Rather than going round in circles speculating over the position of the Underground roundel, I've now sent off a message asking:
--------------- To: [email protected] Subj: Roundel logo on map Dear Saskia, I'm writing to ask you about the use of the London Underground roundel logo to indicate tube station positions on a map produced for OpenStreetMap. We know that this is copyrighted and trademarked and it is important for the aims of our project that we don't infringe other people's intellectual property. OpenStreetMap (www.openstreetmap.org) is an initiative to create maps from scratch free of the restrictions normally associated with maps. It is in effect a "wikipedia for maps". There are two aspects to this: firstly the map data is stored in a database in an encoded form, and that is OpenStreetMaps primary asset, and is not an issue here; secondly, any number of different renderings of style and content can be produced from that data, a key example being the map that you see by default on the OpenStreetMap web site (we know this internally as the "Mapnik rendering"). We have been discussing on our mailing lists recently about how to represent metro stations. At present Mapnik uses a generic off-blue square (for example, Chancery lane, here: http://osm.org/go/euu4m6X7y- ). This applies throughout the world. However, we'd like to customize this for particular metro systems, and in London that should obviously be the London Underground red and blue roundel instead of the blue square. So my questions are: 1. Is this something we can just do, or do we need permission to use the symbol? 2. Are you able to give permission for this use? 3. Would using it require an acknowledgement? (This might be impractical on the map itself, given the number of metro systems in the world, let alone the number of other potentially customizable logos for shops, hotels etc, but might be possible on a separately linked page). Things to bear in mind: (a) our maps are licensed CCbySA (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/), that is, in essence, anyone can reproduce them free of charge providing the same restrictions are applied to their copy ("share alike"), and freely available for commercial and non-commercial uses. (b) there is no question of storing the logo in the data itself, merely drawing it on a pictorial representation of the data; that would involve storing a copy in or with the software that generates the rendering (which I think could be accompanied by acknowledgement/restriction/ copyright/trademark information as appropriate) (c) this is a service to map consumers: it must surely be of benefit to TfL that map users can identify Underground stations on maps. (d) maps may be reproduced on paper and on other websites, either by copying, or deep linking to the original (e) other renderings styles and software may want to do the same thing. (f) we cannot enter into a license agreement that would compromise the ability of people to use and reproduce the maps freely, though in a license agreement that permits the use we need may be possible. We'd much prefer a simple permission if possible though. (g) I'm just enquiring on behalf of our mailing list users at present. If something more formal is needed, we'd have to decide how to manage that. (h) it is unlikely we could justify paying for this, especially in view of the precedent it might set for the huge range of other possible features on the map. I imagine that e.g. Starbucks would be more than happy for us to use their logo to show their store locations on the map were we to ask them, as essentially free advertising, and I do hope TfL might be able to take that position also. Many thanks, David Earl _______________________________________________ Talk-GB mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
