[OSM-talk] London Underground stations?

[Richard Fairhurst]

On 5 Jul 2006, at 20:27, Jo Walsh wrote:

> Huh. I thought LUL - or what was left of it after the selloff to Tube
> Lines / Metronet - was subsumed by Transport For London [0].
> Have TfL have really been issuing takedowns? On what grounds? Can you
> dig out references for this?

As Tom posted the other day, "the things that have been subject to 
take-downs are things that were using modified official tube maps or 
using the tube roundel trademark in some way". So it's the artistic 
design that they're guarding jealously.

This accords with my experience - while at Waterscape, I drew this, 
which we were going to put out as a nice little bit of PR:
http://www.systemeD.net/carto/londonwaterways.gif

but British Waterways' lawyers insisted on checking with TfL, and TfL 
said "no ----ing way", claiming the design was too similar. Even the 
hardened BW guys were astonished how aggressive TfL was. (They claimed 
that people might get confused with the real map. Right.) TfL's map 
copyright stuff is actually administered by the London Transport Museum 
- go figure.

OTOH, way back in 1999 or so, I drew this:
http://www.systemeD.net/carto/underground_map1024.jpg

which was actually picked up and used on the TfL page in Metro. But I 
suspect that was the work of an over-enthusiastic publishing agency and 
that TfL themselves weren't consulted.

As a wise man once sang: "London Underground - they're all greedy 
---ts, I want to shoot them all with a rifle, la la la la..."

cheers
Richard

(apologies for digression)