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Comment by andiareso | Hacker News Reader

I don’t see the issue. You were using the TfL schematic map which is very much a form of art. I don’t think it’s unreasonable that they asked you to take that specific map down or continue with a license.

To remove the whole site because of that seems petty.

It was clearly stated in their api documentation. It’s no different than getting a license or usage rights for hosting an image or video on your site. Just because you are a hobbyist doesn’t mean you don’t have to follow the rules.

This is coming from someone who is extremely pro fair-use and right to ownership.

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> To remove the whole site because of that seems petty.

How have they removed the whole site? It literally says "My traintimes.org.uk is still there." at the bottom of the page. Looks like only the maps have been removed.

(Edited to add: I'm a long time traintimes.org.uk user who never even realised they had maps on the site, so consequently I am happy the whole site has not been taken down)

They could have easily offered a free license to use the trademark. This project wasn't harming them in the slightest. Demanding the map's removal and implying that he will have to pay to put it back up shows a lack of empathy.

No, trademarks are genuinely important because they allow consumers to distinguish between official things that an organization stands behind, versus hobbyist projects, imitators, etc.

But all the creator had to do was to remove logos and possibly change the name so there would be no confusion around whether this was an official project or not.

And it seems like the geographic map was fine, only the schematic map would have been an issue because its design is presumably specifically copyrighted and yes you would have to license that just like any other map.

The letters he received may have been heavy-handed but there's nothing wrong with the general principle of it.

The point is that trademark holders could start by reaching out and asking nicely instead of being assholes about it.

To be fair, they did start by reaching out and asking nicely. They just immediately escalated.

The TfL trademarks are all over Apple Maps. The map itself would be covered by copyright, not trademark.

It would seem that nobody bothered to run the notice past a lawyer.

Apple applied to use them via the official TFL scheme for doing so, in advance, and is likely paying for them.

This is particularly galling because TfL never credited or compensated the designer of the map, Harry Beck, until long after his death.

> You were using the TfL schematic map which is very much a form of art

The site was taken down by a trademark complaint, not a copyright complaint.

Trademarks apply to artistic works that identify an entity. See the TFL roundel.

You can use a logo to refer to the entity in question. Is it not fair use if you refer to a subway station using the subway station logo?

I am not a lawyer, much less a trademark lawyer, so I don’t think I can reasonably try answer this question.

No. If using a plain text word suffices, then that's all you get.

My wife is an IP attorney at a large UK based law firm. We have discussed this exact thing before (in this thread).

She worked on a client matter for a banking app that wanted to show the logo of each company next to the transaction. This was not cleared by legal given that the law only allows for the bare minimum reference.

I think it's dumb because a logo is faster to see in a list vs. text, but it doesn't matter. I think IP laws are so backwards in the modern era, but thems the rules.

Someone should tell Wise. My list of payments has the logos of TfL, ASDA, Tesco, Sainsbury and others next to the payments.

Apple Maps also uses the logos when you bring up location details.

Those businesses may have enrolled in Apple Business Connect or otherwise made an agreement to show their trademarks inside the Maps app. Or the Maps app is showing the store’s app, and their app icon includes their trademark. (One of the requirements of submitting your app to the App Store is granting Apple a license to use your app’s icon.)

It should be easy for a human at TfL to make an assessment on something like this, see the autistic and technical value, and offer a free but heavily restricted license to the developer.

But is suppose many organisations just don't give people the autonomy and authority to do such tings.

For that specific map, based on what the email he got sent from TfL said, I don't think they directly have permission to issue that license - their site says people have to go through the partner who produced the schematic art to get a license

Except the schematic art is covered by copyright, not trademark.

On their website, TfL says both things:

1. The map is covered by copyright.

2. The only way to get a license is to buy one from their map partner.

> We protect the map under copyright and officially license it for brands and businesses to reproduce it.

> To use the map in your design, you must have the permission of our map licensing partner, Pindar Creative. This is the only way to officially license the map, no matter how you'd like to use it.

Yet, they don't even mention the case you might be a third-party developer providing a non-profit service.

https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/business-and-advertisers/map-lic...

> For registered charities and schools, the licence is royalty free, but we still charge an artwork fee of £352 + VAT

https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/business-and-advertisers/using-t...

> For registered charities and schools, the licence is royalty free, but we still charge an artwork fee of £352 + VAT

Institution funded by taxpayers charging institutions funded by donors and taxpayers. Be nice if there were any value being added, rather than just exchanged.

If TfL hasn't bought the full rights to their map layouts, the shame is on them.

autistic value? Trains? I see what you did there?

s/autistic/artistic

I violated my own rule of always re-reading a post 5 min after posting it...

there is such a gap between hobbyist developers that do things for fun if and only if it stays fun, and consumers who will qualify as petty the reasonable decisions to pursue some other one of the very many other things-to-do-for-free that could be more fun.

don't you think?

To own the trademark and defend it means having to proactively find and fight violations. So, nope.

How is the trademark holder supposed to know who they are dealing with? Because they said so? Well, in that case I know a Nigerian prince who would like to send you some money…

This is the thing. Most people don't know that in order to keep your brand, you have to continually use it and defend it.

In a similar vein, the lawyers of the popular "hook and loop fasteners" Velcro constantly try and defend their IP so it doesn't become generic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRi8LptvFZY

This is like claiming you need to license the Mercator projection.

The TFL tube map is almost 100 years old[0] and while we can argue if industrial design is "art" the main point of the tube map is utilitarian - to help people navigate the underground.

[0] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00087041.2021.1...

So copyright should only apply to stuff that’s not useful?

Whatever the term of copyright should be, there’s no doubt that it was a significant endeavour to create it, and it creatively expresses the topography of London.

Your analogy doesn’t work very well I’m afraid. The Mercator projection is 500 years old, and generally speaking, you can only copyright specific works, not processes. If you want to protect a process from being used by others commercially, you need a patent, and generally patents are not as long lived as copyright.

No, but it's far more likely that fair use applies to something that is more _useful_ than _creative_, ie: maps and dictionaries.

Regardless of how much effort a copyrighted work to produce, most Western countries have a fair-use equivalent to transformative use of a work: https://lawdit.co.uk/readingroom/intellectual-property-law-g....

The copyright exceptions in the UK are very limited. There would not be a copyright exception in this situation.

Odd that this site is a “.co.uk” but talks about the US fair use doctrine. The UK does indeed have “fair use” (actually called fair dealing) but this wouldn’t come under it as far as I can tell (IANAL, etc.)

In the case of "utility" works like maps, charts, diagrams, there is already ample motivation to create them – people want to be able to navigate, scientists want others to understand their data, etc.

The first email asking to remove a single map from a sub-feature of the website is very reasonable.

The second email sent an hour later requesting the hosting provider immediately suspend the entire domain was not.

Eh, if your complaint comes 15 years after the site is launched, and then you wait an hour before following up with a legal notice, I’d be feeling petty too.

> To remove the whole site because of that seems petty.

Maybe, but TFA explains that it's not being petty, just lack of time and resources.

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