I’ll Shoot with My 1920’s-Style Death Ray > Flying Down to Rio with Duran Duran > Going the Whole Nine Yards > [@Edward\_The\_Head](#): > > For shame, you missed the two romantic movies of: > Hi Opal! > and > Rocks in the Quarry. Once, for 20 minutes. I would pay cash money to see _“DH18"IJBD - The Movie”_ ---
**Author:** ![Battle\_Pope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Battle\_Pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Battle_Pope)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-nyt-story-author-got-inspiration-for-story-from-the-straight-dope-book-is-now-to-be-a-movie/684811/19 "2014-03-30T21:01:52Z")
> [@Edward\_The\_Head](#): > > They don’t do this any more. There was a thread about the original article and 10-15 years ago the courts said that maps were a depiction of something real, and real things can’t be copyrighted. The depiction can be, but not the information. > > A lot of these towns are either really old, or really small, or both. A lot of times they are a house or two. Sometimes the are on really old maps and have since gone away but get caught up when the cartographers reference older maps. > > Then sometimes there’s the cartographers that like to add a little something themselves. 😃 😃 Yep, done that myself. Though it’s getting harder to do with some of the automated checks now. ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-nyt-story-author-got-inspiration-for-story-from-the-straight-dope-book-is-now-to-be-a-movie/684811/20 "2014-03-31T00:12:58Z")
> [@Edward\_The\_Head](#): > > Then sometimes there’s the cartographers that like to add a little something themselves. 😃 Otisburg? _ **Otisburg** _?! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-nyt-story-author-got-inspiration-for-story-from-the-straight-dope-book-is-now-to-be-a-movie/684811.md?page=2)