Hi, I’m new to the boards. I recently read one of the straight dope columns about Map copyright traps. In one example Rand McNally accidentally included a “Paper Street” in New York map.
If you guys will remember in “Fight Club”, the house was located on “Paper Street”.
Do you think this was on purpose?
L
Sorry, here’s the link to the SD article I mentioned:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_165.html
Hello, loislane138, and welcome to the SDMB! I believe your answer can be found at the Fight Club Trivia page at the Internet Movie Database.
Well, loislane138, I read the Straight Dope column, and what I read is that the fake streets created for copyright infringement are called “paper streets” because they exist only on paper, but are not necessarily named “Paper Street” on the map. I wouldn’t be surprised if the creators of Fight Club chose that name knowing of the expression “paper street” for non-existent streets.
Jeff Olsen, the trivia page for Fight Club at IMDB says that the movie appears to take place in Wilmington, Delaware, and that there really is a street called Paper Street in that city; however, the house numbers don’t go as high as the house number used in the movie. So that would be another possible source for the name of the street.
But I’m not convinced for the reasoning on that page saying that the movie appears to take place in Wilmington. I have a recollection of many tall buildings seen in the movie and I assumed that the locale was New York City. Of course, I could be wrong. Perhaps the book has more information.
There are several Delware-specific references in the film, which is odd, really, considering this.
But, anyway, Delaware is home to many large, credit card-issuing banks, which figure into the final act of Fight Club*.
Howdy. I am also new to this forum, and have read the article on copyright traps at: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_165.html.
I noticed that it specifically mentions Riverside County, Ca. Well, I worked as a real estate photographer in Hemet, Ca.(for about five minutes . . . awful job) which is located in Riverside County. I was driving around one day and I, of course, had gotten completely lost while trying to find a house I was supposed to be taking a picture of. In circling a block for about the thirtieth time, I happened to notice that the Thomas Bros. map book that I was using clearly showed a street that didn’t exist at all. Now, in light of the facts presented in the article, this is not any revelation in and of itself, but it becomes slightly more interesting when considering the name of the conspicuously invisible street in question. It was called Merlin Court.
Glad to know that someone out there has a sense of humor on the job.
We live in about the middle of a very. very long block.When our area was first developed, in the 1960s, a street was planned that would connect our street to the next street one block west. Our house would have been on the corner, but the street was never built. The city owned the property and gave it to the park district, so there is a lovely stretch of greenery next to our house.
This has produced some wierdness. The house across the greenway from us was supposed to face the (unbuilt) street, so their front door is on the side of the house, not facing the (existing) street, if you follow me.
The point is that the street was put on maps because it was planned, and is still on many maps, but doesn’t exist. It may be that it was a “copyright trap” in putting in a street that doesn’t exist in reality but did exist on paper; it may be that maps just picked up the original city plans and never got revised.
I have a good friend who planned to ride his motorcycle from the Dallas area to a meeting in Florida. He noticed on the way that there was a town called “Pat” in Mississippi, just a few miles off the interstate, and my friend Pat decided to visit there.
As you can guess, there was no Pat, Mississippi. It apparently was a copyright trap.
I grew up in Marlin, Texas, and I remember all the Texaco maps had a little unincorporated town named Sunrise just to the northeast. No one in Marlin had ever heard of a Sunrise, so I’m guessing that it was a copyright trap.
A similar trick is used by companies with very valuable client contact lists. They put a couple of fake entries in so that if an employee sets up their own business and tries to rip off the list, they get caught. The trick of course is to include a fake name, but with a real address that won’t be recognized by the ex-employee that leads back to the company (eg a director’s mothers place or something). When the ex-employee sends out sales stuff to everyone on the list they inadvertantly hang themselves.
I’m not sure a map gets any copyright protection to begin with. Certainly its not very strong. For example, the white pages of the phone book aren’t copyrightable at all. Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991). ('a compilation of facts is not capable of copyright protection unless it demonstrates sufficient originality").
That phone book even had false “seeds” and the Supreme Court said it wasn’t original enough.
I looked up cases for maps and there isn’t a whole lot on the subject. Anyone interested can look at Streetwise Maps, Inc. v. Vandam, Inc. 159 F.3d 739 (2nd Cir. 1998). I would put the URL but Westlaw is a pay site unless you’re a student.
Basically, the same thing happened as happened with the phone book. Although copying was clear, most of what was copied were facts, so the Plaintiff was out of luck.
Copying itself is not illegal. It is copying the “protecible expression” of another that’s illegal. Facts are not protectible expression.
Why do they put false locations on maps then? Because companies are NOTORIOUSLY IGNORANT of intellectual property laws. That’s why they have to pay lawyers. For example, the TM signifying Trademark has absolutely no legal significance. It’s only the ® that counts.
One final point re client lists. Chances the company is trying to get the ex employee on theft of trade secrets. Copyright infringement I’m not so sure about.
