Map publishers hiding copyright traps?

[chorpler]

@acsenray

Just in case you’re not joking: No, it isn’t.

Dikshit, however, is a not uncommon name in India. (Sometimes spelled “Dixit.”)

It’s not what? Common in India? Okay, my bad.

But it is a real name that shows up occasionally.

[chorpler]

Or perhaps I should say there are numerous people who claim to have firsthand encounters with people named Shithead who pronounced it “Shi-THEED” or “Shi-THAYD.” They could just be making crap up, of course.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

Putting Dikshit India into Google gives scads of real peoples’ names on the first page, 50 listings. I’m betting that the 224,000 hits include lots of duplications, though.

Shithead India yields no names of Indians at all on the first page.

[chorpler]

@Exapno Mapcase

Putting Dikshit India into Google gives scads of real peoples’ names on the first page, 50 listings. I’m betting that the 224,000 hits include lots of duplications, though.

Shithead India yields no names of Indians at all on the first page.

Yeah, the only Google-able evidence for the actual namehood of Shithead is from people who claim they’ve met people by that name. Since they’re actualy claiming they’ve had the experience rather than claiming a friend or a friend’s friend has had it, I hesitate to label it a myth, but it could be true that they’re misremembering or outright lying, so I amended my claim to reflect that.

The more I think about it, the more I lean towards the hypothesis that the people making the claim have actually met people named Dikshit and are misremembering. After all, I had indeed confused “Dikshit” and “Shithead” when I made the original comment about India. Sorry, folks. I shall voluntarily submit to 30 lashes from the scrabula.

[Sailboat]

@Edward The Head

However, a few years ago in Mercator’s World, a cartography magazine, this came up and at least one court found that you could copy a map because the information is just information. They said it was much like a phone book and pure information can not be copywritten.

This sounds like rationalization, not law. I’d be shocked if this is actually true as represented here.

Sailboat

[John_W.Kennedy]

It is most definitely true that you cannot copyright information, per se; only the creative aspect is copyrightable. A court could quite reasonably hold that it would be a violation of copyright only if the original engraving were duplicated. The authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail got caught on this when they tried to sue over The DaVinci Code; they claimed that their book was factual, and on that basis, the court ruled that Dan Brown could not have infringed. If they’d admitted that their book is pure fiction–that’s the polite word–from beginning to end, they might well have had a case.

[Gfactor]

@Sailboat

This sounds like rationalization, not law. I’d be shocked if this is actually true as represented here.

Sailboat

Looks like a Federal District Court did say that. But it was reversed by the Fifth Circuit. http://www.spatial.maine.edu/~onsrud/Cases/HTML_Mason_vs_Montgomery.htm
and see, http://www.spatial.maine.edu/~onsrud/Cases/HTML_Sparaco_Link.htm

[Exapno_Mapcase]

Ken Jennings’ book on the wide world of trivia, Brainiac, has a paragraph or two on copyright traps.

Don’t believe the New Columbia Encyclopedia when it tells you about the life of noted mailbox photographer Lillian Mountweazel, and don’t start using the word “esquivalience” just because the New Oxford American Dictionary tells you it means “the willful avoidance of one’s official responsibilities.”

…

[Fred Worth’s] Trivia Encyclopedia for “Colombo” includes this fact: “First name: Philip.” In fact, Colombo, like his TV brethren Quincy and Gilligan, never had an official first name. Fred invented “Philip” as a snare for trivia thieves.

[Alive_At_Both_Ends]

A related practice - Who’s Who in America includes a number of fictitious people, not as a copyright trap but to stop junk mailers using it as a high-status mailing list. The book specifically states that people should not do this, on pain of legal action. Since the compilers of Who’s Who rely on the people listed therein to provide their own biographical details, they don’t want to alienate them by deluging them with junk mail.

To enforce this policy, the fake entries give addresses which are actually the addresses of Who’s Who staff, so if a member of staff receives a letter at their home, addressed to the fake name, Who’s Who will know and can take action against the sender.

