Far too hard to explain in a preview, sorry to say.
The best term I have for it is a “safeguard”, however Im pretty sure there has to be a more specific term for the idea. I have two examples;
Monopoly ((The Boardgame)) ; A case was taken all the way to the supreme court to prove that Darrow and Parker Borthers did not Invent the game that we call Monopoly. Crucial to this case was the fact that “Marvin Gardens” was mispelled (I believe it is correct as “Marven”). It was argued, that the mispelling was taken verbatim from the original game, and therefore proves that it is a copy (rip-off).
Trivial pursuit ; Again, another board game example, but, its the only two I have, that purely demonstrate what I am after.
There was a court case for Trivial pursuit, in which a Trivia Book author sued the makers of TP because his complete and udderly fake question was coppied, also verbatim. He lost, because it was ruled that “Trivia” can not be copyrighted.
What is the term for such traps that are set up to track possible unauthorized use of content?
What is the term for the trap, when it is cleverly, and indirectly hidden, as per the given examples?
This is an interesting coincidence, because I had recently been thinking about such safeguards taken on road atlases. From what I understand, there is usually a false landmark or intentional mispelling on every map contained in an atlas.
IIRC, this is known as watermarking, but I cannot find a solid example in google.
I think it’s watermarking, but I’m not sure either.
My favourite example is that Who’s Who apparently includes a handful of totally fictitious entries, with fictional biographical details, but their addresses are in fact those of Who’s Who staff. This is to catch anyone trying to use Who’s Who as a mailing list. (People would be less willing to give their details to Who’s Who if they thought it would open the floodgates to every junk mailer on Earth.)
Google does this on their satellite images. There is a lake that if you zoom in on it a little bit it looks like a computer chip. I saw it myself (might have been linked in a SDMB posting some time back) but have no record of where it was.
When I worked in a typography house, my boss pointed out a village that didn’t exist, on the map of Ireland we had rights to copy. He knew the mapmakers, and had been told this was a copyright safeguard.
I think I used to live near one: many maps showed the town of “Beixedon” next to my home town. There was a housing development there by that name, but no town and I’ve always wondered if that was some sort of trap.
I don’t think “watermarking” is a correct term, because that already has an established meaning in the printing universe. Unless there’s a neologism that I need to be annoyed about.
I’m fairly sure that, as a general rule, dictionaries do not contain copyright traps. Not to say that none ever has had one, but in general they don’t do it.
Besides, all dictionary makers copy from each other to a certain degree. It’s a long established custom. As long as it’s not done to excess, they don’t get too worked up about it.
But bogus words do occasionally get into dictionaries. Perhaps the best known is Dord which was in early editions of Webster’s Second Unabridged with the meaning of “density”. The entry was supposed to be D or d as an abbreviation, but through a clerical error, it got converted to a word.