TOM
Both Pat, Mississippi, and Sunrise, Texas, are in the USGS’s Geographic Names Information System That database is not copyrighted, and I suspect the map-makers just copied the government’s information.
It’s not terribly unusual for names on USGS maps to be unknown to the locals. I suspect they’re old names that are just not in common use any more. Maybe post-office consolidation has something to do with it. My town used to have about a half dozen post offices, but now it has only one. My section of town (quite isolated from the rest of the town) has its own name on the USGS map, but I hadn’t heard the name until I’d been living here for several years.
Guess you don’t know a lot about maps then huh? Colors are different, nomenclature is different (font size, placement), line weights are different, scale etc. There is a lot of work that goes into creating a map. I would say that they are original.
So a map is not an expression? And facts are not protectible? Does this then mean that if I write a history book I can not copywrite it?
I have a copy of Mercators World, I think that’s the name, a magazine that’s made for cartographers and collectors that had an article about this in it. It was from last year sometime and said something about the case above. I could have sworn that they said maps are copyrightable BUT fake place names, streets etc are not. I always wondered how you could copyright a character from a book then.
If any one is really intersted I can pull the article.
Why so mean spirited? Changing the scale something is expressed in wouldn’t make it something other than a fact. It would just make it a different sized fact. Same is true with color. If I make Lake Michigan blue or purple or yellow, it is still the same lake.
Because something takes a lot of work to make doesn’t make it copyrightable. Read the Feist case if you don’t believe me. I didn’t make this up. The Supreme Court did. Where do you get your notion of copyright from?
What is difficult about believing that facts aren’t copyrightable? Is there a copyright in the fact that George Washington was the first US president or that Rogers Hornsby hit .426 in 1926? How about scientific facts? Does/did anyone have a copyright on photosynthesis or gravity?
If not, why is hard to believe that there is no copyright in recording the way streets (which you did not yourself create) interact?
To answer your question, certain parts of your history book are copyrightable, certain parts are not. The original expression of the facts is; the facts themselves are not.
Incidently, compilations of facts are copyrightable inasmuch as the selection and the ordering of those facts are original. Cf. Bartlett’s quotations.
While it is possible to win a copyright case on a map, I wouldn’t say it was all that likely. Articles like these have “thin” copyrights.
Finally, that article you refered to probably said the fake places are copyrightable and the real ones are not. Maybe yes, maybe no. That is what touched off the debate.
BTW, for person so concerned with copyright, you seemed to have no qualms about posting all of someone else’s article.
Hornsby hit .424 in 1924. Sorry for the error.
Well first I was not trying to be mean spirited, my words come out that way I know.
I think you totally missed what I was saying.
One could argue that maps are ordered different. Ie, for a road map and a topo map of the same area, scale etc you would choose what you wanted to represent and make it the most important.
In reality what happens, and what pisses cartographers off is that someone will take your map, change a few colors, move some words around and basically copy your map. I’m not trying to say that the facts are copyrightable, but the way a map presents it should be.
As for the artice, I had no intention of reproducing it at all. I was planning on using it as a cite and summerizing it. Also IIRC it did say that the false names were not copyrightable which really threw me.
Oh and if you want some proof that mapping companies do copy others work find and ADC Chesapeake Bay Chart, it is mearly a NOAA nautical chart that has been copied, cut up and put into a book. They can get away with it because the US Gov does not copyright maps.
I won’t bore anyone anymore on the subject of copyright, but I do have a couple of final comments.
You mention the US gov’t not copyrighting maps. In fact, the US gov’t can’t copyright anything. The law doesn’t allow them to.
This makes sense though, as copyright is supposed to be an incentive for authors and the gov’t presumably doesn’t need an incentive.
I initially thought your point about maps was different. If you’re making the case that maps should be more protected, I can see that. That’s a metaphysical point more than a legal one though. The idea that someone can free ride of your work certainly would irk me (were I a cartographer), especially if I knew that the design I came up with was unique vis-a-vis the maps already in existence.
There are lots of sort of interesting things that don’t get copyright protection. Two of the broad catagories that are always mentioned are dress designs and recipes. Both things take alot of work and creativity but are not rewarded through copyright at all.
TOM
What a curiously interesting topic. I have to agree with Tom’s points. Afterall, using another’s intellectual skills is a form of theft.
I have to admit I think it’s pure genius that a cartographer would do such a thing. On the other hand, if that’s the town or mark you’re shooting for on a trip, it can be a huge disaster.
–and–
I can’t follow maps worth a hoot!
I always knew there was some diabolical plot to get me confused! Now I’ve got proof and when I tell my husband on our next trip, that the map must be wrong, I can be right! Vwahlah face saved!! :smack:
The idea of including fake roads and cities in maps seems outrageous to me. They seem to go against the purpose of maps!
It seems it started with “companies are NOTORIOUSLY IGNORANT of intellectual property laws”
So how would they protect their imvestment?
As I read your argument, the paper streets are not facts, and are therefore copyrightable? So, if someone copied a map, and kept the paper streets, they would be in violation of copyright?
Incredible.