[Rusalka]

@Alive At Both Ends

A related practice - Who’s Who in America includes a number of fictitious people, not as a copyright trap but to stop junk mailers using it as a high-status mailing list. The book specifically states that people should not do this, on pain of legal action. Since the compilers of Who’s Who rely on the people listed therein to provide their own biographical details, they don’t want to alienate them by deluging them with junk mail.

To enforce this policy, the fake entries give addresses which are actually the addresses of Who’s Who staff, so if a member of staff receives a letter at their home, addressed to the fake name, Who’s Who will know and can take action against the sender.

What kind of legal action would that be, exactly? What law would the junk mailer be breaking? :dubious:

[Acsenray]

@Rusalka

What kind of legal action would that be, exactly?

The only thing I can see is some kind of breach of contract action, perhaps, if the publisher “licenses” the book with conditions on the use of the information. I can’t imagine, though, that this would be very effective.

[Wee_Bairn]

Well, the Colombo trap fooled Trivial Pursuit, because IIRC they have this Q&A in one of their editions.

[LateComer]

@fusoya

I myself have created a Tri-State Area Railroad Track Map

That map is awesome. What kind of software does one use to create somthing like that?

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@Wee Bairn

Well, the Colombo trap fooled Trivial Pursuit, because IIRC they have this Q&A in one of their editions.

Yes, Jennings writes about how Fred Worth bankrupted himself in a losing effort to sue because about 1/3 of their answers were taken directly from him. The judge found that facts are not copyrightable, even when put into a trvia book.

[Mister_Rik]

@chorpler

Or perhaps I should say there are numerous people who claim to have firsthand encounters with people named Shithead who pronounced it “Shi-THEED” or “Shi-THAYD.” They could just be making crap up, of course.

[Saturday Night Live]

“I have a package for Mister Asswipe!”

“Ah-SWIP-ay! It’s ah-SWIP-ay!”

[/Saturday Night Live]

[samclem]

The “shithead” urban legend goes along with about 20 other names. You can read about it at

snopes

[Alive_At_Both_Ends]

@Rusalka

What kind of legal action would that be, exactly? What law would the junk mailer be breaking? :dubious:

I don’t know, but I have a cite for the information: the book “Hoaxes and Scams” by Carl Sifakis (ISBN 1-85479-903-7), page 283. It contains the following quote from the editorial director of Who’s Who in America, Dianne Halenar:

@Dianne Halenar

We use these sketches (that contain false information but real addresses) to prevent any organization from using our publications as mailing lists. Although the sketches appearing in our publications are not to be reproduced without our permission, the information itself is available to be used as part of newspaper articles, etc. Since we rely on biographies to provide us with the majority of information contained in our books, we do not want them bothered by solicitations as a result of having their sketches appear in our publications. It is for this reason that we initiated the concept of “dummy sketches”.

In the next paragraph it says:

Any mailings to an address of an employee of the publication is immediately forwarded to the reference book’s attorneys for action.

[Rusalka]

Seems like an idle threat to me, at least in the U.S. What are they going to sue you for? It’s not illegal to send junk mail to people, no matter where you got their address.

As for the OP, the printed map is copyright protected, (i.e., the look, the arrangement of the elements, etc.) the data contained therein is not. So the Straight Dope Staff Report erred in using this example.

Most maps nowadays are generated from electronic data anyway.

[Gfactor]

@Rusalka

As for the OP, the printed map is copyright protected, (i.e., the look, the arrangement of the elements, etc.) the data contained therein is not. So the Straight Dope Staff Report erred in using this example.

Here’s the OP:

I didn’t know that map publishers did this. Are there specific examples of what they do?

How are you responding to this question?

Here is the only part of the staff report that talks about maps:

Now you see why map publishers hide copyright traps in their maps – they make it easier to prove copying rather than independent creation.

We didn’t go into more detail because Cecil already covered it: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_165.html

[mobo85]

@Ken Jennings

In fact, Colombo, like his TV brethren Quincy and Gilligan, never had an official first name.

As Jennings points out, Colombo’s first name was revealed…once. In an early episode of The NBC Mystery Movie, Colombo pulls out his police ID card. The signature clearly reads “Frank Colombo.”