MTA to iPod users: Get lost!

You'd think the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority and San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit would have a vested interest in helping commuters navigate their systems. But, apparently both agencies have a higher goal: protecting revenue streams. After web designer William Bright put an iPod-formatted New York subway map up on his site, he received a cease-and-desist letter from the MTA's legal department, warning him that the material was copyrighted. He received a similar letter from the San Francisco agency, which noted, "there is a widespread belief that materials published by public agencies such as BART are in the public domain. This belief is incorrect." While BART claims the noble goal of trying to avoid the dissemination of inaccurate info (odd, since Bright's info came straight from the BART site), the MTA makes no secret of its efforts to make money by trademarking its symbols and cracking down on violators. (Good thing the policy wasn't in effect when Duke Ellington was around.) In the meantime, Bright has designed new versions of the maps, and has already posted the San Francisco version.